Espionage & Action
Mostly Updated: The latest update of this story is at
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ISBN 978-618-00-4840-7 print
Prologue Item 1 - Never trust blonde girls around midnight
Never trust blonde girls around midnight
Mid November 2430 - Night time in Citadelrathia on planet Erath
In the clandestine realm of espionage, where secrets danced like shadows and danger lurked in every encrypted message, a deadly game was about to begin. Within the sprawling expanse of the Spaceport beneath the moonless sky of planet Erath on this late October night of 2430, its labyrinthine corridors were lit by cold, harsh industrial light reminiscent of a dystopian nightmare.
It was a fortress of steel and secrecy, guarded by vigilant sentinels who patrolled the shadows like phantoms. The spaceport’s towering gates loomed ahead, an imposing bastion safeguarding not only the spacecraft but also the vital installations against any who harboured nefarious intentions.
In the distance, the low rumble of an approaching jeep echoed through the night. The main gate guard, concealed within the shadows of his checkpoint’s box, signalled for the vehicle to halt. The driver complied, bringing the jeep to a prompt stop at the checkpoint. With a flick of his flashlight, he revealed a male General in his late thirties or perhaps middle forties, accompanied by a strikingly young and gorgeous blonde female Second Lieutenant of the Aerospace Forces of the Erath Alliance at the wheel.
The guard leaned forward, extending a gloved hand. ‘Papers, please.’”
The blonde lieutenant offered a warm smile as she handed two data sticks to the guard. Returning the gesture, he accepted the data sticks and inserted them one after the other into his terminal. After a few tense seconds, his screen displayed a reassuring message; no problems detected. Both individuals appeared to be legitimate officers of the Erathian Spaceforce.
However, the guard’s demeanour shifted as he addressed the newly commissioned female officer. “What brings you and General Tardnis Borvaris here at this late hour?” he inquired, his flashlight aimed squarely at their eyes.
The General responded, his tone laced with authority, “We’re here to conduct a final check on the special spacecraft we’ll be piloting tomorrow for the demonstration. We want to ensure everything is in perfect order, no room for embarrassment in front of our illustrious Lord, you understand?”
The guard paused, momentarily captivated by the stunning blonde lieutenant’s enchanting smile; a smile that seemed plucked from the stuff of dreams. After a brief pause, he declared, “Alright, let them through!” He transmitted the clearance to his fellow soldiers stationed at the gate before turning back to General Borvaris. “You can follow that jeep up ahead,” he pointed, “it has a conspicuous ‘FOLLOW ME’ sign. Hard to miss, General.”
“Thank you, officer,” General Borvaris acknowledged with a nod, while the irresistible female officer at his side flashed the guard an unforgettable, seductive smirk.
With that, the jeep passed through the gate, tailing the guide vehicle from the spaceport.
After about ten minutes, the guard couldn’t help but find his mind fixated on that captivating smile, belonging to the enchanting Mina Rekobela... or was it Rekobelis? He’d jotted down the name for future reference, planning to inquire later about the officer’s mess he hoped she frequented.
Then, a sudden alarm shot through him. “I forgot to report this to the Officer on Watch, zarathustradammit!” He hastily grabbed his telephone, determined to rectify his oversight.
Meanwhile both jeeps arrived inside the expansive hangar where the coveted spacecraft waited for the upcoming event. Without wasting a moment, the two officers from the ‘FOLLOW ME’ jeep were swiftly rendered unconscious by their uninvited guests.
As the two spies infiltrated the cavernous hangar, the gleaming spacecrafts stood before them like untamed stallions, their metallic surfaces reflecting the dim light. Among them, one particular craft caught Ted’s discerning eye, beckoning him with an undeniable allure.
“This one there! Jump on board, Irina. We haven’t got much time!” Ted whispered, for there was no General Tardnis Borvaris but Colonel Ted Rogers of the Cosmic Ghostriders Squadron.
“I’ll jump all over it, Ted, in all circumstances.” Irina replied with a sultry voice, for she was not 2nd Lieutenant Mina Rekobelis but Irina Koroleva, still Second Lieutenant but in the Cosmic Ghostriders Squadron.
“Now be good, Irina, I need you to focus and disable the artificial intelligence autopilot. We’ll be flying out this one manually,” and after a second’s pause, “remember to sit on the right side in the cockpit!”
Ted stayed outside; he had one more task to do before they left.
Irina’s entrance into the spacecraft oozed unnecessary sensuality. She glided effortlessly to the cockpit, her movements exuding a captivating grace. Seated elegantly in the right chair, her attention swiftly turned to the control panel. Her fingers moved with the precision of a virtuoso cyberwarfare specialist, effortlessly navigating the labyrinth of wires and circuits.
Outside, Ted remained vigilant, scanning for any signs of trouble.
With a confident smirk, Irina opened the control bay hatch and skillfully severed a couple of wires. She waited for a tense moment, then quipped, “A piece of Erelbian cake.”
Suddenly, the spacecraft’s security systems erupted in a distorted, fear-inducing voice, blaring, “Alarm! Alarm! System malfunction detected! Autopilot disabled!”
Outside the hangar, sirens blared with deafening intensity, their urgent wails slicing through the air. Irina, despite her youthful twenty-four years, was no novice. Without hesitation, she seized manual control and pressed the ignition button. The spacecraft responded with an otherworldly glow, its engines erupting into brilliant, fiery life.
The cacophony of the spaceport security vehicle sirens now merged with the blaring alarms of the spaceport’s security systems. The spaceship, positioned just beyond the hangar’s threshold, rested on the runway like a coiled predator ready to pounce on its unsuspecting prey.
Approaching them in a menacing formation, four jeeps sped toward the spacecraft. Ted swiftly moved behind a nearby fire truck, his weapon at the ready. With calculated precision, his shots pierced the night, blowing up two jeeps and silencing some of the guards forever while providing vital cover for Irina.
“Ted, jump in! We’re ready to roll!” Irina’s voice urgently pierced through Ted’s earpiece as the spacecraft accelerated, hurtling toward the runway.
Ted squeezed off one final shot, then sprinted toward the departing craft. He reached the open hatch, tossed in his weapon and vaulted into the spaceship.
“Go! Go! Go! Pedal to the metal, my baby!” Ted shouted as he strapped himself into the left pilot’s seat of the newly constructed cockpit. The scent of the brand-new spacecraft filled his senses, its allure irresistible.
Within moments, they were soaring through the night sky, but danger loomed below. The anti-aircraft defense system was primed to launch their missiles.
“Anytime now, Irina, brace!”
A thunderous explosion reverberated through the spacecraft, its shockwaves rocking their world. Ted’s mini nuclear time bomb, left behind in the hangar, had detonated successfully, obliterating the Erathian spaceport into countless fragments and plunging the area into unimaginable chaos.
After a brief pause to catch their breath, Irina handed Colonel Rogers a data stick.
“This contains the ship’s advanced autopilot software,” she said.
Ted smirked as he pocketed the data stick. “No more secrets, my baby.”
As they soared away from the obliterated spaceport, no one in pursuit, Ted leaned toward Irina. He unfastened her seatbelt, gently lifted her onto his lap and kissed her passionately. When they finally came up for air, she whispered, “Take me around the Astralis Sector one more time, my baby. Oooppssiee! You don’t need your gun for this, Colonel Rogers.”
“It’s not my gun.”
Prologue Item 2 - False edges, true victories
False edges, true victories
Mid December 2430 - Midpoint between Erton & Barbaria space
“Surrender, Ted Rogers! You and your spaceship have nowhere to go! ”
Ted Rogers, sitting in his ailing spacecraft CGSSS Stellar Serendipity, leaned back in his seat at the left side of the cockpit, unfazed.
Honey, perched elegantly in the cockpit to the right of Ted, possessed an otherworldly beauty that shimmered like a golden nebula. Her hair, a cascade of lustrous, golden strands, flowed like molten stardust in the microgravity of the spacecraft. Each tress glistened with an ethereal glow, as if she had captured the very essence of a sun’s radiance. That’s why she usually wore them as a pony tail.
Her eyes, a shade of deep sapphire, sparkled with a curiosity that rivaled the brilliance of the most distant galaxies. Her skin, kissed by the gentle warmth of cosmic rays, radiated a soft, celestial luminance that seemed to defy the boundaries of mere mortal beauty.
Honey’s presence was a celestial ballet, every movement she made echoing the grace of a shooting star. She wore a form-fitting orange spacesuit adorned with a constellation of embroidered patches, each one telling a story of her interstellar adventures. Although these patches weren’t many since she was just twenty two years old.
Her smile, enigmatic and beguiling, hinted at the mysteries of the cosmos she carried within her heart. In her golden-haired splendor, Honey was a luminous star in the vast tapestry of the universe, a radiant voyager among the constellations.
Then Ted stopped looking at his gorgeous first officer and with a nonchalant attitude replied to the pirate captain, “Well, you know what they say about engines. They’re just a state of mind, really.”
The pirate captain together with all the rest of the pirate crew blinked in confusion, momentarily thrown completely off guard.
“We have directly hit at your engines! You are dead in the water ..emm I meant you are dead in space, I mean ... you know what I mean!” the pirate captain declared, sounding menacing yet a bit confused by his opponents cool temperament.
Ted continued, “Well in fact, I was planning to upgrade these engines anyway. You’ve just saved me a trip to the ion thruster mechanic. So, thanks for that!”
The pirate captain, now more puzzled than ever, was stammered. Finally he was able to mumble, “Hateful Rogers, we are sending a craft to board you. Unlock your airlock!”
Honey turned to Ted with a mixture of concern and curiosity in her shimmering eyes. “So, Ted,” she began, her voice as melodious as a supernova’s last hurrah, “what’s the scheme now? This ship has clearly endured its fair share of bizarre escapades, but do we have a plan to dodge the impending doom?”
“You will see in a second, my dear. Just let them launch this boarding crew first.”
“I fear if they board us and catch us they will unleash in my poor amazing stunning body horrors beyond the wildest imagination of the Prophet of Rodalios! Or worse yet, execute me first and then release these unimaginable horrors to my helpless stunning body. I don’t know which is worst!”
“My sweet Honey,” Ted mused, his brow furrowed with the weight of peculiar certainty, “our predicament does indeed possess a certain flavour of doom and gloom, wouldn’t you say? But fret not, my dear. The universe is a vast and peculiar place, and we, it seems, are its unwitting jesters.”
“Are you out of your mind, Ted! I’m telling you, they will be boarding us in a second!” Honey exclaimed in despair. The pirate boarding crew was now approaching with a menacing fast pace in their small spacecraft.
“One existential crisis at a time, my dear sweet young tempation, wouldn’t you agree?” Now, about our current dilemma, I propose we employ a dash of interstellar finesse, evade these rather unfriendly chaps and shoot them to a million smithereens all over this sector. What do you say to that?”
“And how exactly are you going to do that, Ted! Our engines are gone, you heard the pirate man!”
“You see, they shot at our decoy section which looks like our engines, my dear. Our real engines are unharmed!” and with a swift move he fired the engines of the supposedly crippled spaceship to full throttle.
“Pedal to the metal, my baby!” he said and CGSSS Stellar Serendipity, which looked like a commercial barge with the mostly harmless designation of ELBSS-181 but was actually a merchant raider spaceship also known as an auxiliary spacecruiser, lurched forward and then made a sudden turn. Then all her guns started firing against the dumpfounded pirate ship while two of her best missiles started their journey to lay destruction upon the helpless hull of the Lazy Scourge.
Meanwhile on the Lazy Scourge the pirate captain, completely befuddled by this catastrophic for him turn of events, asked aloud in vain, “How could this be, most hateful Ted Rogers? How could this be?” And these were his famous last words. Then everything went white for him.
Ted looked at the explosion through the cockpit’s visor and moved on to unfasten the seatbelt of Honey.
“No you don’t! You despicable womanizer! Not with me as you are now! You’d better prove you are in love with me first, me and only me, otherwise no nectar from Honey!”
Ted retreated his hands and sat deeper into his seat. He looked outside at the blue hues of the Orion 12 Nebula while an occasional piece from the exploded pirate ship passed in the distance. It was November 2430 and although he was now thirty seven years old he didn’t know or he didn’t want to know how to fall in love with one girl, with one and only girl.
Prologue Item 3 - A bridge to memories unreal
Early January 2431 - MAGA City 1, right after the Battle of Erton
It was the day after the Battle of Erton, a hard-fought conflict that had liberated the planet from the oppressive grasp of the Krakencults and the Erathians. The war had taken its toll on Colonel Ted Rogers, both physically and mentally. But as the Ertonian sun rose over the newly liberated MAGA City 1, he knew there was still much work to be done.
Ted found himself in the heart of Erton’s capital city, where the scars of war were still visible on the shattered streets and weary faces of the people. He stood beside a military truck filled with bags of groceries, part of a humanitarian aid effort organized by the Cosmic Ghostriders Squadron to help the planet’s residents rebuild their lives.
He jumped on the truck’s platform and started distributing the bags to the grateful citizens below, giving a much needed rest to an exhausted soldier.
Ted’s own exhaustion was evident in his eyes but his determination to make a difference burned brighter than ever. He saw the resilience in the faces of the Ertonians, who had endured so much and yet still held onto hope.
It was then that he noticed her, a small, elderly woman struggling to hold the aid bag she had just been given by the soldier next to him. Her frail hands trembled and her eyes were filled with fatigue and despair. She could barely move due to exhaustion and shock.
Despite his rank, Ted called on in a professional and polite manner for another soldier to take his place, then swiftly dismounted and approached the elderly lady, his heart filled with empathy.
“May I help you with that, ma’am?” he asked, extending his hand.
The woman’s eyes met his and for a moment, she hesitated. Then, with a grateful smile, she nodded. Ted gently took the bag from her hands, feeling the weight of her burdens and the weight of her ordeals.
They walked together for a while, Ted and the elderly woman. Her name was Mrs Mabel Perkins. She shared stories of her life, stories of love, loss and now, simple resilience. Ted listened intently, his compassion evident in every nod and smile.
“This is not the way back to my devastated home,” Mrs Perkins noted while the reflections of her own shattered psyche shimmered in the liquid pools of her tears.
“I know. We will first make a quick stop at the main Hospital of the Cosmic Ghostriders Squadron, if you don’t mind Mrs Perkins.”
As they approached the crowded infirmary of the Cosmic Ghostriders Squadron, Ted knew that Mrs Perkins needed much more than just some help with food. She needed care and support far beyond what she could provide for her lonely self.
Ted guided Mrs Perkins through the infirmary to the main Hospital, away from the bustling crowd. There he talked to some nurses with Mrs Perkins present on the conversation.
At the end Mrs Perkins had more tears in her eyes. But now these were tears of joy, for Colonel Rogers assured that she would receive the best care possible for the rest of her life in a special housing project made for war victims by the Cosmic Ghostriders Squadron, a promise that he intended to keep by an exclusively appointed nurse-robodroid.
At the same time Ted discreetly instructed his watch to transfer a substantial amount of drachma to the elderly lady’s watch. He also arranged for a similar transfer of drachma to the Head Nurse’s watch, ensuring she had a greater incentive to provide the best care possible to Mrs Perkins.
As Ted watched over Mrs Perkins being taken care of by a caring swarm of nurses, a sense of perplexity enveloped him. He had always been one to extend his help to those he knew, comrades and friends in the line of duty. Yet now, something inexplicable had occurred; he had reached out to an elderly lady he didn’t know at all.
Feelings swirled within him like a turbulent storm. The very essence of his being seemed to shift, as if an unseen hand was turning a page in his heart. It wasn’t for recognition or the memory of a good deed that he had done this, but rather, it was a profound transformation deep within his soul.
Ted had always considered himself a pragmatic man, driven by duty and necessity. But now, as he looked at Mrs Perkins, a stranger to him just a short while ago, a peculiar warmth welled up in his chest. It was an inexplicable connection, an unspoken understanding that transcended words.
He couldn’t help but wonder if his emotions were changing, if this newfound sense of empathy was a sign of a deeper transformation within himself. For the first time in a long while, he realized that helping someone wasn’t just an obligation; it was a choice he made to enrich his own life.
As he stood there, watching the elderly lady being cared for, he was moved to tears. Not tears of sadness, but tears of realization, that sometimes, the most profound changes happen within us when we least expect them, when we let the voice of our inner compassion guide us.
In that moment, Ted understood that he had made a difference, not just in Mrs Perkins’ life, but in his own as well. He dismissed the notion that he helped a mother figure for he never had known his mother. And as he wiped away his tears, he couldn’t help but smile, knowing that this simple act of kindness had unlocked a new dimension of his psyche.
