The Solarian

By Jacob M. Drake

On Earth super-powered beings exist, but the being known as The Solarian is the most powerful of them all, that is until another hero falls from the sky and crashes bodily onto the streets of New York City out of nowhere and then it's up to The Solarian to not only figure out who he is and where he came from, but answer the question as to why this being is nearly a replica of himself.
As the mystery begins to unravel more oddities occur between these two heroes to make them less like one another, but neither is able to predict the greatest change that may just destroy them both - and Earth along with them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crescent Suns Publishing
• Release date: Aug 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301359004

Jacob M. Drake

Jacob Drake is the author of various Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction and Erotica books, all available on Smashwords. His only problem in writing is not having enough time to write to completion all the stories he gets in his head. "If I wrote constantly until the day I died I still would never be able to exhaust the imagination that is the source of these stories."I've always loved reading, so somewhere along the line it only seemed natural that I would sit down and start writing the type of stories I like to read. And that's only because I can't always find a book I want to read that encompasses the type of story I want. Sure, there are lots of great authors out there, but they don't always have their next new novel in my hands at the time I want to read it. Certainly there won't ever be another new book by Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov, though I wish with all that's in me there were."I wrote my first story in high school for an English class. Had no idea what I was going to write until Sunday night (This was due the next day) when I sat down at my typewriter (Yes, this was back in the Stone Age before PCs came available) and started pounding on the keys. I turned in the finished story the next day and received an "A"."But I didn't write anything else (except songs, of which I have more than 100 finished) for many years, mostly due to the fact of raising a family and trying to be responsible (I hate that word). That came about because I had a story in me banging at the inside of my head, demanding to be let out. This time I sat down at the keyboard at my PC and began writing. I don't recall how long it took to complete that story, but it's now published as "Parallels: Book One - Heroes Enjoined Series"."I was quite satisfied with how that turned out, so a bit later I wrote the sequel to that book and called it "XKALIBUR". I then wrote a smattering of horror stories as well as a few more books and then a bunch of stories based on female superheroes who get into - ahem - trouble each and every time they go out on patrol."But none of these stories ever saw publication and that was okay with me (to a point), because I realized that deep down inside of me I was a writer and I had stories that kept screaming at me to write them. So I did, even though I had nowhere to publish them. My wife well knows how many times I said, "I just want my stories out somewhere so other people can read them! What good does it do if they sit on my computer and no one else can enjoy them?""I tried getting book publishers interested in my works, but they wouldn't even deign to read my intro letter. Many other authors know that feeling, too. I attempted to get an agent, with pretty much the same results. Most agents are too busy trying to place the stories for the author's they already represent."I then read something on the internet one day while searching for online publishers. Someone had published his story at a place called Smashwords.com and it hadn't cost him a cent. I don't recall who that was, but I wish I could thank him for having the sense to write that blurb where I could read it."I entered the name into my browser bar and hit "enter". Sure, I had to register, but that was free, so I did. Figuring out how to get my stories formatted properly in order to get them uploaded onto Smashwords was a bit of a chore, but Mark Coker's Style Guide was pretty much clear on the subject and eventually I had it all done for my first book."Once "Parallels" was published online I was like a little kid on Christmas morning with a tree filled with presents underneath."Within the next month I had all of my completed stories formatted and uploaded, which meant I had to take all my horror stories and put them together with a book title. Then I had to do the same for my B.A.B.E.S. stories, but that worked easy enough, once I figured out what program to use (Picasa3) to make covers with."Now I work on getting my latest novels written so they can join the rest of my 'family' of eBooks that are now available on all the eBook retailers' sites."Not all of my books are for everyone, especially my erotica classifications, like the "Complete Book of B.A.B.E.S." and my "Rebirth of the Gods" book. Some day I'll get around to writing the promised second book to that series, honest. For the time being, I've been channeling my energy into writing the books for my vampire series, the first of which is "Forever Undead" and the second one is "Darkness in the Light". Now I have the third in this series, "Forever the Dark Grave", and then I'll write "Darkness in the Draca Legacy". After that I'll link these all together with "Forever Darkness". Recently I got the idea of writing a bunch of short stories based on the vampire bar (Vampir Sange) that appears in "Darkness in the Light" and publishing it under the title "Vampir Sange - Dark Tales From the Blood Bar". That one will be written."I'm enjoying my vampire realms too much to do anything else right now, but I am open to hearing from those who read my books."Care to write and make suggestions? You can reach me at: [e-mail]

Book preview

The

SOLARIAN

by

Jacob M. Drake

PUBLISHED BY:

Jacob M. Drake on Smashwords

Copyright 2012 by Jacob M. Drake

Formatted by eBooksMade4You

Cover designed by eBooksMade4You

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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FOREWORD

As many of you will notice, having read my first two books within the Many Worlds of the Solarian multiverse, this is indeed another novel primarily featuring that being from another planet who obtains his power and powers from bathing in the yellow sun which his world orbits about.

Unlike those other two books, however, this one does not follow along the same lines. This means that the characters within this book are different in many ways than the ones in those first two books. These are from a different dimension altogether wherein the characters are older, more experienced, even though some of them have the same names as in those books, i.e., Solarian, XKalibur, Marshall Montgomery, etc., along with the same or similar powers.

Still, this is a book which features beings of great power who become either super-heroes or super-villains. The contrast between the two forces is a sharp one and never the twain shall meet, or shall they? I guess we'll just have to read each story in the different series and find out.

And for those who read this book and think, Hey, this guy's just ripping off the Superman mythos, it's not that way at all. Having grown up as an adoring fan of the Man of Steel and all the other heroes in every comic book or movie, no matter who they belonged to, I always admired everyone's favorite Kryptonian. Writing stories about heroes similar to him is just my way of paying homage to him, as well as those who created him and fleshed him out over the years. My stories take his origin and powers a few steps in a different direction the way I prefer to see people of powers.

Side note: Most of the time when I write my stories I try to envision a particular person as the main character, most commonly a movie star I feel would be best if cast in the role if made into a movie; it aids me in writing my dialogue much better and makes it more real to me. In this story I envisioned the Solarian character in the person of one Bruce Willis (with a full head of hair). Ahem - not trying to profit off your name or image, Bruce, just how I do things. Take this as respect on my part, que? So if you would like, while reading this book picture Mr. Willis as the star of the movie and it might help you as well.

Above all please remember that this is a work of fiction designed to be read for enjoyment purposes, not something that is intended to be taken as a serious portrayal of life in all its fullness. So please, read and enjoy.

Second side note: I primarily use the first person in telling this tale from the POV of the Solarian, but I reserve the right (as other, more distinguished authors than I have) to switch over to the third person in relating those incidents which happen in the lives of others outside of the personal purview of the Solarian character. If this switching from first-to-third-person and back again bothers you, I'm sure there are plenty of qualified therapists who are eager to assist you in getting over it.

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The SOLARIAN

Chapter One

It was a quietly average day until the displaced super-hero fell from the sky.

The information and research company I owned and operated out of my thirty-two story high-rise situated on the edge of Central Park West was experiencing a lull in operations. The new facial recognition scanner we’d been working on developing for the Department of Homeland Security was behind schedule. It was supposed to be able to pick up on even huge alterations someone might make to their face, as well as recognize features regardless of the position they had their face angled at, as long as they were already in the system, but so far several test pictures we’d run through our revolutionized FRS (facial recognition software) had produced a stench worse than two-week old cadavers.

As president and CEO of Information Securities Extreme (ISX on the New York Stock Exchange), it was my job to troubleshoot and dig out the major glitches whenever everyone else had failed to accomplish their jobs. With the crack team I’d assembled over the years since ISX had been in existence my job wasn’t required all that often. It was today.

You’ve obviously run all the required systems checks and re-entered the program from scratch, I was dialoguing with Francine Hemlerman, the top analyst on my team. She came straight out of MIT with the highest grade average possible, had accomplished more internships during her last two years before graduation and had received more job offers than anyone this side of me. Having snagged Frankie (She hated being called Francine because of an incident her sophomore year wherein she’d woken up the next morning after having attended a wild party off campus and found herself naked in the garden out front of the administration office. Ever since then all the students had tagged her as Obscene Francine, so she’d opted for being called just plain old Frankie) before graduation day and sealed her with a ten year iron-clad contract with renewal options was the reason why I was so seldom required to put in lab hours at my own company.

Auch, naturlich, she often resorted to her parents’ native language of German when stating the obvious, even though she herself was born in America, but mostly only when she was also very nervous. Why she was nervous at this particular moment I had no idea, though I had noticed Frankie seemed to get more nervous whenever she was in my presence and especially when she wanted to impress me with her intelligence. I’ve re-typed the codes so many times my fingertips are bleeding. She held her fingers up in front of my face so I could see this wasn’t a figure of speech, but actual fact. I nodded respectfully at the blood beneath her fingernails, and then turned my attention back to the programming code.

The screen ran smoothly along on the monitor as I scanned the inputted strings of code faster than the average person. I could’ve scanned a whole lot faster still, but Frankie was leaning over my shoulder, scanning the codes herself. No one in my company new about my unique abilities or that I had a separate persona from that of Marshall Mitchell Montgomery, former child prodigy and CEO of the fastest growing research and information development company on Earth. I preferred to keep it that way.

Nothing seems amiss in there, I murmured just loud enough for Frankie to hear, alleviating her fears that she’d screwed up somewhere and causing her to ease up off my shoulder a bit. I sat in front of the monitor in silence, giving the impression I was in deep thought. In reality I was utilizing one of my other unique abilities by way of narrowing my eyes and peering through the table top to scrutinize the insides of the computer itself with microscopic capabilities.

After nearly two minutes I pushed the chair back, reached under the table, pulled the tower out and set it up where I could more easily take off the cover and reach inside.

You think something’s wrong in the hardware? Frankie looked perplexed, as she usually did whenever I made one of my quantum leaps she had no way of knowing came from using abilities not of this world.

I reached inside and made a couple of minor adjustments, then replaced the cover and put the tower back under the table.

That should resolve the problem, Frankie, I smiled as I pushed the chair back and stood up. Frankie blinked her eyes rapidly several times, the color on her cheeks changed to a darker shade of red than normal for her.

Don’t feel bad, I squeezed her shoulder and smiled reassuringly. You’re the best at programming, but once in a while you need to enlist the services of one of our hardware techs. That’s what I pay them for.

Still, Marshall, I - I… she stammered and paused, a sure sign she was feeling insecure about her abilities. All these intellectual types are the same – too much need for reassurance over their coveted abilities and prowess. Anything that makes them look and feel less than perfect drives them over the edge.

You don’t work with hardware, Frankie, I stared straight into her eyes with what I hoped was loving reassurance. My smile was as warm as I could make it without catching myself on fire, though I enjoyed staring at Frankie‘s face, since she was not only top-of-the-IQ-charts-smart, but gorgeous enough in every way to be a super-model and didn‘t know it. If I thought for one nano-second you weren’t competent for this job your ass would be out sliding down the gutter on skid-row.

She finally smiled and sat back in front of the monitor to run her check on the FRS. I turned and walked away, knowing full well she no longer knew I was even in the room.

I stood and watched her for a couple of minutes, seeing how intensely she pursued the tasks of her job. There’d always been something strange about Frankie. What I didn’t know. With all my unique abilities I could never quite put the proverbial finger on what it was about this intelligent, gorgeous woman that made her stand out from everyone else.

It was almost as though there was a type of radiance that emitted from her, but nothing actually did. My vision powers would have picked up on it had it been there. It wasn’t anything I could physically detect. But there was something about her. Maybe one day I’d figure it out.

Nothing else in the labs required my attention, so I eased myself back down the hallway to my own office, stopping at the break room to snag a cup of cinnamon-vanilla-hazelnut coffee, my own special blend, which everyone else seemed to enjoy as much, except most of my employees didn’t like it as strong as I did. They’d taken to calling my brew Mars Sludge, but the basic rule was that the coffee was made strong enough for me – after all, I’m the top dog, right? I paid the bills for everything, including the coffee. If anyone wanted it weaker, they added hot water to their own desired consistency. It worked for me.

Hey, Sam, I greeted my personal assistant, who was busy at his desk. He looked up, surprised to see me so early.

Morning, Mars, he seemed slightly flustered as I walked toward him sipping my steaming coffee. The embarrassed expression he was trying to hide made me make a mental note to run a check on the web sites he visited. Not that I cared if Sam or anyone else in my employ was visiting naughty sites on the web, as long as they weren’t hard core porn sites, especially kiddie-porn. I had run thorough enough background checks on everyone before hiring them to ensure that wouldn’t be a problem – I just thought maybe Sam might have found some sites I hadn’t visited yet that might prove for some interesting viewing.

You’re in awful early, he stood and walked around his desk to retrieve his own coffee mug, as though he was just going for a refill himself. This was the biggest tip-off, since Sam was a Pepsi man and drank coffee only irregularly. Yup. He’d been viewing porn sites, all right. I walked with him to the break room in order to allow him the cover-up for his indiscretion.

Frankie needed my help on the FRS, I topped-off my own mug after Sam refilled his and leaned against the counter to stall before heading back to his desk.

Frankie? he was as surprised as I’d been when I’d gotten her call this morning. That must’ve been one hell of a problem for her to call you in.

Ya, I mumbled as I took a slug of sludge. No sense in belittling my top programmer by making it known it was a simple hardware malfunction. It’s fine now. Anything going on I need to take a look at? I started back toward his office, and by extension, my own office, since everyone had to pass by Sam’s area to enter my private domain. Sam made a leaping step my way to head me off. Evidently he hadn’t logged off his porno site when I’d first walked up and was stalling for time so his screensaver would be active when we got back there. Not that his screen saver was much better. It sported a variety of nude pics of Pamela Anderson as she’d developed over the years from relative unknown at the Playboy mansion, to starring on her own TV series that fortunately hadn’t lasted long, since it really wasn't all that good. I wondered when the developers of that screensaver would add her stint on Dancing With the Stars as well. There were some seriously hot and revealing shots of this gorgeous, if slightly older, babe from Baywatch as she danced about on that show. Seriously, I know there are younger, more beautiful girls who have appeared in Playboy, but I started as a fan of Pammy's when she got her first set of implants.

I’d pirated a copy of his screensaver for myself. If I could clone any woman in the world and make her my own, it would be the younger Pam Anderson after her first breast implants had been installed. Va-voom! The younger version of Demi Moore would be my second choice for cloning. Believe me - I had been working on it. If anyone in the world was going to come up with a program or process for cloning human DNA it would be me. Heh.

I smiled around another slug of sludge. Sam and some of the others I employed had found some pretty interesting sites during work hours. Those who ignored the memos about not using company computers for personal internet usage styled themselves as savvy enough to hide their tracks even from me. They had no idea I had designed software that was able to locate files and sites no matter how thoroughly they deleted them from their workspaces. If I wasn’t able to outsmart my own employees, what good would I be as the top I&R guy for the United States government? After all, the contracts I had with Uncle Sam helped to keep the employees of this company supplied with payroll checks.

No. Nothing at all. ISX is running smoother-than-smooth today. I’m surprised you aren’t out on the golf course. Sam sat on the front edge of his desk so I had to remain in front of him and away from his monitor. Inwardly I grinned wider than normal. I definitely had to take a look at the site he’d been viewing.

Ok, I slapped him on the shoulder, making sure I didn't slap him too hard; with my super-strength losing control at a time like that would be disastrous at best, and turned back toward the hallway. I’ll be in the TV room for a bit, seeing what’s going on in the world, and then maybe I’ll take your advice and hit the links. I played golf only seldom. Most of the time my employees thought I was out golfing, I was really in my other persona, saving the world, or at least a small corner of it. The relief on Sam’s face as I walked away was too priceless to be ignored. I let him have his privacy.

The next floor down – my office and Research and Development were located on the top floor of the building – was almost halfway taken up with a room filled with big-screen TVs. Each one was tuned to a different channel and picked up all the news from every possible location surrounding the globe. Everyone knew about this room and called it simply the TV room, thinking I just liked watching world news. Truth was I liked knowing as first-hand as possible whenever something of serious importance occurred around the world. After all, how was the world’s leading super-hero supposed to be the best first-responder at emergency scenes if he didn’t know what emergencies were occurring?

Oh, did I mention that with the unique abilities I had inherent within me I had decided long ago to make the best possible use of them by assisting in every seriously tragic situation necessary that the local firemen and police couldn't handle easily? That made me what the media termed a super-hero. I just called it living up to my fullest potential. After all, what was the sense in having all these fantastically wonderful, out-of-the-ordinary powers if I didn’t utilize them in helping out those of lesser talents, i.e., the entire population of this planet known as Earth?

No one else was in the TV room when I entered. Just the way I preferred it. Not only did it mean everyone was (hopefully) at work the way they were supposed to be (with the exception of Sam, who I would check up on later), but it also allowed me a greater ease to switch to my other persona if an emergency did happen that required my presence.

Sitting down in my personal swivel-loafer (so-called because it not only was a sleek, state-of-the-art recliner, but swiveled in a complete 360 degree motion so I was able to view every screen on every wall without getting up) I sipped sludge while taking in the morning’s news. So far, although there were problems around the globe, nothing was so extreme that it required my special attention.

Some people might think I would handle anything and everything that came along, seeing as how I could take care of emergencies