Space Sentinels I: The Benefax Alliance

By Mark J. Handwerker

SPACE SENTINELS I: THE BENEFAX ALLIANCE is the first in a series of space adventures featuring young Sentinel Albie Storm. Albie and his friends are kidnapped by gruesome aliens, entrenched on the moon and readying to attack Earth. With the help of an android of the Benefax Alliance, the teens face torture and death as they battle to stop the hideous invaders planning to enslave the galaxy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark J. Handwerker
• Release date: Jun 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452417783

Mark J. Handwerker

Dr. Mark J. Handwerker loves to blow up stuff! As a science teacher for more than 25 years, he has enjoyed revealing the secrets of nature to his students by repeating experiments done by the greatest scientists of the past in his classroom. He is the author of eight science texts, and has mentored dozens of educators in "the art of teaching science." He is also an author of science fiction and hopes to share those works with young readers everywhere. Since the days of the first great science fiction author, Jules Verne, science fiction writers have not only given the general reading audience decades of entertainment, they have succeeded in inspiring professional scientists to make the impossible possible. Dr. Handwerker believes that nothing is impossible.

Book preview

Space Sentinels

by

Mark J. Handwerker

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 1992 Mark J. Handwerker

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be given away or resold to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for them. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you for your private use, then please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. The author sincerely appreciates your honest regard for the hard work that went into writing this novel.

Table Of Contents

1 - Uninvited Guests

2 - Desert Adventure

3 - Bad News

4 - Dark Menace

5 - Bad Vibes

6 - Bug-Eyed Baddies

7 - Man’s Best Friend

8 - Escape

9 - To Be Or Not To Be Human

10 - Deep Freeze

11 - Damsels In Distress

12 - Learning To Drive

13 - Buddha, Lady Luck, And The Russians

14 - Earth Alert

15 - In Defense Of Home

16 - Canyon Drop

17 - Charge!

18 - The Last Cosmonaut

19 - Warp To The Moon

20 - A Future Worth Working Toward

1

Uninvited Guests

The astronaut floated free three hundred miles above the blue Pacific. His feet dangled beneath him like puppet legs as he listened to the steady rhythm of his own deep breathing. Perspiring heavily, he held tight to the handles of the solar panel powering the satellite in front of him and worked cautiously, wrench in hand, securing a bolt on the giant energy collector.

The young star voyager squinted through a mist of salty droplets suspended before his eyes. He wished he could wipe the moisture rising from his face but that was impossible. He was trained to ignore such annoying distractions and focused on his work.

With his every thought consumed by the mission, he failed to see the strange spacecraft behind him coming closer and closer. Hidden against the silver circle of the moon, it cruised in like a stealthy panther ready to spring. Only his crewmate aboard the shuttle-craft was aware of its unwelcome approach.

Jack! Jack! The urgent call filled the astronaut's helmet with static sending a cold shiver running down his spine. Turning toward the shuttle's cargo bay he reached for the communications dial on his wrist and boosted the hissing radio signal coming from Galaxy.

Repeat, E-V Com. Aboard the shuttle he could see the Mission Commander staring at him from the sealed hatch of the open cargo bay. Her eyes were wide with fright, her mouth open in terror. Another crewmember stood behind her, pointing out the window toward the stars.

The astronaut turned.

The ship came toward him glowing like a diamond, armored in long thorns like the spines on a porcupine.

Suddenly, the bow of the alien craft erupted with a scalding surge of energy. The blast blew the shielding of the shuttle's cockpit into space. Creeping tentacles of static electricity engulfed the doomed vehicle as air exploded from the structure, tearing its walls to shreds. The doomed crew of six brave men and women were thrown into space like rag dolls, lifeless, spinning and twirling along with the hailstorm of wreckage into the void.

The last astronaut gasped in horror and lost his grip on the panel. The disintegrated shuttle and satellite spun away in pieces, tumbling like an avalanche of rock toward defenseless earth. The alien spacecraft vibrated with another blast of light incinerating the astronaut in a flash.

Then, the craft dipped at an angle with an arrogant shrug and raced toward the unwary planet. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared into the snowy white clouds below.

2

Desert Adventure

Albie Storm squinted through the filthy windshield. It was a smeared gritty layer of light brown dust and grime. The wipers were useless. He had told his brother a hundred miles back at the last gas station that they needed to buy a new pair of wipers. But, Beek sourly reminded him that the four of them had just enough money to share a hamburger for supper. The rocky road ahead was a dry windswept mess of cactus and snake burrows.

The bright glare of the setting sun ahead of them burned through the windshield haze making it all the more impossible to see. Albie reached for the sunglasses on the peeling dashboard and coughed to clear his throat of gritty air.

Give me those! His brother screamed, grabbing the sunglasses away from him. I can't see a thing on this stupid road! The van jerked to the right as Beek lost his grip on the steering wheel.

Oof! Albie lost a lung full of air as they hit another ditch with a bang. Fine! He decided not to put up a fight. You need them more than I do. The way you're driving.

Albie tossed his Popular Science onto the dashboard. He'd been trying to read an article about the new particle accelerator at Los Alamos Laboratories. But, the way the van was bumping and banging around it was impossible to read a word of it. He bet the new accelerator would someday help scientists to unravel a few more of nature's secrets. Like how it might one day be possible to warp through hyperspace and explore other star systems. Albie wiped his sweaty palms on his cutoff shorts as Beek plopped the glasses onto the bridge of his long bony nose.

It was stifling and impossible to concentrate. Albie decided that they were probably going to die out here in the middle of nowhere, and that would be that. One of these centuries a couple of archeologists would find all of their petrified bones buried in parched clay. He felt like he was living an episode of the Twilight Zone. Albie tightened his frayed seat belt, inhaled a mouthful of dry dust, and coughed.

It had been a week since they'd all hightailed it from the orphanage. Beek had just turned eighteen, and the grizzled old social worker that ran the place; Old Man Hodgkin wanted him gone before the end of the month. Albie couldn't bear the thought of being left in that place without his brother. They had been orphans ever since their parents were killed in an auto wreck four years ago. Beek had watched over him ever since. Their father's brother was the only relative to show up for the funeral, but they hadn't seen him since. He was some kind of scientist like their dad and lived in Los Angeles. That's where they were headed! If they could find him he might be able to help them out of this mess.

I couldn't take it if we got separated, Albie had told his big brother. We've got to do something. We've just got to!

Between them, the four guys scraped together about two hundred bucks: money they had earned doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. Money they had hidden from Old Man Hodgkin for years. The pruned old geezer was a thief and had stolen practically everything that belonged to them. They pooled their cash and bought an ancient VW van from a friend of Math. It was a 1985 with over two hundred thousand miles on it. The twenty-year-old clunker cost them over a hundred. Albie and Math worked on the engine for a week to get in running. Every time Beek turned on the ignition, Albie prayed it wouldn't blow up in their faces.

In the back of the rusted old clunker their two friends, Math and Chan, were oblivious to the heat and their troubles.

Typical. Albie shook his head at the derelict duo.

Math was snoring away, his torn blue jeans riddles with holes. He was long and lanky, having stretched through puberty like a rubber band. He slept soundly with his head propped on a pile of dirty laundry. His Air Force Academy sweatshirt was sweaty and covered with dust. Albie figured his friend was dreaming of being a navy pilot like his father. Math knew more than anyone about air weaponry from F-14 Tomcats to Stealth high-tech fighters and bombers. His mother had died of leukemia when he was just a baby, and he was orphaned three years ago when his dad was killed outside of Baghdad. An Iraqi insurgent had downed his transport helicopter with a stinger missile. Math was put up for adoption but, like he and Beek, nobody wanted a full grown kid. So, the teenaged arithmetic wiz wound up in Old man Hodgkin's little lunatic asylum.

How can he sleep with all this racket? Albie muttered. He wiped a layer of dust and sweat from his brow then cleared his throat with another cough. He turned to study their friend Chan.

Their muscular Asian friend had a CD player blasting rock-and-roll at his ear. He didn't have any headphones so the sound was pounding off the walls of the van, adding to the incessant grinding of the VW's sputtering engine. Chan was thumbing through one of his martial arts magazines and chewing like a cow on his last piece of gum. He was short and stocky, wearing an extra large, thin flannel shirt and shin-length baggy pants. He was a deceptively strong brute for his sixteen years. His legs were the strongest part of his anatomy, toned up from running away time and again from his grandfather when he was a kid. Chan told Albie that he could never decide who treated him worse: his grand-father or Old Man Hodgkin. Don't trust anyone over twenty-five. He always said. In fact, Chan usually added, don't trust anyone! Unlike the rest of them, who all figured they would one day go to college, Chan was going right into business if he ever graduated from high school. His hero was the great, late martial arts expert, Bruce Lee. And, Chan was dead set on opening a string of martial arts schools. But when his grandfather died, the courts dropped him Hodgkin's doorstep. He had spent eight years, more time that any of them, at the orphanage.

Albie's stomach grumbled as Chan turned up the music.

Turn that down, man! Beek squinted, exhausted, into the sunlight. I'm trying to deal with this road! The steering wheel swung out of his hands again before he quickly regained control.

Dark-haired Chan peeked up from his magazine. What did you say? He rocked back and forth to the pounding music, the skull-splitting sound hammering off the walls like spikes.

WHAM!

The van hit another deep ditch and bounced them into the air like basketballs.

Turn it down! Beek yelled.

Yeah! Albie seconded. My head’s gonna explode!

In a minute. Chan replied. I like this song.

Beek picked up a rotting, half-eaten orange lying on the dashboard. Without aiming he flung it toward the back of the van. It hit Chan smack in the chest.

What's the matter with you? Chan grabbed a soiled undershirt and wiped the mess. You almost took my face off!

Whoa! Albie's stomach dropped a foot as the van sank like a stone hitting another hole in the road.

Everything went flying as Beek suddenly hit the brakes. The van hobbled to a halt, kicking up a wave of brown sand. Steam hissed in a cloud from the back of the van.

Math awoke, looking stunned. What was that?

TURN THAT THING OFF! Beek bellowed at Chan. His furious yell sent a chill down Albie's spine. He watched Beek close his eyes tight, take several deep breaths, and start counting to ten.

Chill, Beek, Albie implored him. Take it easy.

It had been a heck of a week and Beek was maintaining as best he could. But being the oldest and feeling responsible for the rest of them, he was starting to lose it.

Chan sat up at attention and reached over to kill the music. The loud rock-and-roll quickly gave way to the deflating hiss of steam.

Sorry, man. Chan whispered, apologizing.

You okay, Beek? Albie gulped.

… seven … eight … nine … ten. Beek slowly opened his blue eyes and glared angrily at Chan. Exhausted, he slowly inhaled the stuffy desert air then let his head drop to the steering wheel. His once white T-shirt was drenched with sweat. Everybody out, he muttered calmly. I hope we didn't wreck the axle this time.

They piled out of the beat up van as the sun dipped beyond the jagged hills miles away. They walked slowly around the crippled vehicle. Beek stared at the left front tire and put his hands on his hips.

Great. Just great. The whole tire's gone. He let out a dejected sigh.

Albie squinted against the glare of the sun at the tire. It was shredded on its rim like burnt hash browns. Thank goodness they had the first flat patched in Wichita.

Albie stepped to the back of the van and opened the hood over