Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Captain Kirk... Houston

By Darryl D. Wright

This 120 page E-Book of 40,000 words is the fifth book in a series about a wealthy family of the future.

The Houstons adventure into space where they take on space pirates and many kinds of aliens. As technology advances, so do their ships until they pilot the most advanced ship in the universe. The risks, thrills and challenges of space exploration are many and diverse - even to the point of occasionally having to struggle against Earth Defense Forces.

Titles in this series:
1. Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Space Pirates, Allies, and Aliens
2. Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Invasions
3. Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Weddings
4. Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Back At It on Two Fronts
5. Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Captain Kirk ... Houston
6. Adventures of Space Cadets 101: ISIS

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781935186533

Book preview

Author

Introduction

Summary of Books 1, 2, 3 and 4

The Adventures of Space Cadets 101 began when astronauts Austen and Derek Lee Houston wanted to take their Cadets to visit Deep Space Jupiter Station. However, they ran into space pirates before and after they arrived. They bested the pirates on both occasions and had to trade ships with them. On the trip back to Earth, the Space Cadets 101 were falsely targeted as pirates by Earth Defense (ED), so they ran back to Jupiter Station, but they were trapped in a space pirate armada ambush.

An alien lizard-like race known as Lizardians came out of nowhere and rescued the Cadets who then traveled to a planet the humans called, Kess. There they uncovered a very formidable starship they named the Turtle because it looked like a turtle. From Kess they went with their Lizardian allies to rescue two planets called Scunrus and Lizarde from beings the humans called ET, Centurions, or Skinnies. While participating in the rescue, they became friends with their allies, the lizard bi-pedals.

Thanks to the new ship’s advanced technology, the Houstons found out that Earth was to be invaded by two different species – the Trex, which looked like small T-Rexes, and the Leonsians, which looked like Lion-people. Both species thought of Earth as a new feeding ground with humans as a new source of meat just like cattle.

In book two, Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Invasions, the Space Cadets saved Earth from invasions by these species, but it did not put them in favor with Earth Defense. ED wanted the Turtle and all of its marvels for themselves and tried to kill the One-Oh-One Cadet leaders.

The planet Kess now is populated by citizens from several worlds and is the birthplace and home base of the Alliance of Planets, an organization made up by the Houstons to protect Earth, Scunrus, Lizarde, Kess, and all of the shipping lanes among these planets.

In book three, Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Weddings, the Space Cadets set out to rescue a people known as Tauri from the Leonsians and relocate them on the safe planet Kess, far from the lion-people’s grip or teeth. With alien help from the planet Mercury, the Cadets saved Earth again by keeping the Sun from going nova.

ED persisted in trying to kill the Cadets and threatened their families, so their leaders invoked war, and in just a very short time, killed more military than all the wars on Earth put together.

Austen and Derek Houston married and let their brother, JR, take over ED and give it a new name, the Space Rangers, even though ED refused to conform to the new status and clings to the old name and uniform. JR promoted himself to rear admiral, taking the lead position in the Space Rangers.

In Book four, Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Back At It on Two Fronts, the One-Oh-One Cadets find a Dyson Sphere just outside the Sol System. Mars and Earth go through hell, and there is a bug infestation in space as well. Tauri Cadets mutiny on board the Turtle at Tauri while the Leonsians settle in due to their planet dying. As everybody gets back to Kess, all of the pregnant women are kidnapped by the Anti-bodies (Aliens.) The Turtle crew goes to rescue them, and they lose Derek for their troubles, or do they?

Chapter 1

Unwelcomed

After the Admirals Houston caught the Trex on the Planet Kess and killed them all except one whom the admirals let go back to his planet to report that their invasion was a bust, both Admirals Austen and Derek promoted Derek’s son, Kirk, to the rank of captain. But there is one catch; both admirals did a tour on Mars while enlisted in Earth Defense in what seems like a very long time ago, and they order Kirk Houston to do the same. Kirk is not happy about this at all but he really wants to be the captain of the Amigo, a Turtle-Fleet ship that his friends built by themselves. He will endure whatever he has to in order to be the captain of the ship and its crew. He believes it is his destiny, and he looks forward to it.

So here he is back in his own solar system serving Earth Defense while his Fleet moves on to Tauri to help the citizens there in the battle against the Leonsians: alien lion-like bi-pedals that are really hungry, big and strong. Kirk has purposely spent most of his time with ED (Earth Defense) being transferred from point A to point B because no one in Earth Defense wants a Houston onboard their ships.

It is not really Kirk’s fault, not entirely, but his Uncle Austen’s fault. Admiral Austen Houston killed more than thirty thousand ED personnel in a war with Earth Defense, but ED was the aggressor. Now Kirk finds himself caught between a rock and a crazy place as his dad would say. He has been treated like the plague since he arrived in his solar system. He will endure this as long as he has to for permission to captain his own ship.

Kirk isn’t worried for his safety because ED knows that even if an accident happens to Kirk then all hell will break loose! He does hate the way all the ED Officers have treated him, and he really hates the way they look at him, but with all his delays, he now only has three more months left of service to endure.

Kirk has been onboard the Fred Hoyle for three hours since he reported to the bridge where Admiral Montgomery dismissed him with no future orders. Kirk is just sitting in his cabin bored and wondering, What next? Good timing because there is a knock at the door and Kirk says, Enter.

Lt. Commander Stryker enters and tells Captain Kirk Houston that the admiral wants to see him in his office. Kirk stands up from his chair and says, Lead the way. Kirk knew that he had been put all the way in the back of the ship on purpose, but Kirk doesn’t mind at all.

The two officers walk the entire length of the Sub-ship. The lieutenant commander opens the office door after a brisk knock, and then Stryker said to the admiral, He is here, Sir, and motions Kirk Houston to go inside before he leaves. The admiral points to the only other chair there and said for Kirk to sit in it.

After finishing some paperwork, he looks up at the young Houston and says, I’ll get right to the point… Captain… I do not like you, or your family! I am only allowing you onboard my ship because of orders … orders I was particularly against when they came in. Do you want to know why, Captain?

Kirk knows how many died in Austen’s little war so he answers, I have a pretty good idea, Sir, but I’m not going to apologize for something I didn’t do. It isn’t my idea to be onboard any ED vessel, but we are both stuck with the situation, and although ED has been juggling me around for three months instead of sending me directly here in the first place, I now have three more months before I can report back to my ship, Sir. I am hoping we can get along amicably with each other in the time allotted until then. Kirk is really missing his Fleet where he feels wanted and needed, not here.

The admiral stands up and orders Kirk to attention, and Kirk immediately obeys the order. Admiral Montgomery asks why Kirk is still in his Space Ranger suit onboard an Earth Defense ship. Kirk responds, Sir, we are all on the same team and many outposts and ships have both uniforms onboard them. Kirk was afraid this would happen because he knew what was to come next.

The admiral says, This ship isn’t most outposts, and certainly not most ships. I order you to change into the uniform that all hands aboard MY ship are wearing! Do you get me, Captain?

Kirk drew a breath before saying, No Sir, I do not get you. He then pulls out a piece of paper from the Earth Defense President, Peter O’Loughlin’s, which gives permission for young Houston never to take his SR suit off, or hand over his smart-phone. He hands it to the admiral and goes back to attention.

The admiral rips the paper from Kirk’s hand and reads it. He sits back down leaving Kirk at attention and says sarcastically to the captain, Do you have any notes from your daddy too? Kirk takes the question to be rhetorical so he doesn’t answer. After a moment of silence the admiral fishes through his upper drawer of his small desk, pulls out the rank insignia of commander, and slides it across his desk towards Kirk. He says to the recent captain, "We already have a captain onboard the Fred Hoyle, so I’m reducing your rank to commander. Do you have a problem with that boy?"

Kirk closes his eyes for a second and his rank of captain on his collar turns itself to commander without Kirk moving a muscle, because his suit is made up of Turtle nanites that are smaller than a human’s cell, and can perform any task. Kirk then says to the admiral, My rank is now changed, Sir. I do not need your bars because my suit did the transition all by itself. I would like to ask why this has happened though. I was under the impression that Captain Manning was to be transferred before I was to arrive here, Sir.

Montgomery smiles and says, Ah, not everything going the way a Houston thinks it will. Why are you on this ship son? Out of all the ships, why this ship? You probably could have had your pick, huh?

Kirk answers, This ship is named after a scientist, and I am a scientist too, so I chose this ship, Sir.

The admiral sarcastically says, Lucky me.

The lt. commander opens the hatch to the admiral’s office and says, Sirs, you are needed on the bridge at once. The admiral grabs his jacket and the three set off for the bridge in haste.

During the last three months down on Earth, what is left of California Island has become alien turf. It all started with SETI: Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, or Project Phoenix as it was called way back in 1969, when they finally received a signal from the far reaches of our own galaxy. But it wasn’t what Earth expected or hoped for…

They say that the doorway to the soul is through the eyes of a person, and an alien race of silica plant-life is now taking advantage of this literally. Not just in California, but in Russia, Australia, Germany and China, where they also picked up the signal through their radars. Once it is translated by Earth’s incredible computers it is relayed as a picture, not just a picture but also more of a pattern that is highly fractal. When an astronomer or subject sees the picture, he or she instantly goes mad and turns into an it. The picture or pattern stays in the eye of