Battlefield

By J.S. Frankel

Martin Calder and his girlfriend, Dana—no last name given—are back. Possessing superpowers, Martin joins up with Dana to fight crime throughout their adopted city of Baltimore. Fighting crime on Earth is easy, but when an old enemy from Dana’s world, Ardana, returns to wreak havoc and seek vengeance, it will take more than anyone can possibly give to defeat him. Sometimes, though, giving everything isn’t enough.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Apr 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781487410131

Book preview

Hold nothing back. Give everything. However, sometimes giving everything isn’t enough.

Martin Calder and his girlfriend, Dana—no last name given—are back. Possessing superpowers, Martin joins up with Dana to fight crime throughout their adopted city of Baltimore. Fighting crime on Earth is easy, but when an old enemy from Dana’s world, Ardana, returns to wreak havoc and seek vengeance, it will take more than anyone can possibly give to defeat him. Sometimes, though, giving everything isn’t enough.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Battlefield

Copyright © 2017 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-1013-1

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

Battlefield

Titans of Ardana

By

J.S. Frankel

Dedication

To my wife, Akiko, and to my sons, Kai and Ray, thank you for everything. And thank you to Sara and Emily, Beth, Eva, Safa, Mirren, and many more people, both writers as well as readers, for your support. It means the world to me.

Chapter One: Life at Home

Baltimore, Maryland, the present. Summertime. Ten twenty-two P.M. and counting.

Hold nothing back. Give everything.

As I muttered those two sentences, I couldn’t help but think they had to be the most clichéd lines in existence. Still, as I stood on the rooftop overlooking Tilbrook and Main, Baltimore’s version of Crime Alley, an abandoned low-income housing project downtown, they came to mind and had great resonance and meaning. The city’s council had long since given up hope of reclaiming the area, and since no one else cared, here I stood, keeping watch.

When it came to protecting the citizenry, there were always two ways to do it. One, put your trust in the police and let them handle the rough stuff. It sounded like a good idea, but the cops were overworked, undermanned and underpaid, so in order to take care of the overflow in crime, that was where Dana—my girlfriend—and I came in.

Darkness swathed the area, but my eyesight was sharp, and I picked up the form of Dana perched on the rooftop of a rotting apartment that overlooked the warehouses. We were on stakeout, sitting pretty perched high above the street, an area populated by many abandoned apartments and warehouses. Only the homeless, the drug addicts, the gang members and the roaches were around... and most of the time the roaches steered clear.

I scanned the zone below, looking for signs of trouble. Abandoned area or not, some innocent people still lived near here, people who needed protection, and the Metas—that was what we called ourselves, a tribute to a defunct cable television show—were here to provide it. A full moon shone directly overhead, illuminating the area in a ghostly glow.

Dana swivelled her head in my direction, gave a hint of a smile, and turned her attention back to the alleyway. Had to love our celestial neighbour, as its rays outlined the skintight black bodysuit she wore, accentuating the curves of her body. Five-nine, the same height as me, she had long, silky black hair, cool purple eyes, and a face most guys would gladly receive an ass-kicking for in return for the opportunity to say hello.

Too bad it wasn’t happening, not for them, anyway. She reserved her affection for me, although at times I wondered why. It had been hot during the day—Baltimore’s summer temperature usually went up to around a hundred—but the rains had come about twenty minutes ago. A welcome coolness hung in the air even though extremes in temperature hadn’t bothered me for a long time.

So had personal appearance. I caught sight of my reflection in a puddle. I wore the same kind of bodysuit Dana did, but she looked way better in her outfit than me in mine. Some people had the looks, and others didn’t. I fell into the latter category.

If you had to describe me, then the adjectives of slender and narrow-faced would have started things off. Toss in seemingly without any appreciative muscle along with having no distinguishing marks and that summed it all up. Up until six months or so ago, with those looks, I’d have been destined to join the Forever Alone crew, a geek without friends or the possibility of finding them.

However, that was six months ago. A lot could happen in the space of a half-year, and in my case, a lot had happened.

Dana’s voice came through on my intercom, a little device she’d rigged up in her spare time and which sat snugly in my left ear. My hearing happened to be very acute, but this gizmo made listening in somewhat more pleasurable. Just tap it and receive call. It had a range of over three hundred metres and could pick up the most sensitive of sounds. Hey, you got anything to eat? I’m dying for a few donuts.

She would have to think of food at a time like this. Here we were, stakeout time, trying to catch the criminal scum and help out the Baltimore police, and what was she thinking of? Sweets, it was always sweets.

I tapped twice to reply. I thought you had some.

An empty paper bag sailed through the air and landed at my feet. So much for her evening snack. I’m out.

She was out. We’ll buy some more on our way home, I whispered.

A grunt of what had to be disappointment greeted me. Fine, I’ll go hungry.

With that, she flipped her hair back and parked herself on the ledge. To someone who didn’t know her as well as I did, it may have seemed she didn’t care or wasn’t being watchful. Wrong on both counts, as her eyes, ever on the move, measured the area, rated each square inch for trouble, and did it faster than the average human could.

Oh wait, she wasn’t human. Then again, neither was I, not entirely. The quiet of the area gave me some time to reflect upon that last thought. It also made me reflect upon how I’d gone from pud to stud as well as how we weren’t alone in the universe anymore...

* * * *

Six months ago

An autograph, it had all been about getting an autograph. Two weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday, I’d been a huge fan of The Metas, a superhero action show about twin mutants, Dana and Van, protectors of Tacoma, Washington, my home city. In the show, they flew, possessed super strength and they kicked butt, mainly against a shadow agency that often sent super-powered scum to trap them.

Superheroes—who didn’t love them? Fights, space guns... aliens... the show was a hit, and I loved every minute of it.

Needless to say, I also fell in love with Dana. If the internet blog sites and chat groups were even half right, she scored a ninety-seven percent Would eventually marry factor among the netizens.

She was every guy’s dream date, yet no one knew her last name. In fact, no one had ever met either her or her brother, as they never gave interviews and never went out in public. In short, hermits had a more active social life.

You can get an autograph, can’t you?

That came from Greg Foster, my only friend at school. He’d practically dared me. Yeah, I’m on it.

Long story short, I’d snuck into the studio where the show was being shot and crept over to their dressing room. Once there, I found out a few things, things only a science-fiction writer with a vivid imagination could envision.

One, neither Dana nor Van was from around here. Anyone who had a ring of pearl-sized bumps circling her midriff was either suffering from a rash or had other-worldly origins. This was a case of the latter.

Van had the ability to control his molecular structure and send copies of himself to other locations. It was all so very weird—and the surprises were just beginning.

Two, after I met up with Dana—or rather, she tracked me down, and we struck up a friendship that ripened into something more—she let me in on her place of birth. My brother Van and I come from Ardana. It’s sort of far away from here.

Call it a holy crap moment, because no other words would do. Some other tidbits emerged from our initial conversation. She and Van were orphans and refugees, on the run from a warlord named Rekeer who’d enslaved their planet.

Other strange oddities about my new friends. They needed to eat and eat often, and their diet consisted of sugar. Protein actually made them sick. Donuts, cookies, chocolate... every diabetic’s nightmare was their version of nirvana.

As for their other abilities, super strength, speed, flight, and near invulnerability made up the bulk of what they could do. Although Van’s ability to project copies of himself to wherever he chose to sort of went to the top of the list by default. Freaky, yes, but that’s how it worked.

Aliens, they existed, and soon the FBI came a calling. I’m here to protect you, the agent said who showed up at my door one day shortly after Dana and I had met up, and she’d revealed her secret. Name—Hubert Angstrom, a tall, spare middle-aged man with a steam-shovel jaw and a brisk, taciturn manner. I’m here to help.

Sure he was. And I was supposed to trust him? He’d asked about my guardian, but my mother and I weren’t into the communication thing. She was always working and spent most of her free time with Fred, her boyfriend. My father had died when I was ten, and my mother didn’t want to be alone, so she chose companionship with someone of her generation over me.

Fine, being on my own suited me, anyway, but when the law was involved, a little bit—or a lot—of reticence was needed. Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Angstrom took in my BS reply without batting an eye. Sure you do, he offered with a great amount of certainty.

Still, even though I was lying like a rug, he had nothing on me, so he said he’d be around, anyway, just in case. Get a warrant, I said, attempting to be tough about it all.

Don’t tempt me.

His little comeback scared me, put me on the defensive, but this was my secret, and no one had to know. Call it an old-fashioned notion, but in my mind, Dana and her brother could do no wrong and weren’t out to hurt anyone.

In fact, Dana had said she liked me. The feeling was mutual, but Van was in protective brother mode and resented my presence. Still, because Dana was into me, he let it go, and things continued on in a semi-romantic fashion for a time.

Unfortunately, the for a time concept turned out to be extremely short. Rekeer had sent a number of assassins to kill Dana and her brother. A few years back they’d killed their parents, and a maniac named Saldar, Rekeer’s captain of his Imperial Guard, had been responsible. He and his gang of ghouls almost succeeded in killing her. They’d succeeded with Van, but not before he somehow passed on his abilities to me.

Transference of powers... call it the ultimate trip. Going from earthbound to soaring mode in the blink of an eye was one thing. Going from weak to smash-through-a-building mode was nothing short of incredible. I’d never dreamed about becoming superhuman, but now I was.

Vengeance is mine, and once more, long story short, Dana and I decided to take the fight to Rekeer. Dana possessed an interstellar portal device—could never figure out a fancy name for it, so a portal device had to do—and we went to Ardana. Our plan was to get him to release his stranglehold on that planet. We went, a showdown ensued, and we kicked his ass as well as Saldar’s... and were allowed to leave.

After we’d arrived back home, Angstrom arranged a cover for us. We couldn’t simply fly around and be super heroic all the time, so what better cover for us than a place where Dana could satisfy her sweet tooth?

Meta Bakery, she opined, staring at the sign. Downtown Baltimore, the place where we’d decided to settle. It was a cold winter’s day when we opened up, but a crowd had already formed.

Call it hiding in plain sight, I answered. Sort of snarky, maybe but it had sounded good at the time...

Too bad time didn’t wait for us. We’re going to close up shop, Angstrom had informed us one day, roughly two months after the bakery opened. It was five in the afternoon, and the shop was empty. The three of us were there, with our boss leaning against the counter while Dana and I sat at a table.

Naturally, she was eating. It was sort of fun, if you could wrap your mind around the fact that she ingested roughly fifteen thousand calories a day of sugar, a move guaranteed to keep the humblest dentist driving the latest in luxury cars.

She was in the process of shovelling in a fifteen-layer Smith cake, one of three that sat in front of her. Any reason why, she mumbled through a full mouth.

You’re eating everything, including the profits, Angstrom replied as he pointed at the empty shelves. They’d been full about an hour ago. Not now. Not one donut, tart, muffin or eclair remained, only traces of sugar. Also, the federal government has decided to step in. The FBI is no longer involved, although they’ve retained me as a consultant.

Hold on a second. The Metas had been a show about a shadow cabinet in the government trying to control the super-powered beings, and now it had come to pass. Art imitating life, or something like that. Dana’s face got tight. Okay, so who is it? CIA, DOD... tell us.

Angstrom offered a shrug. It’s neither of them. The organization’s name is the Security Council. That’s all I know. They want your help.

And that consists of... what? Dana wanted to know. Her tone was skeptical, and I wasn’t feeling all too happy about it, either. The idea of someone controlling us... it set off a wave of anger combined with nausea.

In the past, Angstrom’s idea of helping out involved us patrolling the mean streets of Baltimore every other night. It wasn’t difficult. We’d busted a few drug dealers and robbers every now and then, the FBI and the various other law enforcement agents in the know kept things quiet and kept the reporters off our backs.

It was the reporters that made life problematic. Snooping and prying was their raison d’etre. Apparently, privacy didn’t figure into their vocabulary.

Are the Metas for real? What is the real purpose—domination and dominion—or altruism?

So went one of the headlines written by some guy named Halston Connors, a reporter for some online rag. He wrote about the potential for danger from the super-powered crew, and apparently, he had a lot of followers who felt the same way.

In addition, the many people remembered the show, and a few enterprising individuals had snapped pictures of Dana and me flying around. The pics were always from a distance, grainy and blurry, but that didn’t stop the tabloids from speculating. Long story short once again, it made us celebrities, but not in a good way.

Still, being with Dana was the ultimate, and I figured we’d eventually win the doubters and haters over. You look good, I observed one evening as we sat in our downstairs living room in Baltimore. The house was a rental, the FBI had provided it as a cover, and since moving in six months ago, Dana and I had kept separate rooms.

Separate rooms you say? Well, the feels were definitely there, but somehow, I’d never worked up the courage to ask her about taking our relationship to the next level until the end of the first month.

Dana joined me on the couch as I scanned a front-page headline story on the possibility of aliens living here. A picture of her flying through the air caught my attention, and while I wanted to keep things light, all I got was an mm-hmm comment and a fond kiss upon my cheek.

Um, you don’t want to read the paper, do you?

A soft chuckle came from her, and she grabbed the paper from my hands and tossed it away. No.

She then placed her hands on my shoulders and spun me around to face her. Another kiss, and, oh hell, forget the paper. This time our lips met and my hands travelled to her waist. Foreplay, Ardanian style, meant pressing the nodules on each side of her waist. Erogenous zones, she whispered.

Uh, yeah... Kissing is good, too, I murmured, trying to keep the heat from invading every atom of my body and failing miserably. Things were quiet, tonight had seen no trouble, no patrols, the air was still, and the mood was romantic.

Dana whispered something about going upstairs. I held back, unsure of what to do. Yes, call it lame. I could punch through a titanium wall, fly at around five hundred miles an hour, but this...

My girlfriend looked at me steadily, the purple in her eyes practically swallowing me. Martin, you’re over eighteen. So am I. And I want to be with you.

Say no more, and I let her pull me upstairs...

Martin, Dana’s voice whispered in my ear, jarring me back into the here and now.

Great, there goes my trip down memory lust-lane. Yeah, what is it?

We got movement. Look below.

Doing as she said, a truck had pulled up and six people exited it through the back doors, dragging wooden crates out with them. A crate dropped onto the concrete, busted open, and a number of automatic weapons clattered on the hard surface.

You moron, said one of the men to an underling. The man who’d spoken sounded like a cheese grater mating with a rusty nail file. He had to be the leader, as he stood maybe six-five and had a body like a powerlifter’s, all oversized chest, shoulders and thighs. Don’t mess with the merchandise.

Sorry, his clumsy compadre said. In contrast to his boss, he was short, wiry, and had a nervous, mousey look about him. I’ll be careful, he added.

Yeah... right.

As the bigger man continued to berate the smaller man, I couldn’t help but think that I’d chosen the right path. Protecting innocent people, doing some good in the world, call it corny or clichéd, I’d finally found something in my life worth fighting for. The catchphrase of the show had been Hold nothing back. Give everything. It was a mantra worth following...

Dana sang out, Let’s have some fun.

Thanks for interrupting my mantra time. She’d already arisen and stood on the ledge, ready to take the plunge. In a graceful move, she leaped off the edge and swooped down upon them like a bird of prey.

Oh crap! someone screamed, and then the shooting began. Follow the leader, and I dove after my girlfriend, ignoring the hail of bullets that came my way. On the ground, Dana was already in the process of knocking out each member of the gang with lightning fast punches.

The leader, though, had other ideas. He snatched a gun from his waistband and pulled the clumsy kid over, holding the weapon to his man’s head. Hey, heroes, he growled as he thumbed back the trigger. Take another step closer, and I’ll shoot.

You’re taking your own man hostage? What is wrong with this picture? Uh, buddy, I said, "the whole idea is to take someone else hostage, not the