Space Fights and Movie Nights: Book 1: Space Fights and Movie Nights

By Vince Cutlip

Fond of daydreaming and constantly questioning his life and the universe around him, agent Seven is a field agent working for the Orbital Defense Force: an elite and secretive planetary agency charged with defending planet Earth and its inhabitants from any and all threats, both domestic and extra-terrestrial.

When a rouge agent leaks classified documents, Seven, along with his partner Pengo, an odd-looking, odd-talking penguin creature, set off on a mission to hunt down the one responsible. Along the way they make new friends and meet up with old ones, including a gritty, old-fashioned detective, a wacky, floating scientist, a warrior fused with a utility vehicle, and more. Their journey takes them to strange new places with familiar faces... also some strange, new faces.

Sometimes they have movie nights.

And space fights.

It's kind of their thing.

Will they catch the one responsible? Is the mission as simple as it seems, or is something else going on? Was that psychic cow just rambling incoherently or was he on to something?

Also, Seven has a thing with the enemy's daughter... go figure.

So, there's that too.

All in all, stranger things have happened... probably.

The universe is an interesting place, after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vince Cutlip
• Release date: Nov 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393670964

Book preview

Space Fights and Movie Nights

Book 1

Contents

Chapter 1:

An Ordinary Tuesday

Chapter 1.1:

Tuesday Movie Night

Chapter 2:

The Girl

Chapter 3:

The Docks

Chapter 3.1:

Hijacked Movie Night

Chapter 4:

A Change of Plans

Chapter 5:

Premonitions

Chapter 6:

A Hot Date

Chapter 7:

The Team Assembles

Chapter 7.1:

A Movie Night with the Team

Chapter 8:

A Busy Morning

Chapter 9:

Setting the Record Straight

Chapter 10:

Space Fight

Chapter 11:

Basically Hell

Chapter 12:

Dreaming a Reality

Chapter 13:

Blowing the Popsicle Stand

Chapter 14:

The Curtain Closes... Briefly

A note from the author

(that’s me, baby)

Chapter 1: An Ordinary Tuesday

At the moment, the Boss could think of nothing he wanted more than to go home and sleep. Today would end up being one of the longest he had worked in a while and with the evening quickly approaching, all he could think about was his head hitting the cool, soft fabric of a real pillow for once. He couldn’t remember the last time he had fallen asleep on an actual bed rather than his office couch which, due to a constant heavy workload being thrust upon him, was becoming the norm. Consequentially, he was beginning to hate that couch. Its red, leathery cushions were becoming more faded and grosser looking with each passing day. It had occurred to him recently that not once had he ever cleaned it since his original purchase a decade ago, allowing years' worth of sweat, dirt, and possibly other unmentionable and disgusting fluids and substances, to soak deep into the cushions.

Regardless, given recent events, his life was simply too busy for him to spare even a single minute worrying about office furniture.

Here he was, stuck in yet another meeting with The Board, discussing yet another planetary-level threat; one that, as usual, was deemed capable of collapsing modern society, possibly even destroying planet Earth, dooming them all at any given moment.

So basically, just an ordinary Tuesday. he had said earlier, during the initial briefing.

This had become something of a running joke among the members.

He remembered one particular time several months ago during a similar meeting when he had abruptly paused mid-sentence and leaned back in his chair, creating a lengthy, awkward confusion in the room.

Everyone had looked at him questioningly for several moments, until he finally spoke again.

Anyone else ever think about taking the day off, cracking open a can of beer, and watching the world end? he had said. Or is it just me?

There had been a collective response of understanding chuckles and affirmations.

An image had flashed through his mind then of him sitting in a lawn chair on an old-fashioned suburban front yard, reclined back with a drink of some kind in his hand, watching as everything around him was violently and hopelessly thrust into a surreal blend of simultaneous apocalypse-inducing events.

A similar scene had somehow found its way into his mind a moment ago. He allowed himself to get lost in it for a few seconds but, as usual, forced himself to refocus on the task at hand and try to keep the world safe for at least one more day.

He stared out the large, clean glass windowpane overlooking the city. The sun was in the beginning phases of setting, just above the horizon over the water. He caught a brief glimpse of his own semitransparent reflection staring back at him in the glass and felt relieved for a moment that, even though his hair was now almost completely white, it was still miraculously full and healthy, as was his complexion. Most people would’ve considered it a miracle that a man his age had yet to show any signs of wrinkles.

His focus returned to the landscape outside.

The sun was now at a particular point in the sky where the clouds had begun to turn a purplish color and were somehow darker than the open sky around them. The lake beyond was coated in a thin layer of hazy smoke, causing the sun to look like a rippling illusion. The buildings below were now black silhouettes with faint, yellow light penetrating between and above them. The skyline would soon become a mix of dark sky and glimmering water staged upon a deep orange horizon.

At least, this is how it had appeared to his color blind eyes.

His thoughts shifted once more, this time to his past. Those who were close to him had assumed that he was color blind at an early age. Since then, this assumption had proven itself true on many occasions throughout his life, though he had never bothered to get a legitimate medical diagnosis on it.

If this is true, though, he had thought, who knows what colors I’m really seeing around me in the world at any given time? Is the ‘blue’ I see the same as the ‘blue’ others see? Or is my ‘blue’ what everyone else sees as ‘red’? Is it all just an illusion? Yet another mystery of life, I guess.

A voice interrupted his wandering thoughts, snapping his attention back to reality.

Right then, gentlemen. said Mr. Holiday, breaking the previous ten seconds of silence in the conference room. Are we all set here?

Mr. Holiday, as he was known, was a forgettable and plain-looking man seated at the far-left edge of the table, wearing a dark gray suit. The Chairman had been ‘out on other business’ over the past week, or so the Boss had been told, and had assigned Mr. Holiday as his temporary stand-in.

All of the Boss’s thoughts over the past minute, regarding the couch, the colors, and the end of the world vanished back into the corner of his mind.

He turned back to face The Board which, at the moment, was composed of eight men dressed in various formal outfits, all seated at the large conference room table.

Mr. Kujo, a thin man of dark features, appearing to be of East Asian descent, met the Boss’s gaze briefly and raised his eyebrow, his pink bow tie standing out awkwardly against his solid black suit jacket and clean white undershirt.

This had been the fifth day straight that The Board had met to discuss the current matter. The Boss hadn’t personally called the meeting this time, as he didn’t feel that the situation was a critical as the others seemed to believe. Either way, these things were typically decided by a majority vote among all members and this time the Boss had simply been outvoted.

To add insult to injury, it was his turn to host the meeting at the ODF F-Branch Headquarters building, of which he presided over. It felt as though these other men were guests in his home who had overstayed their welcome, and now that it was getting past his usual bedtime, he just wanted them to leave so he could turn the lights off and go to sleep.

I’m good. the Boss said, responding to Mr. Holiday’s question. Anyone else?

It was silent for a moment.

I hope you know what you’re doing.

All of the attention in the room was drawn to the bald man sitting on the back-left corner.

Don’t you worry about me, Dr. H. the Boss said, grinning slyly. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

Spoken like a truly overconfident asshole. muttered Mr. Waters, a man seated next to Mr. Holiday.

The Boss heard this, but for personal reasons, he chose to ignore it.

He glanced toward Dr. H, turned around halfway, and tilted his head at a lazy angle. His hard, piercing glare contradicted his casual grin.

Dr. H. glanced down, cleared his throat, and readjusted his glasses.

Nothing else, then? said Mr. Waters. "Well, meeting adjourned, then. Right, Mister Chairman?"

He glanced over at Mr. Holiday and shot him a sly grin.

Mr. Holiday glanced over quickly, his face hiding any signs of enthusiasm.

Stand by for further updates. he said. Have a good night.

The Admiral, the most senior member present, donning his usual modern-day dress blues, slapped the tabletop with both hands and stood up, with the other members quickly following suit. They walked towards the door, shaking hands and mumbling their goodbyes to one another as they did. The Boss sighed and turned back around to look out the window again, happy that the meeting was finally over.

Eventually, everyone had left the conference room, leaving the Boss standing in place, quietly staring out the window once again.

There they go, the Boss thought. Heading home to eat dinner with the family, relax and unwind, maybe have a drink.

The Boss, however, had unfinished business to attend to in the mission control room downstairs. Right now most of his field agents were still dispatched, and though there were plenty of support staff here at the F-branch HQ who would continue grinding away at their terminals and holoscreens all night, he felt that the nature of the current situation warranted his direct involvement.

"If they don’t get to sleep tonight, then neither do I." he had said earlier in the day, during a briefing with the communications staff.

He realized now that he had said that to motivate himself more than anything.

Right now, he was beginning to feel that he might pass out, or possibly even die, from exhaustion at any second. It was fortunate, in a depressing way, that there was no loving family or home-cooked meal waiting for him anywhere, so he figured he wasn’t going to miss much except some much-needed sleep. In any event, he was sure that he would be able to summon an adrenaline-fueled second wave of energy tonight if he absolutely needed to.

He ran his hand along the lower portion of the window frame near a small, silver, rectangular panel, causing the transparent window to gradually darken, until it was completely black. He rubbed his eyes and the back of his neck, breathed a tired sigh to himself, and headed towards the conference room door...

(MEANWHILE...)

ALL WAS QUIET ABOARD the nameless Sardarian Outcast pirate vessel, for about two seconds, at least. Then, two high-pitched beeps rang out in quick succession, coming from just outside the rear hull. Whether or not any of the nearby crew had heard the beeps was irrelevant, as by the time they would have been able to react in any way, the red metal on the inside of the hull violently exploded inwards, sending large pieces of shrapnel into two of the nearby crew with a shredding, concussive force. Their scaly, reptilian faces were jerked backwards as lines of blood wisped out of the newly formed cuts along their cheeks and forehead. Small flames with neon colors coated the newly created opening for only a second before the vacuum of space snuffed them out. Immediately after the explosion, two more of the creatures, who had been patrolling the aft deck, were each blasted in the chest with a quick, green-colored beam of energy. The beams came at them lightning fast, one right after the other, seemingly out of thin air, piercing their cheaply constructed, lightly armored suits and burning a hole through most of their stomachs. The shrapnel from the explosion had settled on the deck and the two pirates hit the floor, dead, with the blast wounds still smoking. As this happened, several other crew members, who had been unfortunate enough to be within the general vicinity of explosion, were violently sucked out through the hole by the vacuum of space.

Two seconds after the hull had been blasted open, two figures jumped aboard the ship through the smoking hole in the wall and landed on the shrapnel-covered deck. The backup vacuum shield deployed a second later, sealing the breach with a thin layer of fabricated metal and stopping the vacuum effect. The smoke continued to clear, revealing the faces of two figures.

On the left stood agent Pengo: a short, black and white penguin-looking creature with an egg-shaped body and small, thin flippers, staring blankly ahead with large, dark eyes. On the right hand side was agent Seven: a young human male sporting a fitted, black and red custom ODF metal-tech Power Suit. The right arm of the suit sporting a blaster cannon, which was still smoking slightly from the shots he had fired at the creatures only moments earlier.

"Awwwww sheeeeeiiiiiiit! blurted Pengo, in her usual high pitched, nasally, honky voice. Pengo head hurt..."

From Seven’s experience, Pengo’s voice and speech pattern could best be described as a strange mixture of broken slang, Ebonics, a lisp, a plugged nasal passage, and various penguin noises: It was far easier to recognize than to describe.

She rubbed the sides of her head with her flippers where on most bi-pedal creatures, such as humans, ears would normally be.

Hey! snapped Seven. What did we just talk about?

He was referring to an earlier conversation they had regarding Pengo’s inappropriate language, a lesson that he found himself regularly, yet unsuccessfully, trying to impress upon her.

Pengo sorry. said Pengo in her usual broken English, having most likely already forgotten what she had said only seconds earlier.

It seemed that she had begun to learn that this was the best thing to say to Seven in any situation in order to avoid further punishment and lecturing.

For a brief moment, Seven forgot about the mission. This was typically how things went. He would be off on another high-stakes, top priority ODF mission, while at the same time attempting to teach his childish partner basic manners. At first, he had thought It was absolutely ridiculous, perhaps even comical, as any sane person would, that he was out saving the world while at the same time essentially babysitting a talking penguin. As time had gone by, however, he had gotten used to it.

He sighed quietly.

Despite her childish nature, speech impediment, seemingly utter disregard for the danger and importance of their missions, and various other flaws, he was well-aware of Pengo’s surprisingly useful abilities, if they could even be called that. He often found it difficult to explain to others but, in simple terms: since they had miraculously managed to survive and complete every mission so far, even situations that had seemed beyond hopeless, he had simply stopped questioning the how and why of it all, and decided to have a little more faith in his partner.

Let's move. he said, snapping his focus back to the task at hand.

So far, everything was going exactly according to plan. They had sneaked up on the Outcast ship without notice and blown open the hull without any issue. Now they needed to get to the ship’s captain, who was most likely in the cockpit. To do that, according to the morning briefing, they simply needed to follow the main hallway straight ahead, then make a few quick turns near the far end, until they reached to bow. The ship wasn’t excessively big, around 1000 square meters if Seven had to guess, but according to the Intel, there were supposedly another dozen-or-so crew members between himself and the captain. They only needed to get to the captain but, as usual, killing the crew along the way was totally acceptable, perhaps even encouraged.

Just kill the bad guys and don’t die, he thought. ‘Just like any other Tuesday’, as the Boss would probably say.

As the agents began their tactical sweep through the metallic, dimly-lit hallway, Seven noticed that Pengo, who had yet again chosen to go virtually naked and unarmed on the mission, despite both ODF standard protocol and common sense, had something in her left flipper. As they moved down the hall, she began chewing on it, whatever it was. Seven felt that this act merited questioning.

What’s in your hand. Seven asked, thought he already had a fairly good idea.

"It’s mah candy ring." Pengo said, showing Seven the colorful object.

It was one of those plastic hard-candy finger rings typically found at most Earthly convenience stores. This particular piece had a red gemstone-looking candy piece fastened to a green, plastic-disk, making it look like a big fake gemstone ring. The little plastic disk had two small curved protrusions on the opposite side of the candy piece which were designed to allow the object to be worn on a child's finger. Pengo didn’t have fingers, of course, and her flipper couldn’t fit through the little hole. Her flippers were, however, surprisingly adept at gripping things, and so she had simply been holding the colorful, sticky object by the little plastic disk this whole time.

A long time ago, Seven would have had plenty of questions for Pengo at this point, such as: Where did you get that? How did you manage to hide it from me this whole time? Why in God’s name did you decide to bring this candy with you, instead of any gear or weapons, on a dangerous, violent mission aboard a pirate spaceship? There were, perhaps, several others. Over time, however, he had grown to expect things like this from Pengo. In fact, it had become a solid expectation. Instead of thinking about the ridiculous nature of these things, or the potential consequences her actions could lead to, such as their violent and painful deaths, he decided to save his questions for another day

Just... don’t drop it, I guess. said Seven, knowing that the very second the object fell from her hands Pengo would lose any and all focus on the mission. It had happened plenty of times in the past.

But stay focused. he reminded her. We need to get to that command room, quickly.

"Ah know it!" Pengo replied, sounding offended.

Luckily, she seemed to forget the perceived transgression rather quickly. Though she did have plenty of odd and child-like traits, and spoke in a broken, urban-sounding dialect, she was not the simple idiot she seemed.

Well, sometimes she is, Seven thought.

Seven had begun to accept that there was perhaps a good reason why she was in the ODF in the first place, and why the Boss had partnered her up with him. Pengo had a very ‘different kind of intelligence’, as the Boss called it, at least when compared to that of humans, which wasn’t yet fully understood, at least not by anyone they had even met. Seven had come to understand this, and despite Pengo’s extreme level of immaturity most times, there were other times where she said and did things that he would never have thought of, or even have thought possible, which had occasionally resulted in saving the mission and their lives. Noways, he truly believed that he and Pengo complimented one another in some odd, inexplicable way.

He glanced down at her for a second.

As expected, she seemed to have already forgotten what he had said, as her attention returned to her flipper.

As if set in place by the karmic forces of the universe, the candy was no longer in her flipper. It appeared that, literally seconds after Seven’s warning, she had somehow managed to lose it.

"Aw naw..." Pengo whined, looking down, avoiding Sevens' gaze.

This time, she had spoken in what Seven referred to as her ‘whining tone’, which was a groaning, low-pitched, nasally voice, which sounded like her ‘normal’ voice mixed with a penguin-squawking sound. Seven had noticed that she used this tone unconsciously whenever she was disappointed in something, or whenever she was saying words without thinking about them. There were other times, however, when she sounded like this for seemingly no reason.

So, in other words, it’s an absolute mystery, Seven thought.

While she spoke, Pengo’s eyebrows slanted upward dramatically, making her look like an incredibly sad cartoon character. She squinted her eyes and let her head fall backwards and shoulders slump in a dramatic way as well, like a child expressing her disappointment to a parent.

Seven looked over at her, immediately realized what had happened, then looked forward again with a blank stare of expected disappointment.

...okay. he sighed, in a tone that matched his face. Okay... I’ll just... do this part by myself.

As predicted, Pengo had already wandered off into a nearby room in search of the missing candy.

Right on cue, the remainder of the crew burst through the rooms at the end of the corridor, firing their cheap energy rifles at Seven. He counted eight of them in total, slightly less than his previous estimate.

With expert agility and marksmanship, he dove to his left into a doorway and began trading shots with the enemy. Green energy beams flashed and sparked off nearby walls as Pengo waddled obliviously through the hallway in and out of rooms. At this point, she hardly even seemed to notice the loud yelling and flashing energy beams around her, focused entirely on her own candy hunting mission

Amazingly, not a single shot so much as grazed her.

The pirates seemed to ignore her entirely anyway, as three of their own had just had their chests burned open by Seven, who they had quickly pegged as the most immediate threat. They began to move between doorways as a unit towards Seven but, being far slower and less accurate than the highly trained field agent, as well as having shoddily constructed, pathetic excuses for ‘armor’, they were quickly losing their numbers.

The skirmish lasted less than a minute, and when it finally concluded, Seven stood alone in the hall littered with corpses with smoke coming from the energy beam holes in their chests. He blew on his blaster cannon like an old-fashioned cowboy blowing on his smoking revolver. Pengo, still searching for her candy, continued waddling out of a nearby room, squawking in disappointment and darting her head in every direction as she did.

Seven stopped her mid-waddle with a gentle pat on the head.

I'll buy you a new one after we finish this. he said quickly.

"Ah-ight." Pengo said, with an immediate shift in attitude.

The promise of candy was all she needed to get motivated it seemed, and like flipping a switch she spun around and waddled to Seven’s side.

They approached the large door at the end of the central corridor. According to the blueprints they had been shown during their mission briefing, as well as the fact that this was the largest door that they had seen in the ship so far, Seven was certain this was the target destination. They approached the door, stopping about ten feet away. Seven reached into one of the back pouches on his belt and grabbed his last breach-bomb, having used the first one to blow open the ship’s outer hull earlier.

He pressed the green button in the center of the disk-like device. There was a quiet beep, and several small claw-like protrusions jutted out from the bottom near the perimeter of the disk. He tossed it at the center of the door. The bottom of the device touched the door and as the little claws made contact they quickly clamped inward, piercing partway into the outer layer of metal, effectively attaching the bomb to the door. As soon as the claws were locked in place, the device beeped quickly two more times and the green center button turned red.

Here we go. Seven said, moving into a combat-ready stance. Let’s see if this guy is as ugly as the Boss said.

Pengo covered her head with her flippers as best as she could. The width of each flipper was too small to cover any significant portion of her head, and so she had to settle with barely covering her eyes.

Seven pointed his right arm cannon at the door, gripped it with his left hand, and pressed a small button near the base of the blaster.

With a loud bang the door blew open, in much the same way as the exterior hull had, though being an interior wall, there was no vacuum-sucking effect. The bomb blasted half of the door inwards, breaking part of it off and bending the remainder. Seven dashed through the opening, cannon ready, eyes darting around for his first target. Pengo followed right behind him and, having no weapon, readied her flippers in what resembled a karate stance. Seven’s eyes moved around the room, from the seats and monitors to the various blinking lights and computers, and finally to the massive front viewing window. Pengo let out a loud, penguin war-cry in anticipation.

To their surprise, the room was entirely empty.

After processing the situation, Seven glanced out the front windshield.

It had only been several minutes since he had seen the same view outside the ship, but every time he saw it he couldn’t help but be amazed. Outside the window was the infinite dark abyss of space, and all its glory, painted with colored specks of light and various streaks of gases and vapors. It was almost too much to try to take in all at once.

Every other speck of light is basically an entire world, Seven would often think, with infinite possibilities, with so many things to discover.

He thought about everything that he knew existed in the universe, and everything that could exist that he simply was not aware of, somewhere out there beyond the window, beyond the farthest visible hint of starlight.

There could be life forms of indescribable complexity doing absolutely anything imaginable, he thought. On one of those specks, there could be a group of lifeforms from some barbaric, dim-witted species having a pointless conversation about absolutely nothing... Well, that’s basically humans, I guess... and on the little speck right next to it, which could be a whole galaxy away, there could be an entirely different group of life forms having the most epic, multi-dimensional space war ever seen. It’s such an incredibly amazing thing, so incredible that it’s almost kind of... well, stupid.

Sometimes he believed that the whole universe was simultaneously amazing and stupid, though he didn’t know how to describe the specifics of this belief in any coherent manner.

Maybe I’m one of those nihilistic existentialists, he thought. Maybe I'm just unrealistically hopeful, slipping into depression. Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time around Frank, and he’s starting to rub off on me.

Either way, he never did have much time to think about it.

A moment later, he saw something move up and into view near the center of the front windshield. It was a small squad-sized space craft with a poorly engineered design resembling that of the Sardarian space vessel they currently stood within, apparently crafted out of the same junk-metal material. After inspecting it for a moment, he recognized it from the mission briefing as one of the ship’s emergency escape vehicles. He could clearly see the captain and several other crew members behind the small craft’s windshield, staring right back at him. He figured that they must have somehow slipped past him while he was busy with the other pirates in the hallways, or perhaps the escape ship had been docked nearby behind some secret escape hatch somewhere in this very room, and had been intended to be used by the captain in this exact situation. Whatever the case, there was nothing specific in the mission briefing about this, so Seven would have to play things by ear again.

Before he could act, a raspy, low-pitched voice spoke through the command room’s two-way communication channel speakers. Seven looked across through the front windshield into the windshield of the escape craft.

Looks like yer’ a bit too late, lads! the voice said, mockingly.

He even sounds like one of those old-timey pirates, Seven thought. I wonder if that's his real accent?

He could see a sharp-toothed mouth moving on the figure in the center, with a huge grin on his face. Seven assumed that, like most people, judging by the use of the word ‘lads’, this creature was either unconcerned or unable to tell what gender, if any, Pengo was.

Seven quickly pegged him as the ship’s captain for two reasons: For one, he was about twice the size of the other crew members. Secondly, he was wearing a small, old-fashion black tri-point hat that looked like it had been part of a human child’s Halloween costume.