Angel and the Rising Star: Angel's Quest, #1

By Elless Bock

RS923 was born amongst the stars, but Angel would soon take over. Follow Angel and her friends as they must save the Rising Star.

 

This is an action-packed story filled with many adventures. Discover strange creatures, trade on a space city, fight a bully, eat a Balliewhomper and even ride a hover trike. Of course, befriending a Tahuke becomes very important for Angel to succeed. It's a good thing Angel has been practicing her Tonkakaraish. That always come in handy when on the planet of Oloppo. 

 

Great for an Early Reader or Middle Grade kid. However, even an adult might enjoy this fun story that follows this group of kids as they travel throughout the universe. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elless Bock
• Release date: Aug 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201996352

Elless Bock

Ellis Bock enjoys the warm desert air in the winters and roams the mountains of Colorado in the summers. You can always find her at any local coffee shop, wherever she might be, working on her next story. She likes to point out that her six grandchildren often contribute their ideas to her stories, as well as their awesome use of the English language. "Bro, that is so lit!"

Book preview

Angel and the Rising Star

Copyright by L.S. Barron(Elless Bock) 2020

Jacket Design owned by Elless Bock

Sequitur Somnium

Thank you for abiding by the copyright laws by not reproducing, copying or distributing any part of this book in any form without the author’s permission.  Please continue to follow and respect the copyright laws.

Edited by Victor Lynn Beanie

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This story is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real life is merely a created idea and would be coincidental to a real person or event.

The long passageway stretched out before her.  Darkness, interrupted by red lights that flashed on and off only to cause an eerie glow.  Thunderous sounds surrounded her.  She paid it no mind.  She twisted the throttle down.  Onward.  Her task must be completed.  The crew counted on her.  She could not let anyone down. 

Chapter One

Do Not Open!

With her wavy brown hair, hazel eyes and cute smile, RS923 or 23 was not short of friends. As a matter of fact, most of the boys her age would be happy to be her boyfriend, but 23 was just too busy to be bothered with that kind of stuff right now. Besides, she was only twelve.

She has a group of friends that keeps her busy and boy were they busy. One would think there wouldn’t be much to do out here, but that’s just not true. There were loads of things for a kid to do, never ending for a kid with a good imagination and no sense of trouble.

Take for instance just the other day, 23, (also known secretly as Angel to her friends), and two of her friends, RS925 and RS922 or 25 and 22, (also secretly known as Grunge and Lilac), were messing around the storage deck.

"Hey, over here. This crate says ‘Gringlings, Beware! Do not feed, pet or attempt to play with contents. Do not open!’  Hey, let’s see what’s in it," Grunge said with a big ornery smile.

No! No, we shouldn’t do that! Lilac exclaimed, shaking her head no, making her blond braids toss side to side.

Angel quickly joined Grunge at the side of the mysterious crate. Yes, let’s open it, Angel said as she tried to peek into any cracks she could find in the crate.

Grunge tapped a little on the side of the crate then said, Seems harmless to me, as he wiped the long black and somewhat dirty hair away from his eyes.

Yeah, like get the hair out of your eyes Duser.  Can’t you two read? Do not open! It says it right there, Lilac said as she pointed right to the big red letters on the crate.

Grunge just shrugged. Both he and Angel had just about decided to give up on the crate.

Cheep! Cheep! A cute little sound came out of the crate. Both Angel and Grunge turned around and stepped right back up to the locked wooden box.

On no, Lilac said as she gave a big sigh, knowing this would be trouble. She had in fact got her nickname from a crate mishap. It came from her two friends opening such a box that also read Do not open in big red letters.

However, that crate was full of rare lilac bulbs, at least nothing harmful. The mishap was that her, Grunge and Angel accidently dumped the entire crate of dirt and bulbs over Lilac. Plus, she is a petite little thing, like a small flower and she does like the color purple, so the two friends figured that the name Lilac was most fitting.

Come on Angel, Grunge pleaded, Let’s pry the top lid off. We’ll just take a peek. Can’t hurt anything right?

Angel shrugged. Sounds good to me.

Angel pulled out her handy multitool that she always carried in her hoodie pocket. It was a handy thing to have in an old place like this, where everything was made of metal and bolts.

Grunge and Angel unscrewed the four large screws that held the top lid of the crate secure. They started to wiggle the boards loose. 

Are you guys sure? Um, I don’t know, Lilac said as she started backing away from the crate.

Cheep! Cheep!

Listen. It’s so cute. What harm can come from that? Angel said as she finally pried a board open. 

Angel and Grunge reached around the other three boards and popped them all off. They leaned over the edge and peeked into the crate. There they were, four baby Gringlings.

They were little fuzzy balls of blondish colored fur.  They had long stick legs, about a foot long, with little bird-like feet. The Gringlings tilted their heads up to Grunge and Angel, with their medium sized orange beaks sticking out of the ball of fuzz and big cute eyes looking up at the two friends. 

Ohh, see, look how cute, Angel said.

Lilac started to come back towards the crate to take a look for herself. Angel, being the fearless one, decided to reach down to see if she could get one out. What trouble did Angel think that such a cute little thing could cause?

Eeeeeeiiiirrr!

The beaks opened on the cute little Gringlings.  Teeth! Nothing but a vast hole full of sharp teeth filled the face of these little beasts. 

Pooff! The cute little ball was gone. The Gringling’s fuzz turned into two outstretched wings.  Out flew the four creatures, into storage area 2B.

Kathud!

Angel fell back onto the ground. Lilac was now looking down at her friend as she lay there on her back, sprawled out on the hard floor.

Ha, I told you not to open the crate, Lilac said, shaking her head.

Grunge jumped down. He glanced back toward 2B’s storage room doors. They were open.

Oh crap. Guys! he exclaimed as he pointed to the open doors. 

Angel was still trying to gather her whereabouts as she tried to sit up. Lilac and Grunge ran toward the doors. It was too late! The Gringlings had beaten them. Out into the passageway they flew. They disappeared into the immense darkness before the kids even got out of the doorway.

Needless to say, it took the security crew two weeks to find all four creatures. There are many places to hide on an extremely large space freighter. This was no ordinary space freighter that the kids lived on, it was the Rising Star, a TSLS-Lockheed Graviton Drive 4000.

✱  ✱  ✱  ✱

The Rising Star was an old super tanker, one of the best old freighters ever built, and one of the biggest.  It ran by use of a graviton drive, no fuel required. It was omnidirectional just by the fact that it used energy from the zero-point field in the vacuum of space and thus could pull in any direction. The engine used the energy that is produced from the battle between matter and antimatter as they constantly form in the zero-point field. As the two form, they instantly annihilate each other, producing tremendous amounts of energy. All they have to do in the engine room is change the tilt on the graviton lens to change the ship’s direction. 

The newer ships had way more technology throughout their freighters for overall use, but they were a whole lot smaller. What this ship lacked in technology, it made up for in its vastness. There were places a Gringling would be able to hide for days and no one would ever come across it.

The Gringlings had caused all kinds of damage before being rounded up. They had destroyed several storage bins of fresh fruit that the RSCaptain had just traded for at the last trading post. Luckily, the kids had not come across the RSCaptain yet, as the word was, he was beyond consoling.

The Gringlings had also torn up some of the new security uniforms in the Stitchery Department. Next, they’d proceeded to take refuge in and poop all over a shuttle ship in the docking bay. That was where they were finally rounded up, but not before they evidently left their mischievous destruction in several other places before it was all said and done.

Angel, Grunge and Lilac, well, they got into some serious trouble for sure, but that wasn’t unusual for Angel. She didn’t mean to get into trouble, it just happened. However, spending a month on the freighter’s dock, cleaning up after school was tolerable punishment, at least Angel thought so.

✱  ✱  ✱  ✱

Zzzzlinngg! Angel slid in sideways through the classroom doorway just in the nick of time. It was a good thing the deck floor was already scuffed up because Angel surely lefts more marks. 

RS880, the classroom teacher, who in class they were allowed to simply call RS80, was standing at the front of the class. RS was always used as a sign of respect on the freighter for anyone in a position of rank. RS80 was glaring at Angel, who, while in class had to go by her usual name 23.

23, pushing the time again today, are we? RS80 asked. 

Sorry RS80, said Angel as she looked down and slowly walked to her table.

RS80 just shook his head. All right class, now that we are all here, I guess we can get started.  The Rising Star teacher still glared at 23.

23 tried not to make eye contact with her teacher, knowing she had already made him mad for the day.  There was nothing worse for Angel than starting the day already on a short leash.

Grunge, or 25, who sat next to Angel, elbowed her side under the table.

What? 23 whispered.

25 just gave his friend an eye roll and shook his head at her. 23 gave him a shrug back along with a ‘so what’ face.

"Okay, let’s start the day by reviewing our Rising Star freighter’s Etiquette handbook," RS80 said as he looked down at 23.

Ahh, grr, mmhh, ohh, the class filled with sighs and moans. A few pieces of wadded up paper flew in 23’s direction. She just chuckled a bit at her classmate’s demise.

Chapter Two

What’s in a Name?

Angel was once again running late. She was running down a passageway at full speed, sliding around all the turns. At least she wasn’t late for school today. Today was an off day. The freighter was getting ready to dock at a space city, so no school.  Everybody was getting ready for some space trading.

Angel was on her way to hook up with her friends.  She was supposed to meet Grunge,