Saturn Vs Mars

By Jermaine A. Gardner

Saturn vs Mars is set in the year 2118, and all of the planets in our solar system are populated except earth. In that same year, the aliens who lived on Earth made an emphatic exodus known as The Second Great Escape. The aliens, who all have Aspergers syndrome, have setup a new thriving system based on their vision of an existence without ridicule and input from earths residents. They have established a system of government, economy, art, science, and education. There is lots of talent, imagination, and in-your-face truth. Over a century later, each of the characters, from the heroic Alt Tab to the villainous Dr. Demann, grapple with how this one event plays a role in how their lives have turned out and how they see everyone and everything around them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524648022

Jermaine A. Gardner

Jermaine Gardner—a classical, jazz, and contemporary pianist who happens to be blind and who creatively lives with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism—began playing classical piano while he was still in diapers. He was eight and a half months old. Jermaine listened to his, then four-year-old, brother Jamaal perform and then played exactly what his brother had been playing and hasn’t looked back. He made his public debut at age three and has performed all over the United States and in Japan. He also performed at the White House twice as well as with orchestras. Jermaine has absolute pitch and perfect recall and can play any piece that is put in front of him. Jermaine has performed with singer Stevie Wonder at the singer’s studio in California and has hung out with singer Cher at the White House while getting a bill passed in Congress. Jermaine, a graduate of the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music, has four CDs to his credit—The Night Shift, Home for the Holidays, Private Thoughts of a Woman, and The Incredible Journey. Jermaine became interested in writing while in elementary school and has written many songs and stories. Saturn vs Mars is Jermaine’s labor of love and his autobiographical version of what life would be like for “Aspies” if he had his way. This book is a mash-up of Star Wars meets The Chronicles of Narnia meets X-Men. Saturn vs Mars is a book about living creatively with Asperger’s syndrome and loving it. This book is dedicated to people with autism everywhere.

Book preview

Prologue

What up, people? My whole name is Arvea Alt Tab. I live on Saturn, respectively. People generally refer to me as Alt Tab, but my friends just call me Tab. I say Arvea Alt Tab to distinguish between my father, Arvea Nathan Tab, and me. Thank God in the third heaven my parents didn’t make me a Junior; that would have made me feel like the pocket version of something.

Admit it—isn’t that what you think when you hear the word junior? You don’t think, Wow! That’s a dude you gotta respect. No, you think, Okay, I know his father, so this one must be the pocket version. It’s like the home version of your favorite game show or the kid-sized version of a sandwich. Monopoly, Monopoly Jr. A Whopper, a Whopper Jr. See?

I was born in 2100. I think it’s cool that my birth set off the twenty-second century. I have a sister who is three years older than me, but her birthday doesn’t look as cool on a tablet screen as mine. Her birthday is July 17. She’s never had to be in school for her birthday, and that’s one of many things that make her überspoiled. It’s not that she’s more organized than I am; she isn’t. She’d be voted most likely to leave her head on a fleeing spaceship. It’s simply the fact that she was born first. She’ll never let me live that down.

My parents are named Arvea I and Caitlin. My father’s the secretary of defense for Saturn. That means he makes all the decisions about what the army does and where it goes. He also gets to fly with them on missions, which has happened more than a few times. He has an office in the basement where he works, so naturally all kinds of people are always trooping through our house, including senate members and superheroes.

My mother is a confectioner. Bump that. My mother is the confectioner. She has the most successful candy business in the solar system. I watched her come up with most of the stuff you’ll find in vending machines nowadays. If you are or have a toddler who throws fits in checkout lines, she’s probably why. Over the years, friends and foes alike have threatened to send her their and their children’s dental bills.

Chapter 1

The Escape

Brother dear? Will you be joining us for your own first day of college?

That was Tab’s older sister, Tzara. Hearing this, you might be tempted to think Tab was still upstairs in bed; nothing could have been further from the truth. That was just Tzara trying to sound like the responsible older sibling again. He and Tzara finished loading the last of their belongings into the back of the family’s 2109 NASA rocket.

When we get there, I don’t know you, said Tzara.

Eat bacon, you Jew, he retorted.

You little worm! cried Tzara.

Oh stop it! Tab said. You’re just mad because I think faster than you do. Besides, what makes you think I’ll even try to see you when I’m there anyway? I might be too busy ignoring you or—get this—building my own life.

Such was life on Saturn in 2118. It hadn’t always been this way, however. Just over a century earlier, there were no people on Saturn or any of the other planets besides Earth. In 2013, eight spaceships full of Earth’s aliens, each holding five thousand people, fled the planet. This event became known as the Second Great Escape. They named it after the 1947 event of the same name. After years of complaints from the earthlings about their habits, customs, and very existence, the aliens decided to leave the ungrateful people of Earth to fend for themselves. They settled on the other eight planets and built a new Alien Republic. Another reason for the escape, as it was known, was that Earth was the one subject that seemed to divide aliens.

Whenever they seemed to be at odds with each other, which was rare, the subjects of Earth and its people weren’t far off. They had read about the Marble civil war. They just couldn’t see themselves dividing permanently and fighting, spying on, and killing each other just to make them happy.

Andre Tab, great-grandfather of Alt Tab, followed the way of those such as Charles Xavier, who felt the way of peace would prevail. The earthlings would eventually see the error of their ways, and they could all coexist. This was not the case on the other side of the aisle. The leader of the opposing faction was Julius Demann. His group followed the ways of those like Magneto, the super villainous character from X-men.. Their philosophy was simple: the only good earthling was a dead one.

They had proven many times and in many ways that they felt the same way about aliens in general. Try as he might, Julius couldn’t understand people like Tab. It seemed that the meaner the earthlings were, the nicer Tab got. Julius sometimes thought Andre did that just to get on his and his faction’s nerves. Did Tab really think that damned Martin Luther King thing would work?

Julius was in charge of the spaceship bound for Mars. When the day came, the Martian ship was the first to leave. It was decided that anyone who wanted to join the Artemis Party could leave with Julius. The ship was completely full. Julius wasn’t alone in his thinking; many people felt as he did. Andre had a bad feeling that they hadn’t heard the last of Julius and his party. Surprisingly, he was wrong about that.

Julius settled on Mars, became involved in the fledgling Martian government, and led a quiet life on the Red Planet. It was his youngest son, Darius, who set Mars on the villainous path that is the focus of this story. Darius grew up on his father’s ideologies and space-tube videos. There was a clear record of the alien council’s business. Most of their meetings took place over video links.

He took his father’s ideas one critical step further. Once they had settled on their respective planets, the aliens began setting up the necessities of civilizations, including armies and police forces, the cosmic cops. Though they still used the terms army, navy, air force, and marines to describe the corresponding divisions, this general term referred to those who served on land, sea, or air.

The organizations had names such as the Martian Manhunters and the Venusian Gods. Saturn’s cosmic cops force was called the Saturn Defense Squad (SDS). Other cosmic cop forces formed on the other planets as well. This was the beginning of the post escape world known as the New Alien Republic.

Chapter 2

College Bound

The rocket finally landed on the landing strip of Millennium University. Everyone started unloading cargo.

Well son, said Arvea, this is it.

Tab would be staying in Sputnik Hall. He and Arvea began rolling suitcases down the hallway to his room.

This is the first day of the rest of your life, Arvea said.

I’m ready to get on with it, Tab said.

Caitlin was helping move Tzara into her room in Newton Hall, a block away. Once Tab had gotten things sufficiently situated, he joined the crowd of students on the landing strip. He ran into Tzara again just as students began gathering around her. She introduced Tab to them.

Hi, said one boy. I’m Nigal. He extended his hand. You’ll enjoy it here.

You think so? Tab asked.

Yeah. At least you don’t have to figure out how to dress. I’m from Venus, and it’s my third year. I’m just now getting the hang of it.

I’ve heard that people on the hot rocks have that problem, said Tab, referring to the fact that Venus and Mercury were known as the hot rocks.

Take it from me—they do.

Tzara introduced Tab to an assortment of other characters who seemed to him to be straight out of a cartoon. He met Leja Rover, a Martian goth who was a music major. She played laser guitar and led a band called Mars Hill that played in the campus cafe the last Wednesday of every month. Then there were students in his own year such as his roommate, Gamma Ray Picard. He was there on a cloud-surfing sports scholarship, which was exactly what it sounded like—surfers riding the clouds on surfboards. A few of Tab’s grade-school classmates surfed, but he’d never done it himself.

Another character in his year was Aqua Velvet, a mermaid from Venus. As was Tab, she was a planetary defense major, but unlike Tab, she was meta-human in that she possessed the ability to liquefy. Tab thought that someone who could hide in a water bottle would prove invaluable on spy missions. Throughout