Guardians

By J.S. Frankel

For Nick Sorvas, seventeen, and an orphan of the stars, Earth is but a distant memory. Carson’s Syndrome, a neurological disease caused by an unknown virus, has killed over eighty percent of the world’s population. Humanity’s only chance for survival is on another world.

Nick, his girlfriend, Julie Adams, and five other survivors, including her father, Teller Adams, the captain of a starship, leave Earth in search of another home.

They crash-land on another world very much like ours—but not. They are the only inhabitants, and so they attempt to forge a new life together.

Over time, they find out that their new world is called Xibreen, and that the former inhabitants are nowhere to be found. They have, however, left a considerable database of knowledge in a series of machines.
Planetary history, though, will have to wait, as Nick, Julie, and the others have to contend with three members of their crew mutinying, as well as a vicious invader known as the Vorde.

With few weapons, little training in warfare, and almost no hope, the small band of settlers decides to fight back any way they can. It’s only when Nick connects with one of the machines left behind that he finds out who the former inhabitants of Xibreen were, and what their real purpose was for leaving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Oct 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781487435530

Book preview

Finding another world to live on is one thing. Living on it and making a new life is another story. And when war comes, it’s time to survive—by any means possible.

For Nick Sorvas, seventeen, and an orphan of the stars, Earth is but a distant memory. Carson’s Syndrome, a neurological disease caused by an unknown virus, has killed over eighty percent of the world’s population. Humanity’s only chance for survival is on another world.

Nick, his girlfriend, Julie Adams, and five other survivors, including her father, Teller Adams, the captain of a starship, leave Earth in search of another home.

They crash-land on another world very much like ours—but not. They are the only inhabitants, and so they attempt to forge a new life together.

Over time, they find out that their new world is called Xibreen, and that the former inhabitants are nowhere to be found. They have, however, left a considerable database of knowledge in a series of machines.

Planetary history, though, will have to wait, as Nick, Julie, and the others have to contend with three members of their crew mutinying, as well as a vicious invader known as the Vorde.

With few weapons, little training in warfare, and almost no hope, the small band of settlers decides to fight back any way they can. It’s only when Nick connects with one of the machines left behind that he finds out who the former inhabitants of Xibreen were, and what their real purpose was for leaving.

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Guardians

Copyright © 2022 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-3553-0

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

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Smashwords Edition

Guardians

By

J.S. Frankel

Dedication

To my wife, Akiko, who makes my existence worthwhile, and to my children, Kai and Ray. And to Jennefer Rogers, Sara Linnertz, Joanne Van Leerdam, Eva Pasco, Toni Kief, Gigi Sedlmayer, and so many more, thank you. Most of all, thanks to my sister, Nancy Frankel, who has never given up on me.

Chapter One: Voyage Among the Stars

Space, somewhere in the Proxima Centauri Galaxy, four-point-two light-years from Earth. The year—2101. Middle of September.

Nick, we may have found a home.

I was in the cockpit of our vessel, the Valkyrie, and Captain Teller Adams, usually a gruff, taciturn sort, seemed to be in a good mood for once. He’d had a lot to contend with these past six months. Being the leader of a group of disparate personalities wasn’t easy, nor was it a job for the fainthearted.

My heart jumped at those words. Half a year in space, no planet capable of supporting human life, and now this. Are you sure?

The captain’s gaze never strayed from the console, and he spoke without looking up. Did you clean the cryos?

Way to change the subject! Yes, sir, that’s where I just came from.

By cryos, he meant the four hundred cryogenically frozen people on board. We called them cryos as a nickname. Their outer shells and circuit boards had to be kept clean at all times. The slightest bit of dust inside the equipment could short everything out.

Captains Adams swiveled around to favor me with a small smile before turning back to the console. Good. Where’s Julie?

He meant his daughter. Uh, she’s in the animal section.

We didn’t carry any live animals onboard. The section that Julie took care of held vials of the DNA of a hundred-plus species of animals. We also had cloning equipment on board. If we ever found a habitable Class M planet to live on, perhaps the animals would find a new home, too.

It was difficult to contain my excitement, but I managed—barely. You’re sure about this?

He nodded. Our long-range sensors have detected a Class M planet. Not in range, yet, perhaps forty minutes until we get more details, but what we know is that it’s third from the sun, has lakes and oceans similar to what Earth has, and we’re pretty sure that it has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.

So, it’s a wait-and-see job?

His manner changed back to his usual gruff mode. Don’t get your hopes up too high. I’m just saying that this might be our new home.

I hunched forward to get a better look at the screen. I couldn’t see much. Captain Adams ran his hands over the console, pressing buttons here, twisting levers there.

In his forties, Teller Adams had a head full of graying dark hair, a grizzled beard, a powerful six-foot-two-inch build, and thick hands and forearms.

He’d been an ex-soldier, a pilot with the US Air Force, and a champion boxer and judoka in his younger days. Not many men half his age wanted to tangle with him, and what he said was the law on our ship.

The cockpit of the Valkyrie, our vessel, was filled with instruments and cramped, with room enough for three people at most, and I had to stoop to fit inside. Fortunately, whenever Julie visited with me, I didn’t have to scrunch up too much. She was on the short side of five-three. That saved some space.

Captain Adams continued to speak while shifting his gaze from the console to the viewscreen. I’m thinking that this might be the place. It looks to be like our world, except for no moons orbiting it. But other than what I just told you, I can’t give you any extra information.

He jerked his thumb behind him. I still need you to work. Check on the people back there, but don’t tell anyone, not even Julie. I don’t want any major disappointments.

Yes, sir, I said and exited the cockpit.

As I walked through the ship’s narrow corridors, I thought about our past half-year in space and hoped that things might work out.

Julie and I, along with everyone else, had been in a quarantine facility with around two thousand others, trying to stay safe from a highly contagious and deadly virus that had killed three-quarters of the world’s population.

Manufacturing and animal husbandry went first, and the virus killed off most of the domesticated animals, too. Our world was on its way out. After so many billions of years of existence, Earth was about to be no more. Since our world was effectively dead, the leaders of our planet had decided to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

We’d blasted off along with the frozen occupants and our animal clones. Our main crew consisted of Doc Barton, our nurse, Emily Claiborne, Professor Marks, the captain, and Julie and me.

Oh, wait. Initially, there’d been more, one co-pilot and four technicians. The latter group members were experts in mechanical engineering, along with Tom Konnry, a guy in his mid-twenties who’d also said he was a technician.

Soon after we’d left Earth, we found out that he didn’t know anything about fixing machinery. He’d just managed to finagle his way onboard.

A strapping six-footer with overdeveloped pecs and biceps—and a total lack of any other developed body part—he’d first hit on Emily, who was in her mid-thirties, and then he’d tried to hit on Julie.

Captain Adams had come to his daughter’s defense when he’d seen Konnry massaging her shoulders in our cafeteria and the look of disgust on Julie’s face. She tried pushing him away, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The captain immediately slapped the man’s hands away and rammed him up against the wall, practically choking him. My daughter is seventeen. Touch her again, you won’t be able to feel your extremities—ever.

The message got through, and Konnry held back... only to go space-happy in month number three. I should have seen the signs. We’d all been told to watch for excessive nervousness, anxiety, withdrawal from social situations, and lowered comprehension ability. The captain told me later that he should have seen them as well.

Konnry had managed to bring over thirty bottles of Scotch onboard, and when he wasn’t drunk or leering at our female companions, he was singing dirty songs in his cabin at the top of his lungs, which annoyed the hell out of everyone.

Warnings didn’t help, and finally, he lost it entirely.

For some unknown reason, one day, he’d attacked Doc Barton, a man in his sixties, in the cafeteria and smashed a ketchup bottle over my head, stunning me.

Barton couldn’t fight back and ended up with a mild concussion. Konnry then grabbed a knife from the galley, stabbed two of the technicians to death, and ran down the corridor with the remaining techs and me hot on his heels, bleeding like a stuck pig.

We searched high and low, and finally, I found him in the airlock. He’d managed to take the other techs as well as our co-pilot hostage, holding them at bay with the knife. He’d already stabbed both techs, although they were still alive.

Konnry had also smashed the override command and began screaming incoherently. I can’t get him out, I said after I’d called the captain.

Captain Adams left the ship on autopilot and met me at the airlock. Konnry was jabbing his knife at his captives, wearing a silly grin and not answering the com-link. The co-pilot, a man named Sims, tried to reason with Konnry. He got his throat slashed for his efforts and bled out right there.

Konnry, this is Captain Adams, our captain said after he punched the intercom button. Open the door right now.

That was like telling a cat not to knock things off a shelf. A string of incomprehensible words greeted the captain’s command as Konnry’s finger hovered over the button to open the outer door. Drool ran down the sides of his mouth. His eyes spun like tops. He’d lost it entirely.

The two surviving techs begged him not to open the airlock. They begged—on their knees—and pleaded and cried, while Konnry’s finger moved ever closer to the button.

Mister, for the last time, I’m telling you not to do it, the captain said.

Konnry did. The door opened, and he and the others were sucked out. He was the last to go, still wearing his idiotic grin. I’d had nightmares for two weeks after that...

My physical headaches were one thing, but forty-eight hours after Konnry and company had decided to go on his one-way trip to nowhere, and after we’d held the funeral for the murdered techs and ejected their bodies into space, we discovered more bad news—the dunce trio of Darryl, his brother Larry, and their best friend, Stefon.

They’d stowed away, and it had taken all that time to find them out. It had all been too easy for them. Over a hundred ships had been slated to blast off from the site in Salt Lake City—five every day—and the situation went from the usual chaotic swirl of humanity to something totally beyond the control of the security guards.

Captain Adams hustled me and the others onboard, while those who had to wait decided not to. They wanted off this world in the worst way.

Between the supplies being loaded, the construction crews doing last-minute adjustments to the ship, and a full-scale riot breaking out, everything went into full panic mode.

Shots rang out. Jesus, someone’s shooting!

That came from a bystander, and more shots cut the air. Someone’s shooting? Yeah, no kidding!

A security guard checked our credentials and then waved us through. We all wore containment suits, and once on board, we took them off and dumped them in the waste disposal unit, burning them to erase any possibility of the virus getting in.

Darryl and company had somehow managed to get their hands on containment suits as well. They’d sneaked on board ahead of us. The Valkyrie was four-hundred feet in length by a hundred-ninety-feet in width, and since it was originally a cargo ship, there were a lot of empty holds. Most of the empty holds held the cryo-pods. We managed to store eighty in each of the largest storage rooms.

The idiot trio found refuge in one of the smaller holds. They’d stolen food from the galley from time to time. That was what had given them away, that and the trail of crumbs they left.

Once Captain Adams had found them out, he’d locked them in. Their pseudo-jail cell had a toilet and shower, and we delivered food twice a day.

Our prisoners hadn’t been overly accepting of their fate at first. Darryl Singleton, their leader, was eighteen, taller than me by a couple of inches but thinner, with dark hair, big hands, hooded eyes, and a lantern jaw like a horse.

His brother, Larry, was sixteen, also tall and rangy, with the same eyes, dark hair, and features.

Stefon Tode was their friend, seventeen, blond, on the short side of five-six, and very fat with a spotty complexion. He whined all the time about being cooped up. You got no right, he’d said. I need to eat, and—

Let me make this clear, the captain said. He always said that when he wanted to emphasize a point. You are prisoners. Maybe I’ll let you out if you behave.

Over their protests, Captain Adams had taken them to the airlock, guarding them with the ship’s sole laser pistol. Ever since the Konnry incident, he hadn’t let it out of his sight.

See that? he asked and pointed to the door. Challenge me, and you’ll be floating in space. You’ll have one second to regret your decision to oppose my command.

After that, they’d behaved, washing the dishes and doing other mundane jobs. They’d never gone into the cryo-rooms or the animal DNA holding areas. Just in case, we took turns guarding those rooms. The captain didn’t trust our teenage stowaways, and neither did anyone else.

I checked each cryo-room. Everything checked out, so I jogged over to the lounge. While doing so, I thought about what to tell everyone and remembered the captain’s words—say nothing.

Julie met me along the way. With long blonde tresses, a pretty, heart-shaped face, and a slightly chubby figure, she always retained her sunny disposition no matter how bad things got. Any news? she asked as she leaned up for a kiss.

Well, okay, no one was watching. I kissed her deeply, feeling her body mold itself to mine. Uh, nothing yet, I said when we broke our clinch.

Well, that still means we’ve got a chance. She turned her gaze to me with her azure-colored eyes, eyes that matched my own color.

Yeah, we’ve got a chance. How are things?

Quiet, she replied, adjusting her uniform. We all wore dark blue bodysuits, and hers always fit her too snugly. She sometimes complained about being on a diet but did so in a humorous manner.

Now, though, she tugged at the waistline and muttered something about cutting down on her food consumption. It wasn’t like we feasted on gourmet meals, anyway.

At the beginning of our voyage, we’d eaten regular food, with Emily pulling triple duty as our nurse, a guard, and a cook. A farm girl from Texas, she’d grown up on a ranch, so she was used to eating big.

Eggs and beef, those are my mainstays, she’d said in a drawl of an accent that dripped molasses. I like eating, and I don’t mind cooking for everyone.

Tall, dark-haired, slender, and plain-looking with a crooked smile—something she rarely showed—she knew how to cook. Everyone looked forward to her creations.

However, in month four of our journey, the refrigeration unit had broken down, so we ended up getting rid of our food stores and eating protein packs, which tasted like tuna fish and sludge. They were nutritious, but I longed for the day when I could eat regular food again...

Whoop! Whoop!

Julie started. That was the alarm.

A shudder from the ship underscored it, and the captain’s calm voice came through the intercom. Everyone, get to the lounge area. We’re going to land soon. Nick, if you haven’t already checked on the cryogenic units, do it now. Julie, check on the animal DNA banks. This isn’t going to be pretty.

Julie kissed me on the cheek and said she’d meet me at the lounge. Hurry back, she said and ran off down the corridor.

Before I left, I caught sight of myself in one of the portholes. Nick Sorvas, age seventeen, tall and rangy, a muscular ruler as someone had once described me.

Outside of my eyes, I had nothing else in the looks department to recommend me. Hatchet face, long nose, and dark hair. Julie still liked me, so that was something.

Whoop! Whoop!

The alarm continued to sound. I exited the room, turning on the fire alarm system just in case we had to make a forced landing. I had the feeling that this wasn’t going to be a soft ride in any way.

Chapter Two: Our New Home

Julie met me at the lounge entrance, panting from her run, and another shudder combined with a lurch almost took us off our feet. I grabbed her with one arm around her waist and used my free hand to hang onto a bulkhead. You okay? I asked.

Fine, she got out, still heaving in deep breaths. Nice reflexes.

I try. Animals still there?

My girlfriend disengaged herself from my grip. Just... just checked on the animal DNA storage room. Everything’s locked down and secured. The cloning machine is fine. You?

I nodded. All good.

We entered the room, noting that the other crew members had already arrived. The ship continued to shake, and the captain’s voice came through the intercom. Everyone, strap in. We’re going to land soon. Starboard engine is at less than half power. Port engine doesn’t look good, either. This is going to be rough.

His voice was terse. The lounge had a monitor, and Julie and I looked at the inky blackness of space and at the blue bauble that we were fast approaching. Is, uh, that where we’re going? she asked, pointing at the monitor.

Seems so, I answered as I strapped myself down in a gurney next to hers. I kicked myself mentally for not telling Julie the truth earlier on.

I didn’t like lying to anyone, particularly my girlfriend, but the captain had ordered it. Now, it didn’t seem to matter. Like your father said, it’s going to be soon.

Doc Barton, bald, bent, and withered by diabetes, time, and stress, nodded as we got ready. A short, taciturn man, he’d often been ill during our trip, but even so, he’d been a quiet, steadying force. Anyone who got sick or injured got treated immediately and without complaint.

Emily gave a quick, nervous shake of her head. Ship’s bucking something awful, she said, her eyes round. Y’all sure everything’s okay?

We’re going to land soon. That’s what the captain told me, I said. It’ll be all right.

Yeah, tell me all about it.

When she got nervous, her accent came out much thicker, like it was on steroids. She often played dumb, although she was anything but. Emily was highly qualified, and, like Doc Barton, she’d taken good