The Phoenix Project: Masters of Andromeda PART ONE

By Dino Duet

In the late 1960s', there was Gene Rodenberry's "Star Trek", followed by Gene Rodenberry's "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in the 1980s'. In the years 1977-1983, there was George Lucas's "Star Wars". Now, there is Dino Duet's "Masters of Andromeda", in the 2020s', and it follows these great writers with its profoundness! With no "political addenda" of the modern day "Science Fiction", Dino Duet continues where these great writers have left off, and goes even further! "Masters of Andromeda" combines the great visions of these pioneers of Science fiction, and takes it a step further! This new saga brings home, to our Earth, the combination of these great stories in a way that cannot be truly fathomed, until you read these incredible pages! As written by the mysterious race of the "Thurtian" people, for the first time all those of the planet Earth get to learn what it is like in the galaxy of Andromeda! Once these pages are read, from the entries of the "Thurtian race" that witnessed these incredible events that transpired in the "Andromeda Galaxy", the information cannot be unlearned! It will become the single most important documentation of alien worlds that has ever been undertaken! All who read these entries will be irrevocably changed, forevermore!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663259233

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Copyright © 2024 Dino Duet.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-5896-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5923-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023924232

iUniverse rev. date: 01/12/2024

CONTENTS

The Author’s Prologue

Chapter 1   Interview With a Malonoid Female

Chapter 2   Commander Selections

Chapter 3   Interview with Viceroy

Chapter 4   Launch of The Phoenix Project

Chapter 5   Declassified!

Chapter 6   The Mirror Barrier

Chapter 7   Regrouping

Chapter 8   Consolidation

Chapter 9   The Final Countdown

Chapter 10  The Battle of The Phoenix Project

Chapter 11  Captured to Death

Chapter 12  Interview with Viceroy 2

THE AUTHOR’S PROLOGUE

9-20-2022 (1:11 P.M.)

I write these words now a little more than 50 years of me being on this planet and I am certainly grateful this work has finally begun, again. This series, Masters of Andromeda has literally been in my head for 40 years now, having begun in the summer of 1982. Although when I first attempted to write this saga, I was only 10 years old and was just basically killing time while I was with my mother at her place of employment, which was much cheaper than paying for a babysitter for me no doubt, hehe.

I used a typewriter in an unoccupied office at the time and was able to write a great many pages of this story before the summer ended. I am unsure how many pages were written at the time, since that original draft has been lost over the years, but it was thick, approximately 75-100 pages. Although I was unable to finish what was then a short story, I nevertheless entered it in a short story contest during the school year of 1982-1983. Needless to say, the plot was so long and involved that it blew away any competition, from my fellow 10-year-old peers, and I doubt that the judges even bothered to read the whole thing before awarding me the blue ribbon, otherwise they would have noticed the story was incomplete, hehe. I remember during the contest, when all of the short stories were presented in the school library for all to read, that when I would pick up a story written by one of my peers, I was shocked to see how short these short stories actually were. If I remember correctly, the longest one, second only to mine, was only 10 pages long! I just couldn’t fathom how a story could have a beginning, middle, and end, but be only a few pages long! Considering that fact, there was little doubt in my mind why my story got 1st place, even though it was incomplete and was not really short by the standards of an average 10-year-old writer.

Now, to make this clear, anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not one to brag about myself. I quite simply state facts as I know them to be true. I am quite sure my story was not a best seller by any stretch of the imagination, back in 1982. Although I never got back to writing that story until today, it has still been a part of me for all these years. Through dreams, mostly day dreams, and visions of that story in my mind, it managed to stay alive all these years and got so long and involved that I feared I would never actually have the time to write it, but that has now changed.

I chose not to write this story before my Human Dinosaurs series for that very reason. Although I did have the idea for Human Dinosaurs in my head since 1985, I knew that the series wasn’t as involved and complex as Masters of Andromeda, so I chose to write the Human Dinosaurs series first. At the time I started writing that series, in 2004, my life was very chaotic, so I knew that if I had to stop writing for any reason, I could simply pick up where I left off easily. The Human Dinosaurs series was based largely on diary entries and recordings from the time period, so a stop and start manner of writing was possible. However, with Masters of Andromeda, that will not be the case.

Now that I am retired, unmarried, have no kids, and can lock myself away from the world for days at a time, I finally felt the time was right to try and write this VERY long saga with a reasonable chance of success. In fact, the first chapter I am going to start writing today, Interview with a Malonoid Female, is already completed in my head, I only need to sit down and write it out. After months of it playing out in my head, day and night since I moved into this house in Maxwell, NM, I will no doubt be writing this chapter very quickly. I intend to start on that right away today, since I think that putting this project on hold for 40 years is quite long enough, hehe.

As is tradition with all of my big projects, I have chosen to start writing on a birthday of someone who inspired the creation of one of the main characters of the story. With Human Dinosaurs, I chose my own birthday, but today I chose the birthday of the person who the character of Meknew is based largely upon. To that end, I dedicate that first chapter and this first book of the series to Kristie Lynn Arceneaux, and Andrea Evans (who passed away in 2023, during the primary writing of this first book). God willing, the project will be completed before I pass on and will justify God’s gifts given me by accomplishing his Will for my life. It is my deepest wish that I do not fail God and that this work will ultimately help to do God’s Will through others inspired by the reading of this saga.

Dino Duet

CHAPTER 1

INTERVIEW WITH A MALONOID FEMALE

This historical entry was recorded primarily by Thurtian Advocate of Truth: Phoenix sector 003 aboard the main section of Phoenix Project vessel 01 before the vessel was completed and officially launched. This interview was conducted while this main section was orbiting the planet Malontia and before the vessel’s completion shortly after on planet Cabel. This entry was made 55 days into the war between the Cabel Alliance and the Zazson Empire. Although the presence of Advocate of Truth: Phoenix sector 003 was unexpectedly exposed during this interview, we believe the possible historical corruption was kept to a minimum, since the Cabelian, Commandant Adonment, intervened in a timely manner. This historical record is the Earth English version, as translated and approved by the Thurt Historical Advocacy, and contains no known falsities of any kind...

Being a Malonoid female on her first visit aboard a Cabel Alliance military vessel was bad enough, but to have to wait for an undetermined amount of time was simply becoming intolerable to her. Since she was impatient by nature, as most Malonoids are known to be, she pulled out her Malonoid Puzzle Ball from her left sidesaddle to pass the time. Although she had never solved this puzzle on her own, and in fact had been working on this particular unsolved configuration for months without success, she nevertheless continued to try to solve this puzzle at this time. With her back facing the entrance of this meeting room, she used the large table in front of her to roll her puzzle ball back and forth in an attempt to solve what seemed to her to be an unsolvable puzzle.

She chose to stand up and face away from the entrance to this meeting room to concentrate more fully on the puzzle ball, rolling it freely all over the very accommodating length of the table, which was approximately 20 foot in length and 4 foot wide. She was already quite overwhelmed by the size of this meeting room she was asked to wait in, and she was feeling very uneasy in the presence of the strange childlike statue she noticed in the corner near the entrance.

Although this statue, as she perceived it to be, was only 4 feet tall and not very intimidating in appearance, it appeared to be a statue of a race of beings she had never seen before. It was not a catlike Malonoid, nor was it a birdlike Cabelian, which were the only 2 races she had seen in person. Instead, it appeared to be a statue of a hairless, featherless, completely bald, light gray skinned being, with a large head, and very large slanted black eyes. There were also no pupils in the eyes of the statue that she could see. It was also dressed in a plain black uniform she did not recognize. The statue had eyes 5 times bigger than her own eyes, being approximately 4-5 inches wide and 2 inches in height. Just being a statue of a creature that was unlike any she had ever seen before was enough to make her nervous, so she chose to turn away from its lifeless glare. At this time, she assumed it could be a statue of a Cabelian fledgling, since she had never seen what they looked like. Perhaps it was that Cabelian fledglings had no feathers when they were born and only grew them later on, she thought to herself. This made the most sense, being that the little feathered creatures on her home world of Malontia, known as chitchits, were born bald and also had unusually large eyes when young, so why not the fledgling Cabelians as well? However, it was a question she pondered only briefly. As for the statue being in the room in the first place, Cabelians as far as she knew only had such things around as some sort of decoration, in what was otherwise a completely blank white room void of any decoration of any kind, with the exception of the slightly modified standard banner of the Cabel Alliance that appeared on the wall of every room on the ship. She also intended to show her disapproval of being made to wait by making sure whoever walked in only saw her from behind.

To be clear on this, the standard Cabel Alliance symbol was a triangle, with a large round eye in the center, and 3 lightning like bolts leading from the eye to the 3 edges of the triangle. This symbol represented the 3 races of beings in this alliance, as did the eye as well. The round eye was black in color, with the pupils being the combination of both the Cabelian and Malonoid races. Cabelians had round pupils, whereas Malonoids had vertically slanted pupils, so the combination of the 2 was interesting to see to say the least. The slight modification of this standard Cabel Alliance symbol was the addition of a Phoenix type creature in the center of the symbol, which looked as though it was about to fly out of the triangle. This became the symbol of The Phoenix Project, and was in fact a new addition made after the war began, thus it was a very new symbol.

In any case, despite her nervous state, she tried to make the best use of this time while awaiting her interview with the ship’s commandant to begin. She also felt she needed a distraction at this point, being that she was also beginning to fear what the size of the room indicated. This large meeting room gave her the impression that she would have to deal with a group of interviewers, instead of just the one person she was told would be involved. It was just yet another thing, in a list of things, that annoyed her about the Cabelians in general. They just had to have everything so large and wide open, with a 20-foot tall ceiling, when a simple closet like space should have been adequate for an interview involving just 2 people. In fact, Malonoids preferred closed in spaces in general, whereas the Cabelians were completely the opposite, being that they enjoyed using their wings in flight as often as possible. Also, to have only a banner on the wall, with the standard Eye of the Cabel Alliance with the additional Phoenix, and only the small statue in the room, as any kind of decoration, just furthered her opinion that Cabelians had no real imagination. At this point, she just did her best to ignore her own instinctive desire to leave the room abruptly and forget the whole thing, but fortunately the wait was over before she could act on this impulse.

The door to the meeting room opened suddenly and the commandant entered very quickly, with the door automatically closing just as suddenly behind him. It was clear by the way he quickly approached the meeting room table, where the Malonoid female was still nonchalantly playing with her puzzle ball, that he wanted to get this interview done and over with as quickly as possible!

Unfortunately for the commandant, this Malonoid felt that since she was made to wait this long, she would drag things out a bit herself just out of spite! Although the waiting time for the commandant was only a few minutes, in Malonoid time it was much longer than she wanted to wait under any circumstances!

At this point, the commandant had the desire to immediately bark out orders to this disrespectful Malonoid, but since this was technically not yet someone under his command, he hesitated. During this hesitation, he found himself instantly fascinated with this interesting looking creature now before him. For many years, the commandant had several male Malonoid soldiers under his command, but this would be the first time he had ever seen a Malonoid female in the flesh, or in any other way for that matter.

She was not what he expected to see, to say the least. Here before him was this odd looking creature that not only showed incredible disrespect by ignoring him when he first entered the meeting room, but she also did not look anything like what he expected a Malonoid female to look like! With her back still facing him, he began to look at her very carefully, noticing that not only was she much smaller and shorter than expected, standing at only 5 feet tall, she had many features a Malonoid male did not. She was dressed in a very strange manner as well. The commandant was expecting an appearance more like the many Malonoid male soldiers under his command, which were broad shouldered, muscular, and wearing the standard warriors’ armor that covered most of their body.

In fact, Malonoid males were very well known for their strength and enormous physical size, which was 25% wider overall than their Cabelian male counterparts. Although Cabelian males on average were quite tall, being 7 feet in height and 2 feet wide from should to shoulder, Malonoid males were on average only 6 foot tall, but 2 and a half feet wide from should to shoulder. All Malonoids were covered in short fur from head to toe, with longer hair on their heads and necks, but the males had very bland colored fur, with darker tones of gray and brown. However, this Malonoid female had very bright colored fur with a strange mixture of bright red and yellow colors. The hair on her head was also much longer than an average Malonoid male, measuring 2 feet long, whereas the males rarely had head hair longer than 1 foot in total length. Also, from shoulder to shoulder she measured only 1 and a half foot in width, with a slender waist and rather large hips. There was no armor on her body of any kind, unlike the shiny silver colored armor of the standard Malonoid soldier, but instead there was just a leathery dark green outfit that barely covered her breasts and rear end, which at this time had 2 sidesaddles on her hips for carrying items. This is where the commandant stopped looking her over and was practically hypnotized by the sight of her long swinging tail! Up until this point, the commandant did not even know Malonoids could have a tail at all! Measuring 3-foot long and 1 inch and a half in width, this tail was certainly something that he could not ignore, so he continued to stare at it intensely as it swung to and fro before him!

At this moment, the tail began to swing more wildly as he stared at it, so the tail was instantly caught in the tight grasp of the Malonoid female’s right paw, which now kept the tail completely immobile.

Please STOP starrring at my tail. It is considerrred VERRRY rude by my PEOPLE!, she stated in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. The trill in her raspy voice got stuck on certain words that had the letter r in them, but that did not surprise the commandant, being that it was a normal Malonoid trait for them when speaking the Cabelian language.

How do you know I am even staring at you at all? You didn’t even acknowledge that I entered the room and you have yet to even face me!, the commandant said with outrage!

Well...I can FEEL your stare on my tail. You Cabelians have a parrrticularly strong stare and it feels like... she replied quickly, but then stopped short of finishing her sentence for some reason and simply changed the subject. Look, I almost have this puzzle solved, so I just need a few more minutes to finish it. You made me wait this long, so I expect the same courrrtesy from you! she replied quickly and to the point! However, this time estimate was clearly not true, since she had never solved this puzzle before, and in fact had no idea if she was even close to solving it!

Nevertheless, the commandant now became very curious and approached her casually to see exactly what puzzle was so important that she felt she could not even turn around to face him. It turned out to be a puzzle he was all too familiar with, so he was able to correct this time estimate, immediately.

Well...to be frank about it, at the rate you are going, we could wait here for many years, and you would still be trying to solve that puzzle without success. he pointed out very bluntly.

Oh, RRREALLY? You are an experrrt at this puzzle, are you? she asked sarcastically. This is when she finally turned around and faced the commandant, now looking him over intensely. She had seen Cabelians before, but this particular one was very interesting to her in appearance.

He had on a uniform with gold colored armor that she did not recognize, with many military medals of honor. The standard Cabel Alliance logo, identical to the large banner in this meeting room, was on his chest, but did not include the Phoenix. It was the standard logo that included a green triangle, a black eye in the center, with 3 bolts of lightning coming out of it, and the 2 pupils representing Malonoid and Cabelian races. However, there were other medals and symbols on his armor she had never seen before, which included the very interesting looking gold medal that identified him as the commandant of The Phoenix Project. This did include the Phoenix, and was identical to the banner on the wall of this meeting room. It was also the largest medal on his chest, so it was quite obvious! Also, his plumage was particularly bright, containing colors of white, green, and dark black all over his body, with white primarily on his face, in patterns that were certainly unique to say the least. Although he had the expected narrow shoulders of an average Cabelian, compared to Malonoid males, and was the average height of 7-feet tall, he also had a noticeable 2-inch scar on his upper lip, which was right below his rather larger than average 6-inch yellow noselike beak. She also noticed that his bright yellow left eye was particularly strange, since most Cabelians had average light brown eye color. More importantly, this particular Cabelian had a stare that was most unique, being that it seemed to somehow project his current emotional state to her, even without making full eye contact, but she was unsure how that could even be possible! As a Malonoid female, this was part of her gifts that were so sought after by the Cabel Alliance at this point in the war, but for her to be able to read so much from him so soon was not among those known gifts at all!

In any case, because of the shape of the Cabelian head and the length of their beaks, it was only possible to see one of his eyes at any particular time, but she assumed his right eye was as equally intense as his left. Although she considered Cabelians to be bizarre looking in general, surprisingly the commandant actually had color patterns in his plumage that were quite pleasing to her kittylike Malonoid eyes in this moment.

Since the commandant was already insulted by her apparent arrogant behavior, he had yet to even bother to make solid eye contact with her at all at this point!

I’m not an expert, but these puzzles do not really require an expert to solve them. I had one of these puzzles as a fledgling and mastered it in only a few days. Your problem is that you are trying to solve it by using colors alone. You will never solve this puzzle using that tactic. You have to look at the puzzle as if it were a math problem. Once you go at it like that, only then can you solve it, but if you don’t use math, you will certainly NEVER solve it no matter what you do. the commandant said very quickly and to the point.

Uuugh! I hate math! I am verrry good at languages, but I am an idiot when it comes to math. she said emotionally with disgust! Okay, misterrr math experrrt, if you are so great at this puzzle, how about you show me you can solve it? she challenged him, now speaking her words in a very fast Malonoid manner, in a sarcastic tone.

So, you won’t mind if I solve this puzzle for you, right now? It will only take me a few minutes. he stated bluntly, still just looking at the puzzle ball and not at her at all.

Now genuinely interested and dropping her sarcastic tones for the moment, she replied seriously No, go ahead. I have been worrrking on it for a while, but I can always mess it up again and start overrr. I am verrry good at that, hehe. she continued with a small grin now forming on her kitty face.

Without another word spoken, the commandant was handed the 7 inch round ball and he quickly went to work on the puzzle by first holding down on a single point on the ball for approximately 5 seconds. This initiated the puzzle’s random mix mode and utterly destroyed her original configuration! The object of the puzzle was to have the entire ball colored in black, so she thought for sure she had made great progress by having half the ball colored black, thus assuming she had half of the puzzle already solved. However, in only a few seconds, he totally destroyed what she had worked on, over months of time, and now had what looked like a totally messed up ball with not even one part colored in black at all! The ball now displayed all 6 different colors scattered all throughout the ball, with its many colored points hopelessly disorganized! This upset her to say the least, but she said nothing for now and only showed him a contemptuous kitty face! Not that he noticed, since he continued clearly ignoring her completely at this point!

Although Cabelians are known to primarily use only 3 of their 4 fingers on each hand, he used all 8 digits combined from both hands to roll and swing the many colored points of the puzzle all over the ball. Unlike Malonoids, who instinctively enjoyed rolling the ball around on a surface of a table, or on a floor, to match up the floating 6 colored points, numbering 54 total, the commandant just kept the ball stationary in his hands while working the colored points with his fingers alone. The 54 points of 6 different colors inside the ball responded to each command from his fingers effortlessly. These colored points swirling swiftly around in their special liquid like environment had become impossible for her to even keep up with at this point! Although the puzzle handed to him already had 50% of its surface colored black, to solve the puzzle the ball had to be colored 100% in black. At this point, the commandant had no black points completed in the ball at all, and her catlike eyes could see no chance of any black parts being completed in the near future, which created a great anger within her!

After a few moments of constantly swirling the colors around very swiftly, the commandant stopped and asked her what now seemed like a pointless question. What do you think about what I have done so far?

Well...if I wanted it completely messed up like that, I could have done that myself! I could have done that quite easily actually! she said with a very annoyed tone in her kittylike voice. She now felt that this idiot was just trying to make her mad at this point! She also felt very angry that her months of work on this puzzle was just ruined arbitrarily, perhaps just to pay her back for her earlier disrespect to him!

No, you don’t understand. I am now only 7 moves away from solving the whole puzzle. the commandant said bluntly.

Out of complete disbelief and astonishment, she shouted No way! You are just joking with me, right?

No, I am not. he replied very seriously. Without another word, he did exactly 7 more moves on the puzzle and it was then completely solved, showing the entire sphere colored in the desired 100% black color! The ball then played a perky musical melody, just as this puzzle ball was known to do when it was in its final solved form! He then just simply tossed the puzzle ball back to her nonchalantly!

She then finally released her tail she captured earlier and caught the ball in midair with her front paws, which was an easy task for a Malonoid to do with their very well-known quick reflexes. As she now held this puzzle ball in her paws for the first time completely solved, after months of having it in unsolved form, it simply overwhelmed her! Oh...oh...OH...WOW! she shouted with genuine appreciation, now rolling the ball in her paws to confirm it was now totally black. She was absolutely stunned! This Cabelian, whom she was beginning to think was just arrogant and spiteful, did in only a few moments what she could not do herself, after months of concentrated effort! After a few seconds of delightful contemplation, she shook her head swiftly, put her puzzle ball back in her left sidesaddle pocket, and snapped to attention. Okay! I thought today would be rrreally borrring, but I am starrrting to have some real fun now! Oookay!.

The commandant, still seeming to be in a hurry, took this opportunity to ignore what she said and instead went straight to asking her questions.

Being an experienced military leader, solving puzzles are my specialty. It has always come very naturally to me, otherwise I would have never even been considered for the commandant post of this project. The puzzle of this war needs to be solved quickly too...that much is certain. In any case, how did you know I was staring at your tail when I first walked in? Do you have eyes in the back of your head? he asked, part in jest and part because he was actually starting to believe it might be possible with this bizarre looking creature!

While waiting for an answer, he finally looked into her eyes for the first time and found himself once again very confused. Her eyes were slightly larger than that of an average Malonoid male’s, but what shocked him the most was that her irises were completely white! He had seen the eyes of the many Malonoid males under his command quite often over the years, being that it was his personal command style to look a soldier in the eyes when giving them important orders. Never had the commandant ever seen anything other than shades of brown in a Malonoid’s eyes. However, this Malonoid had solid white irises, the complete absence of any color of any kind! More and more, he began to feel that something was wrong about this creature before him! The question primarily in his mind at this point was how could this creature possibly be a Malonoid at all?

Now that his ignorance of Malonoid females had become very apparent with his last question, she now responded in a cocky manner. Oooh, okay, so you rrreally just do not know ANYTHING about Malonoids, do you? she asked, now with a full toothy grin!

The sight of her unusual looking teeth disturbed the commandant greatly! Not even her teeth looked anything like the teeth of the hundreds of Malonoid males he had met and known all throughout his life! At the top portion of her mouth, she had 2 long 3-inch fang-like incisors that were now shown to him for the first time! Malonoid males only had 1-inch incisors in that part of their mouth, at the most! He could take this mass confusion, no longer!

Excuse me for a moment. I must check on something...right now! the commandant said with very clear annoyance in his voice. With a touch of his rarely used left middle talon onto the surface of the wall nearest to them on the left, the wall lit up with a bright blue color interface in a square 4-feet by 4-feet in size.

A ship’s computer interface now came online, with the text Recognize Commandant Adonment at the top of the screen, but nothing more. Apparently the computer was now waiting for a verbal command.

Villemvonheimerstein report to the meeting room. the commandant said, now closing the interface with the same talon. The computer beeped briefly, confirming the request was sent, and then shut itself off leaving the blank lifeless white wall as it was before. At the same time, audio echoed throughout the ship repeating the command very loudly for all aboard the ship to hear.

In the void, these 2 very different and confused beings simply stared at each other, but said not a word. Commandant Adonment alternated from staring at this creature intensely with his left eye, which is the only eye he used to look at her up to this point, to looking at her again with his right eye. At this point, it was as if he expected his right eye to see something his left eye did not, but nothing changed about her strange appearance! Also, as she predicted, his right eye was the same color and just as intense as his left eye. Nevertheless, she continued to simply smile at him with her intimidating looking carnivorous teeth! She no doubt was getting a great deal of pleasure out of making this great commander of many feel hopelessly uncomfortable! In fact, she took a great deal of pleasure out of it indeed! After only a few moments, the awkward silence was interrupted by Villemvonheimerstein entering the meeting room in great haste.

He was an average size Malonoid male, with a slightly shorter stature, just shy of 6 foot tall, and slightly broader than average Malonoid shoulders. His fur was a light brown color and he wore the uniform of a standard Malonoid soldier, but gold in color instead of silver, which indicated that he was the rank of commander of a Malonoid infantry group. His timely arrival was aided by his standard issue wheeled combat boots, which allowed him to travel at very high speeds throughout the ship.

Alrrright, Adon, how is it going so far? Villemvonheimerstein asked very nonchalantly, now just standing by the newly opened door. With a touch of a finger to a point on his belt at his waist, the wheels on his combat boots tucked away, now allowing him to walk normally.

Commandant Adonment met Villemvonheimerstein at the door and took him immediately outside of the meeting and closed the door abruptly with a wave of his hand to the outside sensor.

Okay, I want you to go in there and get a REALLY good look at that...person in there. the commandant said very quickly, but was now clearly struggling to even define what she was at this point.

Without a word, Villemvonheimerstein waved his hand to the door sensor, which opened the door immediately, and entered the room alone. He gave a good look at the Malonoid female standing near the meeting room table, as she now faced the open door. He very much enjoyed what he saw, so he stared at her, from head to toe, intensely! After only looking at her for a few moments, he looked her in the eyes and said to her a phrase in their native Malonoid language: Rrrit rrouit, to which she responded by simply smiling with a full toothy grin, and blinked her eyes at him slowly.

Once back outside the meeting room with the door closed, Villemvonheimerstein bluntly asked Okay, I saw her, so what is the prrroblem?.

Is that...or is that NOT a Malonoid female?, the commandant asked very seriously, staring him in the eyes with his left eye sharply.

Villemvonheimerstein was utterly confused by the question, but now having Adonment’s emotions sent to him in the stare, he answered nonchalantly. Yep, that is one of our females. She is prrretty hot too! I would mate with her in a hearrrtbeat! Sooo, what is the prrroblem?

The problem is that she looks so different from your kind that I thought it could be a totally different species! I mean, I was beginning to think someone was playing a VERY stupid joke on me! What the HELL, Vill?, the commandant asked very quickly, now using Villemvonheimerstein’s abbreviated name. Since Villemvonheimerstein was known for his practical jokes, the commandant was beginning to think it was just him trying to mess with his head as usual.

Look, Adon, otherrr than the fact that she is a little shorrrter than one of our averrrage females, and she is prrretty damn HOT too, she is just a norrrmal looking Malonoid female. Villemvonheimerstein said bluntly, now using the commandant’s abbreviated name instead of saying his full name Adonment. Years of friendship between them had long ago dropped the formality that would normally be expected.

The commandant now knew it could not be a joke played on him by Villemvonheimerstein, since his simple jokes were never this elaborate! The look in Villemvonheimerstein’s eyes also gave away the fact that he was being very sincere. His jokes normally failed because of his inability to keep a serious look in his eyes long enough to be believable to the commandant. That being the case, the commandant continued, now feeling confident that this was no joke, at least not one of Villemvonheimerstein’s jokes. My friend, when she showed me her teeth, it made a chill go up my spine! I mean really...is that normal?, the commandant asked very seriously!

Yeah, you betterrr get used to that if you are going to have her arrround a lot, HA HA HA!, Villemvonheimerstein said bluntly with a hardy laugh. Look, I was in the middle of eating, so can we talk about this laterrr?

Yes, my friend, go ahead, but I will have a LOT of questions for you later. the commandant replied, equally bluntly.

Indeed! HA HA HA!, he replied, obviously made very amused by this whole situation! Villemvonheimerstein then immediately reengaged the wheels on his combat boots and skated away at top speed, which was quite fast using his muscular Malonoid legs.

When Commandant Adonment opened the door to return to the meeting room, he was greeted by yet another unexpected sight! The Malonoid female was now at the entrance, clearly having her large right ear fully opened and up against the door! The big surprise was not that she was trying to listen in, it was her very large, fully extended, 10-inch ear on the top of her head that surprised the commandant! Once again, this Malonoid female had a feature unlike Malonoid males! Her ears were 5 times the size of that of a Malonoid male, when fully opened! Up until this point, she had her ears tucked away under her long strawberry blond head hair and out of sight, so it looked to him like she just grew a huge ear during the brief time he had left the room! This continued to baffle the commandant to no end!

You just keep looking stranger and stranger. the commandant said slowly, now totally stunned!

Well...my ears work as good as they look. I heard everrry word you both said to each otherrr just now. Sooo, yeah, what IS the prrroblem? she asked very quickly with a grin.

You think I don’t know anything about Malonoids, but as you can see one of my best friends IS Malonoid and... he continued, but was interrupted.

No, that was a male Malonoid. We do not just look like we could be a differrrent species, we also ACT like we are a differrrent species. she said pointedly!

After only a moment of silence, the commandant continued in the same pointed manner. Alright, I don’t have time for games, so I’m just going to take it on faith that you are just an eccentric Malonoid female, and continue this interview. After all, if this turns out to just be an elaborate joke, the person behind this will simply be blown out of the nearest airlock...by MY command! I don’t have time for games today! the commandant stated in a deadly serious manner.

All expression, save for a deadly serious expression on her face, was now instantly gone! She stared deep into the commandant’s left eye and now knew instinctively deep inside that he meant every word he just said! In fact, she could now feel it was true somehow! It was not until this very moment that her tail now became lifeless and stopped swinging completely! Her right ear was now tucked back away and hidden under her long head hair along with her left ear; as it was earlier. Suddenly this interview became something she, for the first time today, now truly feared, as she instinctively held her breath for a moment!

As expected, the commandant now took control of this situation, immediately. Sit down! the commandant said as he walked back to the large meeting room table and pulled out a chair for her. She sat down quickly, but used the chair in reverse, so that the back of the chair would not interfere with her tail. Facing the door and the commandant, she now gave him her full attention for the first time! However, the commandant, like most Cabelians, did not sit. He instead preferred to stand and continued to face away from the door. First off, I am Commandant Adonment of this first warship of the new Phoenix Project. For the record, what is your name and rank? he now asked her most seriously!

I do not have a name...yet. she replied softly, but followed it up quickly with information she thought would save the most time. I do not have a rank eitherrr. I am going to assume you are not playing a joke on me as well, so I will talk to you as I would someone who trrruly does not know anything about Malonoid females, to be...efficient.

This word efficient in the Cabelian language was carefully chosen, since she knew Cabelians valued efficiently very highly, and her study of the Cabelian language was quite thorough.

Indeed! By all means, continue! the commandant said with excitement, while curling his primary right talon at her to indicate he wanted more without delay!

As is normal with Malonoids, both male and female, she began speaking very fast, after taking in a deep breath. We females do not get a name until we are of age to be bonded with a Malonoid male. Afterrr bonding, the male chooses a name for the female and the female will carrry this name with her until eitherrr both of them die, or if the male dies first we carrry that name until we get a differrrent name from the next male we bond with. In this case, if we bond, you will have to choose a name for me and that will be my name until you die and I am bonded to someone else. she said rapidly without even taking a second breath.

Stop! the commandant shouted, now holding his 4 fully extended right talons in her face. I can appreciate your ability to speak fast, and this would no doubt save us some time, but you will need to speak at Cabelian speed for now, and I will need to clarify a few things as we go. Now, I will simply go over a few important things, so we are on the same page. he continued, stopping only to confirm she was ready to listen. She nodded slowly, so he lowered his hand and simply continued at about half the speed she was speaking before. If you are accepted to this post, you will serve me aboard this first ship of The Phoenix Project as the Malonoid High Advisor, and I understand that we have to go through some sort of bonding ritual in order for you to fill this post properly. However, based on what I know about this, it is starting to sound to me like you will be serving as my...slave?, the commandant asked rather reluctantly, now in total confusion.

He he he he he he he...oh LORD no!, she said while giggling uncontrollably. She finally broke her serious look and now smiled at the commandant with her eyes as well as her mouth, and with her tail now swinging normally again! She paused briefly to concentrate on slowing down her speaking to Cabelian level before continuing. Alrrright, look! I know your language is...quite frankly, stupid. There are words that are verrry hard to translate from our language to yours, so because of that we might fall off of the same page everrry now and then for sure! Now is one of those times. For example: when you were starrring at my tail earrrlier, I wanted to explain why it is considerrred rude by my people, but I said nothing because I could not think of a word in your...rrridiculous language...that would define it prrroperly. Now that I have had a little time to think about it, the best word I can think of in your language for that action is...’forrreplay’. she stated frankly, now pausing with a sly grin crossing her face.

Foreplay? No, no, that can’t be the right word. he replied but was interrupted.

Oh yes, that is definitely the right word for what you did. she stated abruptly with a slight pause, then continued. Now, the word ‘slave’ is not the right word in that context eitherrr...or in ANY context, involving a Malonoid female! Unlike our males, who are excellent soldierrrs because they will follow orderrrs to the letterrr, and even to the death if necessarrry, we females cannot be made to do anything against our will...I mean EVERRR! Even if torturrred, a Malonoid female absolutely cannot be made to do anything they do not want to! This is why, if you read the fine print, you will find out that the post of Malonoid High Advisorrr is unlike any post that has everrr existed in the entirrre Cabel Alliance militarrry historrry. she said, emphasizing every word in her last sentence with a gleeful tone in her voice! The only perrrson on the entirrre ship that will even be able to give me an orderrr is you, AND that is ONLY because we will be bonded. Once bonded, your everrry wish will be like a command to me anyway, so it would have been rrredundant to put that in the fine print. So, if it makes you feel betterrr about this whole situation, afterrr we are bonded I could call you...’Masterrr’, hehe. she finished gleefully, pausing only now to let her words sink in.

The commandant became very curious at this point and now spoke what was on his mind! Since I give you a name when we bond, it seems only fair that you give me one as well, so you may call me ‘Master’ if want. Quite frankly, I really don’t care. What I DO care about is the success of our mission! I have researched this Malonoid bonding ritual, but I need to know exactly what will happen to us. I know that Malonoids bond for life and normally this aids your mating practices, but as you know our species can’t mate. I also understand that when Malonoids bond, they share most of their memories, but the latest scientific data on the subject suggests that, with Cabelians, only recent memories are shared. Cabelian scientists have only very recently learned that it is even possible for a Malonoid female and a Cabelian male to bond, but it is the results of this bonding that are going to be very important to the success of our mission, so naturally I will bond with you without hesitation. Since this is only a temporary bond, and you are not allowed to access ALL of my memories, I see no reason to resist the wishes of our Father. However, there are things that happened to me as a fledgling, and last year, that would NOT be helpful to our mission for you to know! If you have access to those memories as a result of this bonding, I think that would actually hurt our mission...VERY much so! Having said that, what EXACTLY will happen when you and I...bond?.

Wait, what do you mean when you say ‘our Fatherrr’? Is it not true that Cabelians do not acknowledge family memberrrs much at all, and do not even keep in touch with their biological parrrents afterrr becoming adults? she asked abruptly.

You misunderstood me. Our Father is an artificial intelligence program that lives in the Cabelian Central Information Network, which you should know as the CCIN. It is now YOU who are ignorant about Cabelians, if you didn’t know that about us already! You have been on the CCIN at some point in your life, is that correct? the commandant replied in a flustered manner. After receiving a simple nod from her, he continued with haste. You are correct, we Cabelians are not family orientated. However, the Father Program guides us based on the principle of Cabelian Advanced Socialism, which is very involved. I simply do not have time to go into all that right now. We learn about the Father Program as fledglings and go through years of schooling in order to understand that program fully, so this is just not possible to go through with you right now. I will just say this to simplify it for you, so we can move on. Ancient Cabelians attempted to have the conscious of one of our history’s most famous leaders uploaded to the CCIN, in the days before his death, in an attempt to have him continue to lead us from beyond the grave. Put simply, my people at that time felt that the loss of such a great leader was unacceptable. The program was then made and has been a part of the CCIN ever since, thus we called it ‘Father’. I suggest that when you have time, you should research this fully. However, right now, I need to know what will happen when we bond, and what changes will there be? That information is what is most important right now.

Well...what will happen is we will achieve a parrrtial bond, but not a perrrmanent bond. A perrrmanent bond is requirrred for mating and carrring for our cubs on Malontia, but a parrrtial bond will basically allow us to have some of the abilities of a perrrmanent bond without the mating, having cubs, et cetera, and that bond is temporrrary. Also, when we bond, we should only be sharrring our most rrrecent memorrries, like you said. It should only go back a few months at best. she replied in a very reassuring manner. Now, again to be efficient, tell me everrrything you know about what our bond is going to be for and...I will just fill in the blanks. she said very seriously, hesitating only momentarily to make her words as accurate as possible.

The commandant thought carefully for a moment, now struggling to find a good starting point before speaking. From what I have researched, and from what I have been told, our bond will greatly enhance the chances of success in the overall mission of The Phoenix Project. Until you have been officially chosen for the post, most of that information has to remain classified for now. However, I can tell you what I think about all of this, since at this point it will only be me telling you my opinion, and will not break any military protocols. You were chosen for this interview because you tested as the top candidate for this post, because you scored the highest on the ESP section. Also, you have been determined as the one most likely to have a successful bond with a Cabelian male of a certain...type. he replied swiftly, but now paused for some reason.

The commandant was known for his swift resolve in even the most stressful situations, so him pausing now was odd to say the least. After a moment, he simply shook his head quickly and continued speaking with great haste.

I won’t bore you with the science behind all of this, since neither of us are scientists anyway, but I will tell you what I think is going on here...to be efficient. he said, now pausing to look her in the eyes very intensely with his left eye before continuing. This bonding will also give us an edge in this war, more than just an edge in The Phoenix Project alone. I can’t tell you the mission objective right now, because it is classified, but knowing myself, my crew, the particular type of soldiers picked for this project, and knowing what I have seen of your tests results, I can only come to one conclusion...in my opinion. I admit that I am lacking knowledge about Malonoid females right now, but what I do know for a fact is that you must be barren, otherwise you would have never even been considered for this post. The fact is, there is no way that your leaders on Malontia would even let you be tested for this project otherwise. I also know it is a fact that Malonoid females are only 10% of the population of Malontia, so if you were able to have cubs at all you would not even be here, being that you otherwise would be so needed there. I understand that Malonoid males sometimes even fight to the death to be considered for bonding, so I know how important Malonoid females are to your world. I know this, because I am a personal friend of your High Chieftain of Malontia, and he has advised me in the ways of the Malonoids...FAR beyond that which any Cabelian has ever had the privilege of knowing! I see him as the father I never had, and he sees me as his son, so don’t EVER doubt that! In this Phoenix Project, I am leading our people, of the Cabel Alliance, to our deaths, so that ALL of our people survive...forevermore! Like most, if not all, of the people chosen for this very special project, we have only one way to serve our people in this war, and that is to accomplish this very important mission...and that is all I can tell you at this point! You will accept that, or the whole mission will end in failure! he said, now ending abruptly!

Oh, I see now. That is why you do not know anything about Malonoid females. I am just going to be used like a pawn in this war. Just like when your people came and conquerrred mine 300 years ago! YOU are just here to continue that conquest... she said with disdain in her voice, but was interrupted.

CONQUERED? the commandant shouted back, taking great offense, and stared daggers at her with his now widened left eye! Out of instinct, the commandant took a battle stance, with his left leg in front of his right, as if he were about to physically attack her at any moment!

Unfortunately at this point, before the commandant could continue to address this issue, the Malonoid female became startled by a most untimely discovery. Uh-oh! OH, wait a minute! What the hell is THAT? she shouted uncontrollably. She then instinctively jumped out of her chair and onto the meeting room table, now taking a defensive stance as if she were about to do combat as well! That thing just blinked!

What thing? What are you talking about? the startled commandant asked insistently.

That thing! Right there in the cornerrr! she continued, now becoming hysterical with fear! That thing is not a statue! That thing is alive!

WHAT? the commandant shouted, now quickly turning around towards the door to the meeting room. Seeing nothing more than just a Thurtian in the left corner near the