The Earth Space Agency ship Columbia sped through that sector of the Galaxy with another ship in pursuit. The other spaceship, a looming black hulk bristling with gun turrets, fired repeatedly at the Columbia.
On board the Earth spaceship, Captain Damian Tait sat at his central chair on the bridge. He was an handsome, sandy-haired man in his late thirties, resplendent in his ESA uniform and with a United Solar System badge on his lapel.
“Evasive manoeuvres,” he ordered. “Do not return fire.”
The rest of the bridge crew -- all Earthlings except for the communications officer, whose pumpkin-coloured complexion showed her to be of Jupiterian ancestry -- scrambled to do their duty.
“Captain,” said the security officer from his station, “our shields are going down. All the systems have been hacked.”
“Damn it,” muttered the captain to himself. “They promised me immunity. I should never have trusted that little bitch.”
“Sir, we are being boarded!” cried the security man.
Two shimmering lights then appeared on the command bridge as the matter transmission occurred, and there then came into view two very tall manlike figures in dark clothing. They were hard faced and hard muscled, completely bald-headed except for the scaly ridges that began at their foreheads. Their lizard-like eyes were yellow of hue, and they both held large energy weapons in their clawed hands.
The security officer immediately began to draw his service pistol, but he was not fast enough. One of the intruders raised his own weapon and fired, the resultant beam of harsh light completely vaporising the human officer.
“Sir,” said the communications officer, still seated at her post, “we are receiving a transmission from the Draconisan pirate ship.”
Then, the face of a man appeared on the view screen of the Columbia. He was as if one of middle years, evilly distinguished with his face decorated by a thin moustache and goatee. His pale eyes shown with a devastatingly mesmerising glow.
“Greetings, Captain Tait,” chuckled the villain. “My little cutie here has told me a lot about you -- and your ship!”
“But Stacy told me that we would be spared, and… “ replied Tait.
The sound of a young female giggling could then be heard as the view screen zoomed out to reveal the face of a teenage girl with raven hair seated next to the man.
“You were always so gullible,” she purred. “You think more with your other thing than your brain.”
“My daughter Anastasia here was finished with you a while back, you know,” added the villain. “She had to go spread her favours amongst these Draconisans, of course, in order to help convince them to join our cause.”
“Oh, they were so good once I got used to their coldness,” reminisced the girl. “They are so much bigger than you, Dami.”
“So you really are him?” enquired Captain Tait, ignoring the taunts of the girl and addressing the man.
“Yes, I am Magister Don Wingus of Algol,” exulted the villain, “and these Draconisan rebels are in my employ.”
“Master Wingus,” said one of the Draconisans, his voice a low-registered hiss. “what should we do with the crew of this Earth ship?”
“Wipe them out,” replied Don Wingus casually. “All of them.” …
My name is RUMANOS -- DOCTOR DANIEL RUMANOS, Extraterrestrial Espionage Agent and Intergalactic Man of Mystery. Even though I have the physical appearance of an human being, I am in fact several thousands of years old and do carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Aeternusians or “Watchers” of the Daemon-Star ALGOL. Originating ninety-three light years from Earth, we are the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it often appears to be “magic” and “miraculous” to lesser beings.
Whilst most Algolites tend to keep to themselves, preferring to live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe and thus merely observing the goings-on of the myriad races of the vast reaches around them, I am an Operative for a secret organisation known as the KOSMIKOS or Cosmic Intervention Department, tasked with maintaining peace and order throughout the farthest reaches of Space and Time. You know, “plausible deniability”, and all of that sort of thing. It is our ongoing mission to defend the weak, the unfortunate, and the innocent from those who would harm or exploit them.
Currently assigned to Earth, I protect its people (both upon their own planet and across the eternal void) from the hideous manipulations of the arch-villain known as Magister Don Wingus and his occult terrorist organisation, Spectral Paranormal; as well as from alien invasions, mad scientists, and indeed all manner of menace. Assisted by my friends -- the beautiful young Hollywood starlet Miss Millie Drake, and our catlike robot known as Kit-10 -- I am the living icon of Algol on this world. I am a Knight of the Eternal Spires. I am the sword of justice from the planet Daemonia. I am the cosmic crusader. I am the stellar swashbuckler.
These are my memoirs. This is my story.
I am -- THE DAEMON-STAR!!! …
“We are in the middle of the Twenty-Third Century,” I stated. “That is quite an interesting time, hmmm?”
“Yes, I remember reading about it at Daemonia Academy,” replied Millie Drake. “It’s when the human race really started their exploration of the Galaxy.”
“Indeed it is,” I mused further. “The Earth Space Agency had several warp capable ships in use by now, going boldly to weird new worlds and all that.”
We were standing in the café-like control room of the DiTraS (pronounced “DYE-tress” and standing for Dimensional Transport Sphere), which is one of those amazingly advanced combination Spaceship/Time-machines usable only by our people, the Watchers of the Daemon-Star Algol. I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, and one of my favourite opera capes. My panama hat hung from a near by hallstand.
My companion, Millie, is an exceedingly beautiful young girl of obvious patrician class, petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting blue-violet eyes, sun kissed skin, and luscious cherry lips. The tight, short, rose and blue coloured dress she wore only served to highlight the soft curves of her slender adolescent figure.
Also near by was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.
“So, where are we?” enquired the young lady.
I adjusted some controls and again peered at the instrument readouts.
“By the Eternal Spires!” I swore. “It appears we are in one of the galactic sectors controlled by the Draconisan Empire!”
“Oh my gosh!” returned Millie. “That isn’t one of our routine patrol areas. The Kosmikos must have guided us here on purpose.”
“Indeed, but why?” I pondered. “This time is long after the Draconisans have moved away from the ways of their legendary and rather barbaric past and have in stead become a legitimate part of the galactic community -- thanks in large part to your own ancestors, hmmm?”
“Yes, you did find out that I am descended from the Twelve Spies of Draconia, as it was called in those days.”
“Quite so, Mills, quite so. They were the twelve Algolitish agents sent to infiltrate the Draconisan or Draconian systems, in order to stop certain criminal enterprises by which the Draconisan government in those days was profiting.”
“The Draconisans were into some terrible things in those days, weren’t they?” shuddered the girl.
“Indeed they were;” I reminisced, “slave trading being the most notorious of their pursuits, along with a general raiding and pillaging. Nevertheless, all of that ended many generations ago.”
“S--,” suddenly interrupted Kit-10 in her simulated yet pleasantly feminine voice, “detecting danger.”
(It should be noted here that Kit-10, in addition to her numerous other catlike characteristics, is singularly possessed of the complete and total inability to openly show respect to anyone. In actual fact, the closest she ever even manages to come to it is by referring to me by a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and to Millie Drake by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
“By the Stellar Trinity!” I swore upon checking the readouts.
“What is it, Daniel?” worried Millie.
I activated the console view screen and upon it we beheld a large spaceship hurtling to-wards us through the void.
“It is indeed an Earth Space Agency exploratory vessel,” I explained, “of the type common to this century. According to the markings, it is known as the Columbia.”
“But what’s wrong with it?” queried the girl.
“It appears to be completely out of control. According to our scanners, its engines are not functioning and there are no signs of life on board.”
By now, I was hurrying around the DiTraS control centre, adjusting various systems, checking numerous connections, and trying myriad controls.
“There is no time for us to dematerialise into the Current,” said I. “We are in open Space, and that Earth ship is headed directly at us!”
“Oh my goodness!” cried Millie Drake. “Daniel, do you mean… ?!”
We both looked at the view screen and saw the spaceship looming up quickly, now filling the screen completely.
“Yes, Mills, my dear,” I stated, “we are about to collide!”
I continued my frantic attempts at reprogramming the DiTraS control systems, trying to quickly programme a dematerialisation sequence whilst the other spaceship approached us. Then, at what was obviously a mere split second before the expected impact, we heard the sound of our ship’s engines engaging.
The picture on the view screen changed and, no longer showing the other ship approaching us through Space, it now showed a dark room in which were a few metallic crates.
“Daniel,” said Millie Drake, “what happened?”
“I just managed to move the DiTraS a short distance,” I explained. “We are now on board the Earth spaceship, hmmm? We are in a storage room, by the look of it. Let us go out and investigate, and attempt to determine what happened to so cripple that ship to begin with.”
I activated the porthole-like opening of the DiTraS (the exterior of which resembles an old Greco-Roman Doric column) through which Millie, Kit-10, and I stepped forth into the other spaceship.
We walked through the silent area of the storage chamber and then exited forth into a corridor. I took the transonic turnscrew -- an highly advanced scientific device somewhat resembling a large writing pen -- from the pocket of my jacket and then utilised it to scan the area.
“Hmmm,” I said upon carefully checking the resultant readings on the instrument, “there are no other life forms on board.”
“So what could have happened?” queried Millie Drake. “Where did they go? Did the entire crew abandon ship?”
“If that is what I think it is, my love,” I replied upon noticing something down the corridor, “it is far worse than that.”
We approach a very small pile of what appeared to be dust, and I scanned it with the transonic.
“Spires of Daemonia!” I swore. “It is indeed as I feared. Millie, these are human remains -- the result of people having been vaporised by the type of energy weapons used by the Draconisans.”
“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed the girl. “But you said the modern Draconisans weren’t like that. Why would they do such a terrible thing?”
“It certainly would not have been authorised by the current administration of the imperial government,” I pondered. “Of that we can indeed be quite sure. It could be some rebel faction, I suppose, attempting to return to the old ways of piracy and slaughter. Sad to say, such things are not unheard of even in this comparatively enlightened galactic age.”
“S--,” said Kit-10, “sensors show the spaceship command centre is at the end of this corridor.”
“Let us go there then, and then we can look further into this strange mystery.”
My companions and I then continued down the corridor, which necessitated stepping over numerous piles of dust that signified the remains of the crew. We soon came to a doorway, and I then again utilised the transonic turnscrew to override the security codes and to open it.
The ship’s command bridge was wide and quite spacious, with the usual banks of computers and communications consoles, swivel chairs, and a large view screen at the front. It was still activated, and currently showed the myriad stars of the open area of Space just outside the ship. All around the bridge were the tiny piles of dust, sadly indicated the crewmembers that had been slaughtered.
“The communications systems have been remotely disabled,” I noticed. “thus being certain in advance that the ship had no chance to send out a distress signal. This was indeed a quite professional job.”
“But how could Draconisan rebels know the code sequences necessary to do such a thing?” asked Millie. “This is an Earth ship.”
“A good question, my dear Mills. Perhaps they had outside assistance; assistance from someone with profound abilities in computer hacking; assistance from someone hoping to profit from causing chaos and war in the Galaxy, hmmm?”
“Daniel,” shuddered the girl, “you don’t think it could be… ?”
Just then, several shimmering lights appeared around us.
“Matter transmission beams,” I said. “The ship is being boarded.”
Four figures soon appeared with us upon the bridge. Two of them were very tall, very muscular men in darkly hued uniform-like clothing. They were completely bald with their yellow eyes and scale-like head ridges showing their saurian heritage. They both held large vaporiser guns in their hands.
“Draconisans,” whispered Millie Drake.
The other two were figures all too familiar to us. One of them was an insanely voluptuous teenage girl with long raven hair, clad in what incongruously appeared to be a scarlet-coloured bikini.
The other of the two humanoid figures was a man seemingly of middle years, his face still handsomely distinguished despite being marked with the obvious signs of lifetimes of extreme profligate wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage was decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolutely hypnotic glow. He was clad head to toe in a black suit of futuristic nobility, including a flowing cape, and held a sleek laser gun in his hand.
“Don Wingus,” I stated, speaking the name of that renegade Algolite who is my oldest and most bitter enemy, the one who has made himself the most dangerous criminal in all of Space and Time. “I should have known. So you did escape from the Crimson Essence.”
“Indeed, Rumanos, indeed,” chuckled the villain. “I joined my daughter Anastasia here in the Draconisan Empire, in order to complete the work she had been managing for me.”
“The work of aiding these rebels in reviving the old ways, hmmm?” I questioned, twiddling my frills. “The old ways for which the ancient Draconisans were feared across the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“Oh, of course,” he remarked, raising the laser gun to aim directly at my head, “and now my Draconisan friends and I have you surrounded!”
I looked up at the view screen. The black hulk of what could only be a Draconisan pirate ship was visibly looming before us.
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “Wingus, where exactly did you acquire that thing?”
“Oh, it is admittedly rather an antique,” replied my foe. “The basic hull is an old Draconisan battle cruiser of the type occasionally found available on the galactic black market.”
“So you have allied yourself with these rebels and are now exploiting their hopes of bringing back the old ways, hmmm? Wingus, there appears to be nothing you will not utilise for your own nefarious gain.”
“Thank you, Rumanos,” mocked the villain with an absolutely wicked smile. “After all these centuries, it is nice that you notice.”
“You are utterly mad, Wingus,” I told him. “Bringing back the ways of raiding and pillaging is not exactly viable as a political strategy, hmmm? You will have opposition from authorities across the Galaxy.”
“Oh, that will be their first reaction, yes,” admitted Wingus, “but it will not last. Money will exchange hands and the proper persons will be appeased. The ways of piracy will become increasingly popular in the Draconisan Empire, until they dominate all other philosophies of life. The continued raids on Earth vessels will spark the possibility of war, which will only serve to bring the remainder of the Draconisans to the ways of my friends here. They will see it as a way to power, as a thing of pride in their race and in their ancestral heritage.”
Whilst I was thus distracting the evil Don Wingus, the robotic Kit-10 was slowing inching around us, moving into a better position.
“And what of you, Wingus?” I then enquired. “You are no Draconisan. What do you actually hope to gain from all this? Anything at all substantial, or have you now descended so low into criminal depravity that you just enjoy the chaos, the extreme violence, the sick ecstasies of watching others suffer?”
“It is much more than that, Rumanos,” replied the evil one. “When the inevitable conflict occurs, it will cause disorder across the Milky Way -- a disorder that I will then use to take my rightful place as ruler of all the Galaxy. I shall step in and provide leadership to all the effected planets. I shall become the dictator of countless star systems -- with the Draconisans as my enforcers!”
“Of course,” I rejoined. “The usual madness. Power at any cost, hmmm? One other thing, Wingus. How exactly did you get the security codes to remotely disable the Columbia?”
“The late captain of this ship was a quite randy sort,” explained Don Wingus. “Rather like you in that respect, Rumanos, but fortunately not as intolerably pedantic. He gave out the necessary security codes quite easily to my little Stacy here.”
Still standing next to her evil father, young Anastasia Wingus giggled at the memory of this.
“Captain Damian Tait of the Earth Spaceship Columbia,” she remembered. “That was so much fun! We first met in a bar at Proxima Centauri, and got drunk on the semen beer they sell there!”
“Don Wingus, you ungodly fiend!” I accused. “Using your own child in such an horridly obscene manner! There is truly no end to your wickedness.”
It was then that Kit-10 opened fire, shooting the laser beam from her nose and using it to blast the gun from the hand of Don Wingus. It clattered to the floor several metres distant.
“No no, Rumanos,” sneered Don Wingus. “None of that foolishness. Not this time. Look!”
I glanced around and beheld the two Draconisan rebels. One of them had his vaporiser gun trained directly on me, but it was the other that concerned me more. He was holding Millie Drake by the throat with one clawed hand, whilst the other held his gun to her head.
“No attempts at heroics, and no more nose laser from the mechanical cat, either,” ordered Wingus. “I can assure you that my friends here will not hesitate to kill both you if necessary -- although we are hoping to keep your Miss Drake here alive. After all, she will go for a good price on the newly revived Draconisan sex slave market!”
Do you even begin to recognise, forsooth to understand and comprehend the supreme and unholy terror of this situation, my dear friends and most loyal readers? Is it possible for you to grasp the unspeakable and unhallowed menace that surrounded us at that very moment? Can you even commence to perceive the extreme horror that we were experiencing, there on that captured Earth spaceship, surrounded as we were by those horrid Draconisan rebels and the villainous Magister Don Wingus, along with his utterly immoral daughter, the interstellar femme fatale known as Anastasia?
Most of all, I was concerned for my beloved Millie Drake, that beautiful and wonderful young Algolite girl who has become my friend and companion -- and so much more. There she was, being held helpless in the clutches of that saurian pirate -- with the threat of either death or an horrendous life of slavery and obscene violation being threatened upon her.
“Yes, Rumanos, you heard me correctly,” continued to mock the wicked Don Wingus. “Ironical as it all is, your little friend here will soon be a sexual slave girl to some wealthy Draconisan!”
“Wingus, no,” I said. “Do not do this. Not this time. It has gone too far with you. End this evil now. You are a Watcher of Algol. Stop all this and show some respect for the nobility and dignity of our people.”
“Really, Rumanos?” laughed the galactic criminal. “Do you think such a ridiculous argument could possibly sway me? Do you think I could possibly care anything for the moralist platitudes of old Daemonia? There is no dignity except in conquest. There is no respect except that which I deserve as the rightful Dictator of all Time and Space!”
“Father, look!” suddenly exclaimed Stacy Wingus, indicating the Columbia‘s view screen.
The pirate ship continued to loom on the screen, but it was now quite noticeably no longer alone. Another spaceship had appeared behind it, a ship marked with the patriotic signs of its government. The newcomer then immediately fired on the pirate vessel, causing the latter ship to begin to fall apart.
“Curse you, Rumanos!” shouted Don Wingus in consternation. “You will pay for your continued interference in my plans. Kill the girl!”
“Yes, Master Wingus,” hissed the Draconisan that was holding Millie
Then, at the very moment when the Draconisan pirate was beginning to pull the trigger of his disintegrator gun, something wondrous happened. A strange bright orange and blue luminosity suddenly radiated from the figure of my beautiful Miss Millie Drake and immediately surrounded the two Draconisan rebels. Within seconds, the saurian pirates, along with their weapons, were no longer in existence.
I briefly turned back to Don Wingus and Anastasia, but was just in time to see them vanish in the glow of a matter transmission beam. A looked at the view screen and, a very few seconds later, beheld the pirate spaceship disintegrate from the bombardment it was receiving from the imperial ship.
“Are you all right, Mills, my love?” I queried worriedly, hurrying over to her..
“Yes, I think I’m okay now,” she said, realising that her appearance had returned to normal. But… those powers! They manifested again like they did that time when I first discovered my Algolite heritage! How can this be?”
“There are records in the files of the Kosmikos that indicate the Twelve Spies of Draconis were given special abilities that could be utilised to neutralise Draconisan weaponry and biology. I can only surmise that you inherited a residual portion of that, and it came forth one final time.”
“So, you mean… I killed them?” asked the girl.
“Not at all,” I explained. “That was Algolitish power, a manifestation of the mastery the Absolute Convention of the Watchers have over all of Time and Space. The two pirates simply ceased to exist, and it is literally now the same as if they never had lived at all.”
“But the spaceship that destroyed the pirate ship… is it… ?”
“It is indeed the Draconisan Imperial Space Force,” I explained, “I took the liberty of sending an alert to them earlier from the DiTraS. It is due to the lag caused by transmitting it that we did not have time to enter the inter-dimensional Current.”
“But what about Don Wingus and his daughter?” enquired Millie. “They could have only transported to that pirate ship.”
“His DiTraS was likely aboard the pirate ship, hmmm?” I pondered. “They could have just barely had time to escape before it was destroyed. If so, we will likely have to deal with them again soon.”
“Kit-10, are you okay?” asked Millie Drake.
“All of my systems are functioning normally, m--,” replied the mechanical feline.
“We’re going to have to stay in the Draconisan system a while though, aren’t we?” asked the lovely young lady.
“Quite so,” I affirmed. “We shall need to be certain that all is understood, so that there will be no diplomatic difficulties between the Draconisan Empire and Earth’s solar system. Worry not, however. Our stay should be a quite pleasant one. There are several excellent interplanetary-style restaurants in the Imperial City of Planet Draconis. In fact, for some reason they have become particularly enamoured of Mexican food!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
