A New Reason To Fight: An Intergalactic Romance Read online

  A New Reason To Fight

  An Intergalactic Romance

  T.J. Brandow

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  *BONUS SAMPLE STORIES

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  Chapter 1:

  Both Donna, her mother, and Dedron were apprehensive as the familiar sight of Earth appeared on the radar. There was some debate amongst the crewmembers as to whether or not they should try and return to the Defense Squad base after their return from the Planet Remoir. Although Perbron, the despotic Remoir ruler, had suffered a defeat, the squad members were uncertain as to whether or not their former leader would forgive their refusal to follow the general’s orders. In the end, they agreed to avoid the base for fear that General Barron would want to charge them with desertion. It was decided that they would land on a remote airstrip near Nashville that was owned by Donna’s uncle to avoid possible entanglements with the law and the press. Once they were on the ground, the Defense Squad members said their goodbyes for the time being.

  “No matter what happens, we know we did the right thing,” Laura said to Donna, giving her a long hug.

  “Yes, I would not have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t put my relatives’ safety above the General’s orders,” Kadija agreed.

  “My people say that the right path may be overgrown and full of hazards, but one that one should not take a detour if you are acting from the heart,” Dedron said.

  “That’s kind of similar to a poem by Robert Frost that says, ‘I took the path less traveled by and that has made all of the difference’. I guess there’s a similar thread there,” Donna responded.

  “I will say goodbye for now, but I know that our paths will cross again soon, perhaps sooner than any of us expect,” Langur said as his long tube-like eyes looked around at his comrades.

  With that, the members of the Defense Squad went their separate ways. Some of the members decided to return home despite the threat of arrest for desertion, others such as Laura and Kadija decided to seek out a place to lay low for a while. Dedron, Donna and her mother decided to return to their new home, despite the threat.

  “Are we fools to go back there?” Donna asked.

  “I can’t spend the rest of my life running. We have to face this,” Dedron said.

  “Could we not return to Barringe and live out our lives there?” Donna said. Dedron gave her a surprised sidelong glance.

  “You would be ok with living in the forest all your life? Let me remind you of your first visit,” Dedron said.

  “I can get used to the snakes and beasts as long as you’re by my side,” Donna said.

  “Maybe both of you should leave. I hate the thought of you spending time in jail after the heroic things you’ve done. It’s just awful,” Donna’s mother said.

  “In Barringe we have a saying, ‘do not run from your actions, face their consequences knowing you made the choice that was right for you at the time’.”

  “I wonder if the person who said that ever faced court marshal,” Donna responded.

  “It was the Sersay himself who said that and I assure you he has faced even greater trials,” Dedron said.

  “Well, I’m sure they will decide to go easy on you, considering the good that you’ve done,” Donna’s mother insisted.

  Donna’s uncle Robert came driving across the field to greet them. He was wearing a straw hat and camouflage.

  “I see you didn’t have any trouble finding the landing strip. You must be Dedron,” he said in his southern drawl as he lifted his hand towards Dedron. Dedron shook his hand and smiled.

  “Our whole family owes you a debt of gratitude for looking out for our loved ones. This is the least I could do. I’ve got a hover jeep waiting for you and an off the beaten path route planned for you so that you can avoid any entanglements with the police and the press.”

  “I owe Donna a debt of gratitude for everything that she has done,” Dedron answered.

  “Uncle, are we in the news?” Donna asked.

  “Oh heavens yes. Every time we turn on the virtual reality player there is a debate going on about whether you are traitors or heroes. I have to say thought, most people believe the later,” Robert said.

  “That is heartening, but it may not save us from our fate,” Dedron said.

  “Look, I have a place in the heart of the woods where they will never find you if you wanna hole up for a while,” Robert said.

  “No, Uncle, we are going to face our detractors. We are tired of hiding and running,” Donna said.

  “Have it your way. The jeep is right over there. Follow me and I’ll show you the best route to take to your new place,” he said. Dedron and Donna nodded and walked over to the jeep. Both of them were lost in their own thoughts as they passed through the heavily wooded area. Soon, they came out on a main road not too far from their new home. Uncle Robert pulled his hover car over to the side, and Dedron and Donna pulled over behind him. Robert got out and walked over to the driver’s side of the jeep.

  “Just another mile will bring you to the back of your property. You might be able to allude the press if you come through the woods,” Robert said.

  “Thank uncle. We owe you a debt of gratitude,” Donna said.

  “No, we owe you. I’ve heard about how you rescued your mother and liberated those Remoir creatures. That will not be soon forgotten.” With that, Robert, tipped his straw hat and got back into his hover truck.

  “Mother, do you want us to take you home? We’re not sure what’s going to happen to us,” Donna said.

  “No, I don’t want to be alone right now. I’ve been having nightmares about the day the Remoir kidnapped me. I’m not ready to be away from you just yet,” she said.

  “Of course you can stay with us. The trouble is, I don’t know if we’ll be allowed to stay,” Donna said. They pulled up to the back fence that marked the property line and brought the jeep to a stop. Donna and Dedron helped her mother scale the fence and they took off through the woods.

  “Can’t wait until we actually have time to explore this property of ours. It reminds me a lot of home,” Dedron sighed as the house came into view just beyond a clearing in the woods. The three of them peered through the woods at the house, and could clearly see that the entire lawn was littered with members of the press who were awaiting their return.

  “Stay here, I’m going to get a closer look and see if I can get to the back door,” Dedron whispered. He crept through the clearing and arrived at the back door. As soon as he reached it, a reporter came around the back. Dedron ducked down underneath the back porch. Behind the reporter was a police officer. When they didn’t spot anyone, the reporter and the officer returned to the front. Dedron waved for Donna and her mother to come to the door. They reached it, and Dedron unlocked the door. Once inside, they crept up the moveable stairs to get to the safety of the upper floors. Unfortunately, one of the reporters spotted them through the large windows in the front. Immediately, the police began to knock on the door.

  “Mr. Fildred? Ms. Stevens? Open the door!” they commanded.

  Donna, her mother, and Dedron paused on the stairs.

  “Well, I suppose it’s time to face the music,” Donna said
. Dedron was puzzled, not being familiar with the expression.

  “It’s a saying,” Donna’s mother said. “You don’t have to give in. You could still run through the woods. I’ll say that I don’t know where you are headed.”

  “We have already decided that we aren’t going to run,” Donna repeated.

  Dedron immediately opened the door and walked out into a flash of lights and a flurry of questions from all of the reporters. Many of them held small virtual reality recorders, recording Dedron in real time.

  “Captain Fildred of Barringe, you are under arrest for the crime of desertion according to state and federal law. You have the right to remain silent….” Dedron blanked out for a second while the officer read him his rights. There were three military police on the scene standing nearby as well. Dedron looked over at Donna and managed to smile. She smiled back, feeling the same sense of calm despite their predicament. They knew in that moment that they had done the right thing, choosing the path that both of their parents would and did approve of, behaving in the way that the Defense Squad was meant to.

  The police put the couples’ hands behind their backs and handcuffed them. Donna’s mother stood over on the side with tears forming in her eyes. Finally, she could not longer hold back the floodgates as the press swarmed in, asking questions filming it all.

  “Leave me alone, I don’t wish to answer your questions!” she said as she backed away from them, shielding her eyes from the sting of the flashes from their cameras. The police led the couple down the walkway towards a waiting hover car. The streets were flooded with onlookers, most of them supporters of Donna and Dedron who were chanting something that Donna couldn’t make out at first. She felt for an instant as if she were dreaming this whole scenario, as if it were impossible that this would be the outcome of their heroic deeds. One of the protestors had put together a virtual message whose letters danced through the crowd, just above the people’s heads. “Free Donna and Dedron! They are heroes!” the message read, followed by a silhouette of the couple standing back to back. Donna giggled at this, not believing that people were this concerned about their plight.

  “Look, we’re celebrities,” Dedron joked, not believing the scene himself.

  “Donna and Dedron liberated the Remoir, next they will liberate us!” the next virtual message that floated through the crowd said.

  Dedron and Donna were put into a black hover car that didn’t resemble the other police cars. It was too dark in the interior to make out who was in the driver and passenger seats. Finally, a voice spoke to them from out of the dark and sounded familiar.

  “What’s up guys?” David said as he turned around towards the back seat and took his dark sunglasses off.

  “David?” Donna said, confused.

  “Yep, we just rescued you. That is Ken and I did,” David said, correcting himself.

  “Hi guys!” Ken said, turning around to look at him. “Oh by the way, thanks for rescuing my dad and stepmom. I can never repay you for that, but this is a start.”

  “Ok, sure thing. So, what? We’re not under arrest?” Donna asked putting her hands on her hips.

  “Well, you should be technically, but the general wants to talk to you,” David said.

  “What about? Is he going to let a good scolding take the place of incarceration? I think it sounds like a good trade to me,” Donna said.

  “No, I think I know what’s going on here. He wants us to head up a new mission, doesn’t he?” Dedron asked, folding his arms.

  “How’d you know?” David asked.

  “It came to me as soon as I saw you in the front seat,” Dedron said.

  “Yep, our old friend, Perbron is at it again. Well, I’ll let the General give you the details. We knew he wasn’t going to just walk away from his last defeat. My father used to say if you kill just a couple of wasps, you will have the entire hive after you,” he said. Dedron was confused, not knowing what wasps were.

  Donna, sensing his confusion explained it to him.

  “They are these stinging insects like the Gereeters back on Barringe,” she clarified.

  “Ah, I see,” he answered.

  Chapter 2:

  David drove Donna and Dedron to a nondescript, rectangular building on the edge of the town and pulled into the garage. David and Ken opened the doors of the hover car and began to take the handcuffs off of Donna and Dedron.

  “This way,” David said, ushering them to a doorway in the back of the garage that opened to a meeting room with a large, round marble table in the middle of it. The general looked up from his seat at the end of the table. Laura, Kadija, and Langur were already seated at the table in their official khaki Defense Squad uniforms.

  “Welcome back, Private Stevens and Captain Fildred,” General Barron stated, unceremoniously.

  “I’m a captain again?” Dedron asked.

  “On one condition. If you ever decide to defy an order again and go on a rouge mission, you will not only lose your ranking, I will make good on that court marshal,” the general warned.

  “Understood, sir,” Dedron said.

  “And I need to hear the same promise that you will follow my directives from now on as well, Donna. For you are the one who decided to take it upon yourself to defy orders first,” he said.

  “I promise sir, but will you deny that the decisions that Dedron and I made were the right ones in the end? After all, if we hadn’t done things the way we did, who knows what the outcome would be,” Donna said.

  The general got up out of his chair and leaned in on it with both hands. As he did so, he looked Donna in the eyes with a scowl that made the others pause.

  “You will respect the decisions that I make and the orders I give. You and Dedron happened to have things work out for you, but you made some foolish and risky decisions that could have cost you everything. Therefore, you must reign in your compulsion to shoot from the hip and trust me,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Donna said, quietly.

  The general stood straight up and shifted his glance around the table to all of the others.

  “We all have to pull together again and do the job we are tasked with. Our old pal, Perbron is working in the shadows, faking a retreat, and trying to do us even greater harm than before,” the general said.

  “What’s more harm than taking your relatives from you?” Donna asked. Dedron nudged her leg with his own under the table as if to try and stop her from pushing the general’s buttons.

  “How about the undoing of our civilization as we know it?” the general asked.

  David and Ken came and sat down at the table at that moment.

  “What’s he planning this time, general?” David asked.

  “Captain, he is going after our energy and food reserves in sector twenty-five,” the general said.

  “Whoa,” Ken responded.

  “Yeah, his aim is to hurt not only the Defense Squad members, but to leave the Earth defenseless and desperate. His ultimate goal is to weaken us to the point that he can attack us and supplant our leaders once he’s dealt with them.”

  “How did we come about this information?” Dedron asked.

  “Some of our Lanthan allies spotted the Remoir at a space colony called Vertton on Planet Herbotten. Lucky for us, the Lanthan were spies that managed to slip a tracking and recording device on one of their guards. This is how we came to find out about Perbron’s latest plan. Unfortunately, the guard must have discovered the tracking device because we lost the signal a few days ago. Fortunately, we obtained a huge amount of information from it before we lost track of it. In less than a week, they will attack Vertton, shut down the shield there that protects the orbiting energy removal station.”

  “Oh no. If he gets control over that, we will have lost our main source of Hydrogen fuel,” David said.

  “Precisely, his goal there is to cut of the energy supply so that our hover cars, tanks, and space ships will cease to be operational. We will be grounded so to speak,” the ge
neral said.

  “No sweat, we got this,” Donna said.

  “I’m not finished. That is only part of Perbron’s plan. At the same time that the energy assault is planned, he also seeks to seize control of our back-up agricultural colonies in sector 25 on the twin planets of Swendon and Dantdon,” he said.

  “Oh no. If he gains control of both of those targets, we will be devastated,” Laura said.

  “Yes, that is the case. I don’t have to tell you how the changing climate has limited our yield on Earth. We’ve come to depend on those agricultural colonies, and we can’t afford to lose them. It would ultimately be a catastrophe,” the general announced somberly.

  “Not if we have something to say about it!” Donna stated as she placed her palms on the meeting table.

  “So, I’m going to need to send you on two separate missions simultaneously. Dedron, Ken and Laura will go to Vertton. David, Donna, Kadija, and Langur will go to Swendon,” the general announced. Donna and Dedron immediately locked eyes and shared a sad glance at this news.

  “Sir, I want to go with Dedron. We have proven ourselves to be a great team in the last two missions. Will the squad not benefit from having the two of us together? I can switch with Laura. Is that ok with you, Laura?” Donna asked.

  “Yeah, sure. That sounds great to me,” Laura agreed.

  “Well, it most certainly is not ok with me!” General Barron said as he slammed his fist on the table. “I made the teams the way that I did for a reason. As I stated before, you and Dedron made some reckless decisions that fortunately turned out ok, but who knows the next time around. I don’t intend to take any chances and allow you two to jeopardize our next mission with the distractions of your relationship,” he said, angrily.

  Donna scowled slightly and crossed her arms as Dedron hit his leg against hers again. She was about to say something back, but stopped herself at the last minute.