On a chilly day in October of 1982, I uncovered an alien creature while trying to make an oil well location in Copperhead Hollow, West Virginia. I’m not real good at driving a bulldozer but I managed to unearth the turtle shaped creature after he nicely, telepathically, talked me into it! It was a good thing that I liked Sci-Fi or I probably would have gone nuts! The creatures’ name is Pracon and he is a silicone creature from the Procyon system. I still see him occasionally. Not only did we communicate but before he left me the first time, he touched me mentally or I should say, he shocked me like a freakin’ electric line, leaving me with knowledge and brain power that I had never felt before. It was like he had supercharged my brain. I suddenly knew things I didn’t understand, like images of other aliens, some quite frightening along with their strange dialects and languages. He also left me with a knowledge of the universe that included directions on how to get to different galaxies and planets as well as who lived there, how they lived, and whether they would love me or kill me. I gotta tell you, the nightmares I had for several months afterwards were horrible to say the least, yet nothing like what happened next.
Several months did go by, with the nightmares and such. People started talking behind my back that I was possessed for I would sometimes talk to them in Tharx, a truly universal language, and then look at them like I expected them to understand me. Or avoid me when my eyes turned colors and tables and chairs started moving around me. I, myself, often looked into the mirror while shaving and didn’t really recognize the person looking back at me. Joan, my girlfriend, my sweetheart, stayed with me through it all, and in the process became part of the bigger picture.
Then one day a knock at the door produced a creature that was identical to the geologist I worked with, Rick, only this one wanted me dead. Had I not been on the phone talking to the real Rick, I sure I would have been killed that day and not just shot in the ass. But, using my new found intelligence I was able to paralyze the creature, a thing made of living tissue and metal, and get rid of its’ head before the damn thing blew up. Yes, it was freaky. And it got freakier.
The explosion drew law enforcement officers from all over as well as a group of alien Guardians from the planet Entimall, short, white colored humanoids, who helped me subdue another humanlike creature masquerading this time as a paramedic. Yet their purpose for coming to our planet was not to help save me but to see if I would help them save their own world. By the time they found out I did not know what a Guardian was, I was visited by another creature, an red Altairian, a devilish looking man named Crouthhamel. He was their commander and quickly sent them packing, threatening to remove their sex organs from their chests for their violation of landing here! Ouch!
He’s the one who enlisted me by first taking me to the backside of the moon and then sticking a Vega collar on my head. He didn’t hurt me with it as its’ purpose was to educate not punish like some of them can do, he just tested me and taught me until the damn thing started smoking. Pracon’s imparted knowledge together with my own education and personality must have convinced him I would make a good Guardian for my sector of space. That’s when he gave me my very own spaceship!
He didn’t really give it to me, more like offered me to it. The ship was actually a living being and quite capable of acting on its’ own. Unfortunately it was only the second one ever made and, are you ready for this, the first one kinda went nuts so they had to destroy it. As you will see, I probably should have made a note to myself about that. Did it stop me from enlisting, hell no!
I renamed the ship, Merlin sounds better than Crown, okay, Crown decided he liked the new name, happy? Merlin is fast, virtually indestructible and capable of destroying just about anything it wants to, not to mention, but I will, that it is a very sarcastic spaceship. In spite of which, we have become close friends over the years, brothers in a weird way, and it has kept us alive, at least until now. Merlin likes to copy famous voices into Einstein, his computer core and then talk to me in them. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not. Are you listening, Merlin?
My first adventure began with a crisis on the Altairian home world, Pyritium. I was told it was a P1, meaning eminent planetary destruction, the only reason any Guardian should or could interfere with the planet’s peoples. What I found may have been Altairian in appearance but turned out to be good old human greed below the surface, along with all the other adjectives that go with it. At first I thought the one ruler, Choric, had unleashed a monstrous worm known as a Nephid to destroy the other race of Altairians who were of red Kellic descent like Crouthhamel. By the time two domed cities full of people disappeared from the planet I was able to figure out it was the children of Choric who were out to take control and though I saved the planet, old Choric got the ax from his kids, yes, they killed their own Mom and Dad. I was able to escape and exposed the two greedy bastards, who then got Disorganized into nothingness by Merlin.
Happy with ourselves because we actually saved the planet instead of destroying it, we decide to visit a Zalo base run by Zellens, froglike creatures with a wonderful sense of seriousness though I’ve broken Inrew, my stoic Zellen friend and his laugh, newly discovered is as contagious as a Teeber’s. He said it helps with the ladies, makes’ em jump. He may be right. I visited Zuzu’s, a bar full of wacky drinkers like it was a set out of a B movie. I met a Nack named Tamee, a fur covered nymphomaniac in a waitress outfit who wanted to take more than my order. Whoa!
Then, while looking over the docking area from an observation deck while waiting for Merlin to be modified, I modify everything I own, I accidentally witnessed the theft of a case of Pafewvfnglja, better known as artificial sunlight, by a very ugly creature known as a Tayhest. I’ll describe it later. And though the Zalo base is supposed to be neutral, the damn thing and his three buddies came after me. This is where I learned my tunic can be turned into an indestructible garment and that Merlin has a Hogan projector that creates a three dimensional image that is real enough to touch, this, along with a sharply hooked Hoverpad manage to keep me alive and kill the Tayhest. I later found out that the head one was also the son of Lord Zordon, the Tayhest who controls his planet’s armed services and that the whole planet knew what I had done because someone, no names mentioned here, Merlin, had leaked the security “tapes” of me killing them or rather the four Tayhest on the Zalo base. So I was not exactly welcome on their world if you know what I mean!
We went straight back to Earth, it was Super Bowl Sunday and Miami was playing if I remember right. And wouldn’t you know it, I no sooner had reacquainted myself with Joan and her beautiful body than I received word of some big fucking meeting and for some freakin’ reason, I had to be there. Shit!
The meeting was big, big as in Mothership, a ship approximately the size of Earth, floating in the Casper Nebula of the Chaga galaxy. A Chaga is a slender hairless being with three arms and three legs, not all of them in the same location, which I am told is the major difference between male and female Chagas, along with the obvious male and female parts that I really don’t remember seeing. Thank God! Believe me, there are creatures with sex organs located on just about every part of the body, including the face, laugh now if you will, and not just one set either. The Melsonian female Guardian I met had a dozen tits and was damn proud of each and every one of them along with her you know what, located on her neck! It sure gives a whole new meaning to the term, Dickhead, when you meet a male.
Lussecans are Dickheads, but not because their doggy dicks are on their doggy shaped faces or even their furry necks, nope, not that race. It’s because they are thieves, liars and murderers. They were at the meeting along with a thousand other species, hairy, scaly, bony, fleshy, fat, skinny, you name it. I drank with Horcs, they look like giant flies and have a fantastic sense of humor. They have so many eyes its like looking into a round honeycomb. Yes. I told them about fly fishing and they want to try it. Chagas have a great sense of humor too. Hearing some of these species laugh is addictive. Wait until you hear a Teeber, man will you laugh your ass off. Or a Darassin like my friend Cluver, whose face is long and drawn out like his tall golden colored body and when he smiles I swear his face turns sideways. Funny shit!
The best looking race, to me that is, is the Taus, the Beta Taus, they are so good looking, smart and sexy, it’s disgusting. Killit, one of my really good friends is a Tau. I hate him, just kidding. Another one of my other friends is a Zellen named Inrew. They’re the frog look-alikes who distain from croaking in public like you and I would about farting which is a good thing since a croak from one of them can be deafening. I know, I got Inrew drunk on Chaga brew, a potent drink with absolutely no bad side effects, at least for me, I love it, and he croaked. I swear the whole station vibrated. It smells too. Yeech.
I find out at the meeting that the Nack I met is really a Guardian whose fur disappears when she wants to make love, replacing itself with pink skin. Very hot!
I also meet Alzador from Morkan Jmer, an owl look-a-like though bigger than me. Together with Crouthhamel, his best friend, we learn of a spy among us, possibly a Councilman, and that the Alliance is on alert for an attack, possibly from the Pheren, derisively called Maglarr, which is very insulting to them by the way. I also learned that beside the fact that they are humanoid in appearance and normally twice to three times my size, they can also change shape and size at will. I didn’t like the sound of that, not for an enemy. I also found out that Chaga brew is supposed to be a poison and not a powerful narcotic, but that’s another story.
The meeting is being held to induct new Guardians, of which I am one and also to award me a medal. The medal is called the Uhlon Bathor medal, named after a legendary warrior, a crystal of bluish color embedded in a silver circle, and heavier than I would have liked it, yet when I put it on it began to glow. This should have been a signal to me, a warning to go home, crawl into bed and cover my head with the covers. Instead I solve the traitor puzzle with the help of my Darassin friend Cluver, actually his big mouth, and unmask the spy while accepting my award, exposing a Tayhest spy. Yes, I was a busy boy.
The Tayhest spy, who had been disguised as Polifer the Saesinn, a Councilman, escapes from the Chaga capture harness and kidnaps the Nack Guardian for possible bargaining power. Using the medal to track the bastard, which glows brightly at my anger and makes me feel super-powered, though I’m not, takes us into a part of the ship reserved for extinct life forms, a world of its own. There we find Tamee, and then give chase to the Tayhest, who manages to outwit and out maneuver us for awhile. Damn slippery bastard. Did I say they were very ugly and very smart? Well, they’re both and damn tough too, but in the end, the crystal erupts to kill the ugly bastard, recorded live by Merlin who ends up saving Crouthhamel’s life. I became better acquainted with Tamee following a party whose ending I truly don’t remember, discovering pink is indeed a trouble causing color. To my surprise and unexplained apprehension, the Council again presents me with another medal, this time the Claw of Catau, announcing my triumph over the nasty Tayhests by showing Merlin’s footage to the entire ship who then sent footage to all of their home worlds out there in the Alliance. So much for maintaining my anonymity.
So it came as no surprise to be hit with something on my way home while in Time Drive, an attack, not an accident, that ended by throwing us into a part of the universe where the enemy of the Alliance lives, works and sleeps. That kinda luck is hard to find! While hiding from the one enemy, we come in contact with the other group of badass people, the Pheren. Separated by the mighty Pheren, Merlin and I join up again after he destroys six, no seven, Tayhest ships. I get to rescue an old friend from a dungeon on a planet with a toxic curtain while managing to break my leg and be smothered by an unconscious Pheren with a scrambled brain that has made him an idiot. Tell me whose having more fun?
Finally back home after months of playing peek-a-boo with the enemy I return to find Joan being hassled by rednecks. Showing a redneck a Tayhest warrior is always fun and this was no exception. Shortly after that Rick and his new wife Samantha arrive, followed by Crouthhamel and then a Black Nallie, a creature that threatens the very planet by its’ existence. Wolf discovers the Nallie by accident, receiving a bad burn in the process and ends up being taken to the Jurda world for medical help while I get to crush a state trooper’s car and make love to Joan. A good day had by all! Looking back now, I should have known it wouldn’t last for long.
One could also say the odds of running into a Tayhest battle cruiser in a hollow in West Virginia should be astronomical but that didn’t stop it from happening. Stunned by the gravity beam and hung upside down in the ship like a side of beef was also not supposed to happen, but it did too. At this point I should thank the Bic lighter corporation for helping me save my life and escape my restraints.
Thanks! Helping kill a Tayhest deserves an attaboy.
Finding a rig hand in another food locker followed by a real live Teeber keeps me busy until Merlin shows up and rescues me, at least from the Tayhest. Once I’m on board I find that Joan and the Nack, Tamee are having a wonderful time discussing Tamee’s pregnancy, the three lifeforms in her belly and the fact they could be mine. Okay, they’re mine.
Again the odds of my life falling apart even out as I discover Joan has a big promotion but in a different part of the country. Seeing our lives separating, not because we don’t love each other, because of who we are and what we want out of our own lives, can be crushing. But having your newly healed dog explain the facts of relationships in plain English will snap you out of it real fast. That he can talk is a wonderful thing if only he knew when and where to do it.
A few days later a surprise party takes place in my Rec room. I am surprised by a group of Guardians who stop by to thank me for sharing the bounty I received from killing the Tayhests and also surprised by the Alliance in several ways, from their deceitful sneakiness to their clanging brass balls and then some. Realizing my earlier apprehensions at the awards ceremony were grounded in fact and that the Alliance wants me to reveal information about the Pheren that may result in their deaths puts my balls in a vice. They feel they have a good reason, the Bojj, an old enemy, are now in cahoots with the Tayhest. They have come back to life somehow and are sending their deadly Betas, like the ones who tried to kill me, all over the Alliance. It appears from the quickness of their arrivals that they are using anomies to speed up the invasion. Phayton, the Councilman who places the Vega collar on my head wants the Pheren’s anomies to counter the Tayhest threat. This is even more important since the experiment that did in fact send me to the Aktagara galaxy failed to send the Tayhest back home. Instead it sent them deep into Alliance territory. I do the only thing I can do, I call another enemy for help by sending Merlin somewhere where no one can find him with instructions of what to do if I am forced to reveal anything. Little do they know I have a very forgetful memory with little knowledge about what they want from me.
For once, stupid is good. Phayton finds his hands tied and releases me from the Vega collar’s hold on me. I can’t explain why I didn’t clock him one but before I get the chance an old friend arrives, putting me in my final hold. A hold on a reality of terrible things yet to come. A final hold that seems to be the beginning of a Legend, a Legend that affects the entire universe, not to mention yours truly and his trusty sidekick, Merlin. This is my story, “The Guardian Projects”. Read, wonder and enjoy.
