by Don Cook
The Invader
Candidate
The Invader
Candidate
From the Adventures of Khraa-Veh, Alien Explorer
A Novel
Don Edward Cook
© 2017 Don Edward Cook
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1547281898
ISBN 13: 9781547281893
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017909255
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
This novel is a work of fiction. Aside from the real-life public figures, historical persons, and operational and defunct entities mentioned within, any similarities between any characters and actual persons, living or dead (or between any of the novel’s fictional corporate entities and actual such entities, either presently in operation or defunct) is purely coincidental, unintentional, and therefore should not be inferred.
To
the Good Lord God Almighty,
Creator and Ruler of the entire Universe
and all the worlds therein — including Earth —
and to all Earthlings, American and otherwise,
who were, to varying degrees,
affected negatively or positively by the outcome of
the 2016 United States Presidential Election.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
1)Since I had to operate under tight financial restrictions and thus could not afford a professional proofreading editor, I had to personally examine and search out with “picoscopic” scrutiny any and all errors in grammar, spelling, etc., and certain language errors might have escaped my attention. Given this situation, please forgive the residual errors I might have missed.
2)Unless otherwise stated, all Biblical quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Holy Bible.
Don Edward Cook
Author, The Invader Candidate
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
The Apostle Paul
Ephesians 6:12
PROLOGUE
Mephistula. Next to Lucifraeon, the Lord of the Dark, and the father of Mephistula herself by an elderly Aevaa [i.e., Eve, wife of Adam], that name has struck more terror in the hearts of humans across spacetime. In fact, when I learned of her as a little girl, I had the worst nightmare I have ever had. Yet the dream ended on a good, happy note, where Yeshvah, the Redeemer-King-god said to me, “Fear not, my child, for by the two-planked tower where I died for your salvation, you shall destroy Mephistula and save the stars, including my beloved Earth.”
As a teenster, I read the Book of the Future and its legendary prophecy of a woman of amazing mind-strength who landed by chance on the Redeemer-King’s “beloved Earth”, destroyed Mephistula there, and fully revealed to the galaxies the faith of the Redeemer-King (whom many Earthlies know as Jesus Christ.) I began to see the implications of this prophecy shortly after my decisive military victory against Mephistula and her Shrion Forces at the Battle of Middamayne. That victory resulted in the promotion of me and my love-lord [i.e., husband] Isokk-Elheem to the ranks of Starship-Captain and Starship-Commodore, respectively, in the Kannatikan Exploration and Research Commission, as well as the Kannatikan Armed Reservist Forces.
I also knew Mephistula would eventually wreak vengeance against me in a most brutal manner that I could not even begin to imagine.
And that somehow, I knew that as a result, many lives would be lost...
Dr. Khraa-Veh ven-Bonhoeffer
Admiral, Platinum-Class, AMKEXPRA (Ret’d)
My Cosmos-Spanning Memoirs*
HIGH-APOAPSIS ORBIT AROUND PLANET RUBIAAR IV
(LIGHT-EONS FROM EARTH)
17 OCTOBER (EARTH-TIME)
The heavens around Rubiaar IV and its trio of moons were as serene as usual, with a never-ceasing day-night rhythm in tune with the rest of the Universe. Nothing was out of place or character for this remote part of the Known Universe, where Captain/Dr. Khraa-Veh ven-Elheem, her commander-husband Commodore/Dr. Isokk-Elheem, their family and their colleagues got away from the politics of which the Elheems and their colleagues grew weary. They knew that they could achieve a great deal more for collective civilization in these remote ramparts of the cosmos than they could ever do back in “civilized” space.
Suddenly, from behind Rubiaar IV’s outermost moon, a bright fiery red ball of light flashed, and then became a 23-mile long gargantuan squid-shaped starship!
The mothership of the dreaded marauder-terrorist and Shrion leader Mephistula entered the Rubiaar system, well-prepared to invade the ruins-dominated planet below and annihilate its unsuspecting explorer-populace!
MASTER BRIDGE, MOTHER-WARSHIP OF MEPHISTULA
An all-consuming lust for revenge was first and foremost in the mind of Mephistula, the brutally imposing commander of the colossus that had entered the Rubiaar star system, as she strutted about the huge ship’s cavernous totalitarian-dimly-lit bridge. Its predominant viewscreen displayed Rubiaar IV and a wealth of intelligence data on the planet that was dominated by ruins of a past civilization, as the vessel’s insect-like robot crew operated their ship under the iron-fisted control of their conquering mistress whose bat-like exoskeletal satanic frame matched her demonic cruelty towards those she had subjugated — or destroyed.
In past battles, many worlds fell before the strutting literal mother of the nefarious Nephilim races and their ultra-evil (yet also oft-fractious) Shrion Intergalactic Empire. Some planets fell with little or no effort by her forces; others capitulated after hundreds of days of relentless sieges by her insect-like robotic hordes against the planets Mephistula had conquered. Certain worlds that opted for “freedom or death” paid the price of total thermonuclear or matter-disruptive obliteration at Mephistula’s bony hands. Increasingly, however, many populaces began to revolt and achieve total victory against the outlaw of the cosmos, for whom defeat once seldom came.
Khraa-Veh, her most notorious nemesis, had managed to persuade world after world to fight back against Mephistula, even those whose peoples seemed to be brutally subjugated beyond any previous hope. These successes wounded Mephistula’s pride as she viewed her vanquisher as merely a Kannatikan scientist and Armed Forces Reservist. Driven by such mega-vengeance, Mephistula looked upon the massive viewscreen with blood-lusting, envy-flooded eyes, as her loyal cyber-soldiers carried out her orders and prepared to enact her violently sinister plans of attack against Khraa-Veh and her loved ones and colleagues on the already ecologically crippled, ruins-dominated planet.
“Approaching Rubiaar IV, Mistress” said Mephistula’s Helm-Bot, with a precise, insect-scratchy voice. “The Rubiaar IV defense and security protocols given by Kannatika’s Pot-Trudierre were correct.”
“Excellent, Helm-Bot!” Mephistula spoke with a deep, mechanical, yet strangely feminine voice, before she turned to her robotic second-in-command. “Deputy-Bot, Marauder Forces status.”
“All forces battle-ready, Mistress” spoke the Deputy-Bot, whose voice sounded like the Helm-Bot’s, only sinisterly deeper. “Penetration and evasion of Expedition’s defenses and those of other attack targets successfully and fully initiated.”
“Excellent!” Mephistula said with angrily vengeful glee, as she re-examined the intelligence on the massive screen, before she said to herself, “Yes... there you are, Rubiaar IV. With your ruins-dominated surface, thanks to your extinct indigenous human ci
vilization, yet still quite able to sustain life, complete with life-supportive nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. Your seas are still abundant with all manner of aquatic life, and your land surface still has plant, insect and sparse, vermin-level land-creature life, though at modest levels. Your visiting human inhabitants, all members of the Kannatikan Exploration and Research Commission Rubiaar IV Survey Expedition, 144,000 strong… all under the command of Commodore-Dr. Isokk-Elheem and his doting second-in-command-wife, Captain/Dr. Khraa-Veh ven-Elheem…” Mephistula, vengefully angry at Khraa, raised her fist rebelliously into the air and, in viciously matriarchal feminist outrage, yelled, “ARRGH! HOW PATRIARCHAL CAN YOU GET?!”
She paused briefly.
“Captain Veh. You — and really, my dear opponent… despite the wealth I could milk from Rubiaar IV — you are why I am here.” Mephistula slowly clenched her fist more tightly, shook it in defiant rage and said, with a snarl that grew ever louder, “Yes, Captain Khraa-Veh ven-Elheem. Soon, I will strip you of all you know and all whom you love, and then either enslave you or liquidate you! I WILL NEVER AGAIN LET MYSELF BE DEFEATED BY A MERE RESERVIST WARRIOR LIKE YOURSELF — NEVER!”
Mephistula ordered loudly to Helm-Bot, “HELM, ASSUME ATTACK ORBIT AROUND RUBIAAR IV! STEALTH SYSTEMS AT FULL!”
“Yes, Mistress!” Helm-Bot said, and then carried out the marauder’s orders, as she placed the massive starship into the desired orbit and activated the its anti-detection shields.
“Ship is now in attack orbit, Mistress” Helm-Bot said. “Stealth at full.”
“Excellent!” Mephistula said to Helm-Bot before she snarl-shouted to her legions of evil cyber-minions over the giant ship’s intercom, “Attention all hands! This is your Supreme Mistress! The moment of our flesh-and-blood archenemy’s demise has arrived! We have just assumed attack orbit around Rubiaar IV, and will soon be able to swoop down to the planet by surprise and destroy the Kannatikan Expedition stationed there!
“In fact,” Mephistula snarl-shouted, “my father Lucifraeon, Darklord of the Morning Star, will grant whoever among you brings me Captain Khraa-Veh alive in person full flesh-and-blood Shrion-hood so my father and I can have her soul for our own use!! Kill her man, slaughter her younglings, butcher her brash baby brother, snuff out her colleagues, and exterminate all their younglings — BUT MY FATHER LUCIFRAEON AND I WANT CAPTAIN VEH ALIVE! I WILL LEAD YOU PERSONALLY ON THIS GLORIOUS QUEST! YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS, SO CARRY THEM OUT — AND MAY THE PRINCE OF THE DARK BE WITH YOU!”
Shrill, insanely terrifying insect-like cheers spouted like an oil gusher from the robot crew as they prepared to invade Rubiaar IV!
* * *
* All quotations from My Cosmos-Spanning Memoirs are taken from its Printing #5, published in 1960 N.U.E. (Neo-Universal Era) by Guttner & Barding Publishing-Smiths, Inc., Nov-Amstrok (Planet-State), by kindly joint-permission of Lady Veh ven-Bonhoeffer and the publishers.
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1 Good Morning, Rubiaar IV
Chapter 2 Alien Planet Earth
Chapter 3 Assaulted!
Chapter 4 Exodus Kannatika
Chapter 5 Devil’s Day Diary
Chapter 6 Treachery Never Takes a Holiday
Chapter 7 Loved Ones Under Attack!
Chapter 8 The Ways of Politics and Distress-Signals
Chapter 9 A Time for Truth
Chapter 10 New Alliances Forged
Chapter 11 Pasts, Plots and Plans
Chapter 12 Chicago 1968 2.0
Chapter 13 Battle for the Solar System
Chapter 14 Repent to the Master
Epilogue
Acknowledgements and Thanks
About the Author
Chapter 1
GOOD MORNING, RUBIAAR IV
The Drs. Elheem worked together on several expeditions until Isokk-Elheem’s death during the notorious Rubiaar IV raid by Mephistula’s robot forces. Indeed, they were a well-matched team where Isokk was in charge, and Khraa was happy to be second-in-command… but what a deputy-commander she was.
For centuries, while… [Rubiaar IV’s] …oceans and marine life were environmentally healthy, the predominant indigenous land-dwelling inhabitants were nothing more than insects and vermin-level creatures that varied in size from that of small beetles to large canisoids [i.e.; dogs]. After its slow, self-inflicted holocaust, no human had walked upon the surface of Rubiaar IV for centuries — until the arrival of the Kannatikan Exploration and Research Commission’s (KERC’s) archaeological expedition and its 144,000 humans under the command of Commodore/Dr. Isokk-Elheem in 1945 [Neo-Universal Era] and his wife Captain Khraa-Veh ven-Elheem.
After the founding and construction of the research colony across the life-challenged planet, the Kannatikan Rubiaar IV Expedition consisted of ten base-towns, each with a population of 14,000 persons, with Base-Town Alph [“Alph” being the English-like Tarsonic language’s equivalent to the letter “A”] being the expedition’s seat of command and governance...
Makky-Philps (age 17)
Khraa-Veh: Strength, Ability and Impartiality
(High-Learning Academy Entrance Essay)*
ELHEEM RESIDENCE, BASE-TOWN ALPH, PLANET RUBIAAR IV
SAME MOMENT, EARLY MORNING
As the orange dwarf star Rubiaar rose slowly over the fourth planet’s surface, pale-skinned Isokk and his bronze-skinned wife Khraa lay asleep in their bedroom, unclad under the covers after some mutually-enjoyed intimacy the night before. Slowly, Isokk awoke and gently leaned over his wife’s shoulders to kiss her neck. Khraa awoke, dreamily turned to greet her loving husband, and lovingly looked into his brown eyes with her piercing blue ones.
“Good morning, my love lady” Isokk spoke softly in his erudite tenorial voice.
“Good morning, my love-lord” replied Khraa, in her soft alto voice that melded mild sultriness with girl-next-door kindly wholesomeness.
Khraa ran her fingers through Isokk’s black short hair while Isokk gently stroked Khraa’s long, flowing brunette locks as they tenderly embraced and exchanged several sweet kisses — until a familiar childlike knock came from their bedroom door.
Isokk said, “Come in.”
The door slid open and the couple’s youngest, ever precocious brunette 10-year-old daughter Aleeta-Elheem, playfully walked in. The door slid shut as the lighter olive-colored little girl stopped at the foot of her parents’ bed.
“Hi, Mommy! Hi, Daddy!” Aleeta said.
Khraa said, semi-yawning “Hi, baby.”
“Hi, sweetie” Isokk said, also with a partial yawn.
“What’s for first-meal, Mommy?” Aleeta asked.
Khraa yawned some more as she replied, “I haven’t decided yet, Leeta.”
A second knock sounded. The door slid open again, as their only son, brainy yet handsome dark-haired 15-year-old Shurrah-Elheem, joined his kid sister.
“Hi, Mom, Dad” lighter olive-colored Shurrah said. “So, what’s for first-meal?”
Khraa yawned again as she said, “I’m still thinking about it, Shurrie.”
The door slid open. Svetlia-Elheem, Shurrah’s ever perky, athletically lovely strawberry-blonde pale-skinned twin sister, joined her siblings as the door closed.
“Hi, Mom, Dad” Svetlia said.
“Hi, Svettie” Isokk said.
“Hi, baby” Khraa said.
Svetlia turned to her siblings and playfully scolded them, “Guys… you know, if you want first-meal, you’ve gotta let Mom and Dad get dressed first.”
Aleeta and Shurrah, mildly spooked, scrambled out of their parents’ bedroom.
As a kindly gesture, Svetlia offered, “I’ll make first-meal, okay, Mom?”
“Thanks, baby” Khraa said.
“And from me, too, precious” Isokk said.
“By the way, Mom and Dad,” Svetlia added with chastising teenage smarminess, “you two had better get a new wake-clock really soon.” Svetlia held up her wake-clock, which
read the correct time of “08/03/79” and counting as she said, “See?”
Khraa looked at her own wake-clock that annoyingly flashed “00/00/00”, which meant that Khraa’s once-reliable favorite timepiece she had since teenster-hood was malfunctioning like it had been for the last 120 days with annoying frequency! She and Isokk, thoroughly ticked off, realized they had overslept yet again!
“Oh, khrung!” Khraa said in cursing outrage.
“See you at first-meal!” Svetlia said, and scooted out the door as it slid open. After the door closed, Khraa and Isokk threw off the covers and madly scrambled out of bed to hastily get ready for the day!
“Dear Father-Creator,” said Isokk, a spiritually reverent husband and father, while leading his family in their first-meal (breakfast) prayer at their kitchen table, “Dear Yeshvah-Redeemer, and Dear Spirit Supreme, we receive this first-meal with greatest thanks, as well as greatest thanks for everyone involved in its creation, from the food’s harvester-makers all the way…”
Isokk turned to Khraa and gave her a loving nod as he said, “…to my best friend and love-lady, and my eldest daughter, who came together and made this first-meal in speedier-than-normal order. And everyone at this table said —”
“Sobyit!” said the family Elheem in joyful Amen-type unison.
“Let’s eat!” Isokk said, prompting the family to dig in.
He paused to digest some food before he turned to his son and asked, “So, Shurrie, got the com-receptor assembly guide mastered so we can get the multi-com-receptor up and running this Seven-Day?”
“Yep!” Shurrah said. “If we’re going to receive any com-signals worth a blink, we’ll need to get it set up right. Sure, Dad, I’m up to level on it.”
The family ate for a moment, before Svetlia asked, “So, Mom, about your wake-clock. Are you two getting one, just so you guys don’t sleep in anymore?”
“We looked at the Zulamon’s site,” Khraa said, “and we picked out a perpetual constellation-resetting Khronnar wake-clock on sale for half-off at 19-point-99.”