Sci-Fi
Date Published: 03-06-2023
Publisher: Alien Vision
20 years in the future, humanity has been decimated by climate change and waves of fatal plagues released by Islamic terrorists.
In this new world, Special Operative Mary Carpenter of the Commonwealth of Independent States takes on deadly opponents, including white supremacists, cells of the Everlasting Caliphate, and an international organization of smugglers called Hammerhead plotting to dominate the planet with an all-powerful fear gas.
Join Mary Carpenter in four fast-paced, futuristic adventures that might be in tomorrow's headlines-
Excerpt:
A Day in the Death of the Magic Majestic
In 2043, cruise ships
like the Magic Majestic served an important purpose in the
post-apocalyptic years of the 2030s and 2040's. It was impossible to miss the
impact of a decreased population on floating hotels like the Majestic. Most obviously, long corridors
and large sections of the cruise ship had been cordoned off due to disuse. Many
of these sections resembled a quiet ghost ship of bare walls and empty rooms
with carpet stripped off the floors and furniture carted away. In these
sections, light panels no longer illuminated the halls and walls. Maid-bots
only roamed the cordoned-off floors once weekly to open portholes to air out
the stale smells.
The current owners of
the Magic Majestic, mainly
Puerto Rican smuggler Felix Cortez, had new issues to contend
with in the wake of the death of the ship’s former principal owner, Marcus
Calavera. During the same hours the Navy of the Sovereign Southern Union had
invaded and captured Calavera’s island headquarters, the sisters Tania and Tara
Ormsdorf had killed Calavera and his principal henchman, Hector Fuentes, while
the crime lords were in the thrall of the fear serum they had planned to use to
conquer the world. Thanks to the work of special agents Mary Carpenter and the
novice Jasmine Trayer of the Southern Union, “Hammerhead” had been dealt a
serious body blow. But the organization was much larger than one charismatic
Brazilian.
Still, on this
enchanting spring morning, the Magic Majestic sailed out of San Juan in
Puerto Rico with a larger complement of passengers than usual. Vacationers
lined up on her three open decks, the Sports Deck, the Sun Deck, and the
Promenade, waving goodbyes to friends and family anticipating their magic
moments at sea. That morning, the sea air blew by on a pleasant, comforting
breeze carrying with it the percussive sounds of upbeat island music pumped
through the ship's public address speakers.
One member of the deck
crowd was Major Mary Carpenter, a special agent on assignment with the
Sovereign Southern Union. She was a passenger, not on board for a happy
vacation, even though she wanted to dance and bounce on her heels to the beat
of the steel drums and electronic vibraphones, just like she had on the Spirit of Charlotte Amalie ferry. As she
stepped out onto the honey-colored Promenade, she reviewed the file she'd
studied about the Majestic.
From her reading, she
knew the ship weighed sixty-eight tons, was six hundred and seventy-five feet
long, eighty-five feet wide, propelled by two steam turbine propellers that
could get the ship moving at fifteen knots. Around her, she could see the
frenetic energy of some of the fifty crew members polishing handrails, swabbing
the decks, and touching up the paint. Some dangled over the sides cleaning
portholes and tightening rivets.
She knew the ship once
boasted 200 first class cabins and 350 spacious second-class cabins with
private bathrooms and large beds. In her heyday, the Majestic had offered three restaurants, five
kitchens, and a cafe grill on the upper deck that could be converted into a
cinema or concert stage. The ship had two swimming pools, a library, dog
kennels, even parking for a dozen cars. Mary had been bemused to read the ship
had its own lower deck synagogue equipped with a full-time rabbi. But these
were all amenities described in old sales brochures. How many were still in use
she didn't know.
What she couldn't have
known, or anyone else in the open deck crowd could have either, was that many
decks below, in the underbelly of the ship was a special hold forbidden to all
passengers and much of the crew. While most everyone else on board was enjoying
the launch on the bright, clear day, five crewmembers stood around an open
hatch watching a small submarine pull close to their ship's hull. Using long
poles with strong hooks and thick, steel cables, the crewmen reached out and
helped secure the black sub to the bottom of the six-foot open square hatch.
Very quickly, a much
smaller hatch on the sub opened up and two figures emerged into view. They were
two members of the Quai Do Pacific Rim Criminal Organization. Using the
once-hidden sub, they had evaded capture when the authorities invaded the
island of Marcos Calavera. They had departed just in time to take with them a
prized and unique weapon.
Stepping into the Magic
Majestic hold, the rather scruffy, sweaty, and unkempt pair pulled a
military footlocker on board behind them. Wordlessly, they drug the black
footlocker to an empty motorized flat-bed wheeled cart waiting for them. One of
them accepted a small remote from one of the five Latino crewmen, pressed a
button, and set the cart in motion. Following the cart deeper into the hold,
the pair made their way through the circle of uniformed and much more
presentable Hispanic sailors who stood aside at attention for them. The Quai Do
men strode further and further into the hold until they were out of site of the
Magic Majestic crew.
“Still wish I knew
what those Chinese are carrying and where they are hiding it,” one of the
crewmen said. “At least those guys don't need a shave.” His colleagues
responded to this quirky observation with polite laughter.
“Not if you want a
long, healthy life,” the team leader replied after sharing his own short laugh.
“The less we know, the less we need to fear.”
Each of the sailors
looked around furtively, knowing some unusual, unexplained outfitting of the
hold's hull had occurred back in San Juan. Not sharing what changes had been
made was apparently the way Felix Cortez wanted things, even if he wasn't on
board for this particular cruise. The secret refittings were probably something
to do with smuggling, like smuggling whatever the Quai Do men had just drug
aboard.
The five crewmen began
freeing the submarine from the cables and poles so it could go on its own way.
“This will surprise the chinks,” one of them observed. All five men laughed together
again.
The Quai Do pair
indeed registered deep surprise when they returned to the hatch with now free
hands and an empty cart and saw their ride gone. As they each turned to ask
what had happened, their short-lived surprise ended after both felt the cutting
of their throats by sharp, serrated knives from behind them.
“With these cuts,” the
group leader recited, “Hammerhead hereby severs all connections with the Quai
Do.”
The Latino sailors
then dangled the tops of each victim outside the hatch so their blood would
drain into the sea. They then attached ankle-weights to each corpse and then
flipped the bodies into the ocean.
“Sayonara, baby,” one
of the crewmen cried, after the bodies plopped into the water and sank out of
sight.
“Sayonara? Those guys
weren't Japs. They were Chinese.”
“Jap, Chinese,
Vietnamese, don't much matter. We’ve recycled them as fish food for the
bottom-feeders.”
The crewmen laughed
again, closed the hatch, and walked off to do more mundane ship duties.
* * * *
Mary Carpenter
strolled up to the Promenade deck's railing after accepting a thin-stemmed
crystal glass of champagne offered by a colorfully painted waiter-bot rolling
on his feet-balls. Like the half-dozen or so of these machines rolling around
the deck, the bot carried two trays of filled champagne glasses that looked
like metal wings.
Glass in hand, Mary
stood by a blonde-haired twenty-something woman gazing out over the water.
Since Mary had penetrated the secret headquarters of Marcos Calavera on his private
island just a few weeks before, she had done what she could to disguise herself
on the sea voyage just in case any of Calavera’s people had escaped the S.S.U.
navy and might be aboard the Majestic.
Not likely, but she had cut her usually loose and long auburn hair into a
short, cooler Dutch-boy style. Her tank-top was loose-fitting and she wore
blue-jean, fringed cut-offs that nearly reached her knees. Her flat-soled
deck-shoes helped her seem not as tall as she actually was. She felt slight
disappointment those shoes didn't hide the usual portable weapons Mary liked to
have in her heels and tips. Well, with any luck, she wouldn't get embroiled in
any combat.
She half hid her face
behind very large blue-tinted sunglasses. These sunglasses appeared to be
regular sunglasses, but the left lens was also a hidden screen where Mary could
read data reports she could access from the S.S.U. military files included in the databases on the S.S.U. Clinton sailing not so
far away. In particular, she could scan all the passengers and crew on the Magic
Majestic via a camera built into the sunglasses' nosepiece. She could read
any alerts the program might pick up.
While Mary and the
young blonde, Jasmine Trayer, had met on a shared mission on Calavera's island,
the first mission ever for Trayer, they decided to play new roles on the cruise
ship to perhaps throw off any of Calavera's associates who might be on board.
So Mary was now playing Mary Dell Somers, a high school teacher from Tennessee.
So far, so good. No familiar
faces. Mary's glasses hadn't sent her any alerts.
Neither Mary nor
Jasmine, the younger woman with the permanent, sultry pout, her face hidden
under a white wide-brimmed, collapsible and easily packed summer hat, could
have known that they were standing almost directly above the site of the two
murders far below them. Unlike Mary, Jasmine wore thick soled, high- heeled
sandals that gave her a bit more height and a bit more shape to her
comparatively short legs. At least, short when she stood next to the 6'4” tall
Texas beauty. Like Mary, the upper part of Jasmine's face was covered by
oversize sunglasses with wide temples that blocked any sunlight from the sides.
However, her glasses didn't have the data downloading capability of Mary's tool
as she hadn't been trained on their use. In Mary's opinion, Jasmine hadn't been
trained in very much. Any field missions like this were assignments Trayer
wasn't qualified to perform, in Mary’s opinion. For her part, Jasmine thought
her partner was a monolith, a blank, someone you could read anything you wanted
onto. A cool customer, a cold fish.
Both women would have
been keenly interested in the killings as they had met the Quai Do
representatives at Calavera's estate. In fact, the two special agents were on
board to find the footlocker of fear-inducing serums they correctly suspected
were now hidden somewhere in the Magic Majestic. It seemed the most
likely place considering the relationship between Calavera, Felix Cortez, and
the Quai Do organization.
“Hi,” Mary said to her
supposed new friend, holding out her hand. “Am I intruding?”
“Not at all,” replied
the smiling blonde with the pouty mouth.
Accepting Mary's
proffered hand and shaking it with a firm grip, she continued. “I'm Simone
Perone from Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas island. I'm here because I won a
contest and this cruise was the prize.”
Laughing with polite delight, Mary saw Jasmine
still had the impish twinkle in her young eyes even though a dark haunting was
now also part of her expressions. Seeing someone close to you murdered in front
of you because she took a bullet intended for you had just happened to Jasmine
Trayer. Trayer would always mourn Juanita Calavera, Mary was certain.
“Then let me toast
your prize and wish you the fulfillment of all your dreams!” Mary exclaimed,
raising her glass almost spluttering with mock tipsiness.
“Hear, hear,” Jasmine
giggled like a flirtatious schoolgirl, draining her own glass and then flinging
it overboard. Laughing at the gesture, Mary followed suit.
A muscular, handsome
young man with a rich, deep tan, smooth bald head and nearly nonexistent butt
strolled up beside Jasmine. As Mary looked him over, she thought his obviously
tough skin more resembled a thick shell than normal flesh. He was tough like a
human lobster or a walking stone sculpture. She couldn't hide her surprise when
she saw his long fingers intertwine with Jasmine's. Jasmine hasn’t been on
board that long, she must have moved fast to snare this one.
Mary's scan lens
suddenly began scrolling out a report on Ricky Estaphan, a former naval officer
of the rather new Caribbean Island Navy. He was apparently an expert on
outfitting ships with military weapons. There was no employment record for him
after he left the navy following a rather short career. He was suspected of
involvement with Marcos Calavera's Brazilian operations. Warning tingles ran up
Major Carpenter's spine.
While the three
talked, mere feet away, Arabella Hong, a fairly heavyset and drab woman in her
early fifties wearing an out-of-season, over-sized gray shirt and long khaki
pants spoke to a pretty young hostess. Her flowing thick blonde hair signaled
Hong's mixed ancestry. Her flat face, small nose, wide cheekbones, and
especially her epicanthic fold, the skin fold of the upper eyelid covering the
inner corner of her sky-blue, almond-shaped eyes, clearly showed her bloodline
was largely Asian.
“The last cruise I
took was fifteen years ago,” Hong reported, “with my late husband, Antonio. It
was the time of our lives, I tell you! Even if the rest of the planet was mired
in fear and death.”
“Well, I'm delighted
things worked out for you fifteen years ago. I'm sorry to hear about your
husband. We’ll do everything we can to make this cruise as enjoyable a trip as
possible. But, I have to go check on the other passengers right now. We'll talk
more later.”
“Sure. I understand.”
A disappointed Hong moseyed across the deck, a lonely look in her eyes. Mary
ran a quick scan over her facial features. No response from the databases at
all.
Jose Boliver, a man so
thin his own mother teased that he had to run around a shower just to get wet,
was the ship's social director. Jose stood up on a small wooden riser and
called out greetings to all the guests.
“Could I have
everybody’s attention? Everybody? Please. Welcome! Welcome to the Magic
Majestic! We are pleased to have you on board. My name is Jose, Ship’s
Host! I will be personally responsible for seeing to any of your special
needs!”
He turned and
indicated a smiling woman dressed in a uniform very like his, the same girl who
had spoken with Arabella Hong. “And this is Maria. She is Ship’s Hostess and
will do her best to make sure that we all enjoy ourselves. That’s what we’re
here to do, right? Enjoy ourselves!”
The passengers cheered
as Maria spoke up, “Our kitchen is always open! The Poseiden's Trident Lounge
has live music sixteen hours a day! Feel free to roam the ship whenever you
like!”
Maria paused and Jose
called out, “We do, however, ask that you refrain from entering areas of the
ship that are clearly marked as Personnel Only.”
“It’s a big ship,”
Maria added, “easy to get lost in, especially as we have a lot of space not
being used on this cruise. I will be giving tours at five-o’clock,
seven-o’clock, and again at ten o’clock in the morning for anyone who would
like to get acquainted with the layout.”
“So, enjoy
yourselves!” Jose concluded the welcome. “And please call upon any of us for
anything that you may need. We are here to serve you.”
* * * *
In the dim light of a
storage room filled with tool and supply lockers on a lower deck, a pair of
gloved hands picked the lock on a large trunk. CLICK. The tumblers fell. The
latch popped open. But suddenly, black-skinned Haitian-Creole Emmanuel Lindor
looked up when he heard approaching footsteps outside the room.
Knowing his time was
limited, Lindor lifted the lid of the trunk and rifled through it. Disappointed
by what he didn't find, Lindor heard the steps now just outside the door. He
lowered the trunk's lid and slipped away.
About the Author
Dr. Wesley Britton is the author of four non-fiction books, Spy Television (2003), Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film (2005), Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book of Movie Espionage (2006), and The Encyclopedia of TV Spies (2009).
Starting in fall 2015, his science fiction/ mystery/ espionage series, The Beta-Earth Chronicles debuted with the ground-breaking The Blind Alien. Throughout 2016 to 2019, eight sequels followed including Return to Alpha, Wesley's first stand alone novel. Alpha Tales 2044 was the first of three collections of Beta-Earth short stories.
Britton earned his doctorate in American Literature at the University of North Texas in 1990. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-host of online radio's "Dave White Presents" broadcast over KSAV.org. For DWP, Wesley contributed interviews with authors, musicians, actors, and many entertainment insiders. In 2022, Wes picked up from where he left off with his own “Flashback, another interview show broadcast over KSAV.org and now also archived at his Remember When podcast page.
Wesley taught English at Harrisburg Area Community College until his retirement in 2016. Wes is blind due to the progressive genetic disease, retiniteous pigmentosa. Wesley served on the Board of Directors for Vision Resources of Central Pennsylvania for 14 years. He has been writing book reviews for sites like BlogCritics.org and BookPleasures.com for nearly 30 years. Wes and Grace and their menagerie live in Harrisburg, PA.
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