Zendra of the

Periphery

A transgalactic space opera with 100% pure human writing

By Seth T. Thatcher Edited by Megan Stevens and Kelly Young

Pew Pew Publishing, LLC

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Text copyright © 2024 by Seth T. Thatcher All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Pew Pew Publishing, LLC P.O. Box 391 Stephens City, VA 22655

Cover design by Meredith Hancock/Hancock Media and DaVinci AI

ISBN-13:  979-8-89298-994-7 (digital)

ISBN-13:  979-8-89298-985-5 (paperback)

ISBN-13:  979-8-89298-986-2 (hardback)

Table of Contents

Dedication

Preface

Author’s Note

Origo Primordium

Drang’s Empire of Silence

The Jay of Thanu

Zendra Starfire

Solitude Seven

ALVAN

Xander Wade

Star Spirit One: The Legend of Kazoo

In Principio

Trip to Iscareth

Livinia Trematerra

Betrayal

Bok Do

Intel

Star Spirit Two

Temporis Immemorabilis

Taken

Back Across Via Lactea

The Wrath of Bok

Purpose is Life

An Old Friend

All Aboard the Halcyon Daze

Star Spirit Three

Stella Balaenes

Og the Dreadful

Mazuul’s Revenge

Into the Void

Distress Signal

Rescue

Confession

Star Spirit Four

Cogitatio

Space Pirates

Bridge Party

Effervescence

The Andromeda Train

Divide and Conquer

Deep Space Shindig

Star Spirit:  The Meet Cute

Cosmicam Industriam

The Great Gabion Wall

The Plot

Crossing the Rubicon

An Employment Opportunity

The Liquidation of Laoghaire

The Galaxies Like Dust

The Far Side

Specialis Amor

Double Cross Déjà vu

Journey to Hili-Kishar

Rouen

Port of Anshargal

The Apkallu

Waxing Philosophical

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

Stella poema

Timing is Everything

Power Vacuum

Drang’s Reinforcements

Devil Be Warned

Nanu Nanu

One Tin Soldier Rides Away

The Invasion at Iscareth

A Farewell to Arms

Epilogue

Dedication

For my wife, Kelly, who makes all things possible through her unending support and love. There aren’t words in the English language to express how much I adore you. Thank you for editing the book and providing valuable feedback!

For my dear friend, Jay Foreman, who serves as my primary inspiration to finally write this novel that I have always wanted to write. It is due to his fantastic writing abilities, his powerful leadership skills, his genuine character, and the fortitude he shows in blazing his own trail. I admire you, my friend.

For my mother, Karen, who when I told her I was writing a science fiction novel she said, That sounds like an incredible waste of time!  I didn’t get mad; it just gave me the ambition to bring it to fruition. Perhaps you’ve always understood about me that if you tell me not to do something or that I shouldn’t do something that it will force me in the opposite direction. You’re a piece of work!  I love you.

For my father, Dale, who when I told him I was writing a science fiction novel, he said, Hey, if it’s a bestseller, keep me in mind!  That’s a ton of encouragement from a man who only likes non-fiction. You’re a gem. I love you.

For my sister, Megan, who is a reading specialist, you did Oscar performance-level work to sound like you didn’t think I was crazy when I told you I was embarking on this journey. And that makes you a sweetheart!  I love you. Thank you for being my enthusiastic editor!

Preface

For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people…

The Bible, Exodus 9:15

In the vast expanse that is intergalactic space there resides an unfathomable silence and emptiness. The cosmos is terrifying in its impenetrable deepness. The void of space has no memory, no sentimentality. It is the medium in which an unknowable number of life-forms fight for survival; the right to live. They fight against each other and against the unforgiving nature of the medium itself. Though the universe can give life, it can also take it away with unexpected and undeserved ferocity. But what is ‘deserve’? The immense vacuum does not care for the righteous, the intelligent, or the beautiful. In the 13.8 billion years since the Source gave its divine breath to initiate what humans call the Big Bang, many species have come into and passed out of existence in the heavens. Many species more worthy than the human race have met their end for reasons that mostly defy explanation. Still others less worthy than humanity flourish under the Source’s watchful eye. Seemingly, there is no solace, no protector, and no sanctuary; or is there? There is only life having been given, the right to defend it against all that would take it away. And there is free will, the Source’s greatest gift and mightiest burden. It is under these conditions and in this environment that this story about life in the cosmos begins in what humans refer to as the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies.

Author’s Note

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Sir Isaac Newton

The Cosmic Compendium of Ancient Starfarers is a text discovered and passed down from antiquity to the many extant races. It has been known to exist only relatively recently by humans. However, it was long ago discovered by earlier civilizations who have since passed out of all knowledge. Andromedans made it available to humans two centuries ago (circa A.D. 2800). Translators while adapting the text from Andromedan to Via Lactean Standard made section headings in Latin as a paean to scientific structure and discipline. A full accounting of the compendium would be far too voluminous to appear in this tale, but excerpts will be weaved into the writing. The text is known to have been permanently embedded in the cosmic code by those who desired to impart what they had learned to those who would come after.

incipit (Latin)

It begins (Via Lactean)

Origo Primordium

Origo Primordium (Latin)

First Source (Via Lactean)

I know the number of the galaxies and the measure of their distance.

I comprehend the chirp of black hole mergers and hear the blaze of stars over eons unfathomable.

The sweet smell of vacuum has come to my senses like burnt metal.

I taste the cauldrons of hydrogen as they relentlessly fuse into helium to shine so brightly.

My sight is ravished by the beauty of the photon bath in gamma ray bursts. I touch the filaments that give birth to densities unimaginable.

I rise again and again to watch the simple complexity and complex simplicity of all creation.

Cosmos without end.

An Excerpt from The Cosmic Compendium of Ancient Starfarers

Drang’s Empire of Silence

Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.

Apocalypse Now

Note:  When telepathic life-forms speak, the ~ symbol is used to denote approximation to standard Via Lactean.

Drang the Gray had returned to Triangulum Galaxy and was several months removed from his final defeat by the Andromedans in Andromeda Galaxy. He was on his flagship starvessel the Powehi. Drang wasn’t on Mazuul, the planetary seat of power in his Triangulum Galaxy and the homeworld of the Gray race, because he was chasing down the traitor who dared try to usurp him while he was away at war attempting to expand his malignant realm.

He wouldn’t admit this to himself, of course, but Drang needed this current sport to take his mind off the humiliation he had needlessly suffered at the hands of the loathsome Andromedans. They were loathsome in his mind because of the fact that they were an obstruction in his way thwarting him from his main objective of expanding his dominance outward beyond Triangulum. His own weakness disgusted him, and he needed to be able to find another sentient being to harm in order to assuage his teeming rage. Terrorizing others would be the only solace that might fill the hole inside his soul. Only then could he get back down to the business of plotting his transgalactic ambitions anew.

Drang’s crew on the Powehi were now bearing down on a freighter ship that they suspected was carrying the leader of this ill-fated insurgency. The insurgent leader was Wraith whose army was called the Rohingya. They had miscalculated that Drang’s absence from Triangulum Galaxy fighting the Andromedans would give them the time, talent, and treasure to overthrow his violent regime. For a while their rebellious efforts had proved fruitful, but Drang had spies everywhere and knew what to expect and who and where to expect it from. The sheer force of his anger at failing in Andromeda was likely enough to serve him well without even the benefit of spies. Drang had a talent for accumulating power and keeping it, recent setbacks aside.

As they caught up with the freighter ship and easily disabled it with a magnetophotodynamic torpedo set at destructive level two, his First Officer Feith notified him that a boarding party would soon retrieve Wraith via shuttlecraft and bring him and his aides de camp back to the Powehi for whatever Drang had in store for them. The great thing about magnetophotodynamic torpedoes was that they could be set at various levels of destructiveness up to level eight. The Gray race used the octal numbering system due to having only eight digits unlike humans who had ten.

Drang had then insisted to Feith that this traitorous scum be brought out of the shuttlecraft into the massive cargo bay with nearly the entire crew present and at attention. The perfidy of these miscreants roiled Drang endlessly. Naturally, a skeleton crew would remain behind at their posts to operate the starvessel. Drang had demanded that once all was in place, Feith should alert him, and he would then make his entrance in order to deal with the prisoners.

Feith, of course, eagerly assented to Drang’s demands not only because Drang was his superior officer and ruler of the Triangulum Galaxy, but because not to do so would mean excruciating pain or even death if he did not obey. As a result of his vile temperament, Drang suffered little resistance to his orders unless there was an extremely good reason. This fact could and had cut both ways for Drang. Fear could be a proper motivator, but at times it would serve him poorly when subordinates had failed to speak up even when they knew doing so could stave off disaster.

The Grays of Triangulum were a species of the many extant races that had long been spacefaring. Undoubtedly, they were so named because of their gray skin. Grays were just a little over a meter in height, give or take, with very thin arms and legs, and a torso to which was attached a large head like a lightbulb with shimmering black menacing eyes that had a bug-like quality. Adding to their strangeness, as many species discovered, was the fact that they never spoke aloud. Long ago, any vocal cords they might once have had, had atrophied and evolved away into the dustbin of history. They only engaged in mental telepathy with their own kind and were generally able to affect the same methodology with other species, even ones with verbal communication abilities like humans.

While they experienced emotion quite viscerally, they lacked the means of imparting that to other races with body language and without speech. So, the Grays seemed to be a cold lot to other species despite their ability to convey emotion telepathically. And when it came to their actions toward the many extant races they were, in fact, a cold lot. Indeed, they were often quite vicious to each other as was about to play out in the cargo bay of the Powehi.

After Feith notified Drang that Wraith and his cohorts were assembled with the crew in the cargo bay, Drang slowly made his way from the bridge of the starvessel to the bowels of the ship. He would relish dealing with these disloyal subjects. The price of betraying Drang’s regime was death or was there something he could think of even more terrible?  Drang pondered with gusto.

As Drang made his way across the cargo bay he could see the crew gathered and at attention in perfect rows. In front of the crew, he saw Wraith on his knees and on each side of him, left and right, two of his aides-de-camp. Feith was positioned in front of the three traitors facing them as Drang approached from behind. Feith could sense Drang’s presence as could all Grays without turning to look.

~The traitors, captured and prepared for justice, as you commanded, Supreme Leader, said Feith to Drang with his standard telepathy in a way that all in the cargo bay could hear, feel, and understand. The telepathic communications of Grays always carried emotions with them even if their body language did not.

Drang said nothing as he positioned himself next to Feith staring with his large black shimmering eyes at those who would soon receive his unquenchable wrath. This had the effect of creating an extreme amount of tension in the large room. Drang let his appetite for destruction rise into a palpable crescendo before he began his malicious political theater replete with show trial.

At last, in order to relieve the growing pressure on everyone, Wraith feigned some bravado and sent a mental message meant for all present to understand but directed at Drang. ~It’s been a long time, Drang. Wraith’s simple pointed statement had a twist of the familiar accompanied with a trace of affection in it.

~Indeed, Drang immediately responded to Wraith but he coupled it with an unmistakably chilly air such that it would raise the hair on the neck of any human. As it was, Grays had no neck hair. Part of Drang’s genius was communicating with his emotions even more than his telepathic words.

~Now I have you, at long last, right where I want you, Drang, ventured Wraith.

If Grays could laugh, which they didn’t, at least not in the same way as humans, Drang laughed uproariously but without response. Drang knew bravado when he saw it. If a human had been present, they would have heard nothing. The crew, including Feith, knew better than to laugh along with Drang and Wraith.

After a long pause, Drang mute, the tension once again building, Wraith said, ~Our people, the Grays, should not be used by you as pawns to increase your power, Drang. Drang remained mute. He waited patiently.

~Now countless hundreds of thousands have died in your ridiculous war against the Andromedans. And for what?  We have not expanded our territorial control. Our people suffer deprivations due to prolonged wars that gain us nothing, Wraith continued, amassing his indignation.

Drang waited, staring, unflinching, his fury rising like the tides of Ghazaleh. Ghazaleh was a planet in Triangulum Galaxy that had three high and three low tides during its sidereal day which was equivalent to thirty standard Via Lactean hours with its nearly world covering oceans. Three large moons were the culprit. The planet was so well known, that even in Via Lactea and Andromeda galaxies the phrase ‘like the tides of Ghazaleh’ was often used as part of the lexicon though most had never seen it with their own eyes or eyestalks.

~I never wanted to war against you, brother, but you made it a necessity because you cannot ever see reason. Our people are terrified of you. They dread you. I dread you. We each have a role to play in this universe and you and only you have given me my one true purpose. And that purpose is to battle you to the bitter end to try to provide something better for our people since you clearly will not! Wraith said forcefully with gathering intensity.

"~You have the temerity to call me ‘brother’?" spat Drang as he surpassed the internal limit of his sibling’s rantings.

~Did we not share the same paternal gestational cavity? pleaded Wraith, shocked at his brother’s abdication of their common origin.

At that, Drang had reached his tolerance for Wraith’s insolence and declared, ~As Supreme Leader of the Gray race in the Galaxy of Triangulum, I Drang, declare you, Wraith, and these specimens of treachery with you, to be traitors to our people in your attempt to wrest power from their legitimate ruler. I sentence all of you to death.  And with that, Drang did not hesitate one second before wielding what appeared to be a weapon very similar to a scythe that he brandished with such ferocity that he decapitated all three Grays, including his own brother, with one violent and unremitting stroke.

Black goo sprayed Feith and Drang alike. Then Drang threw down the weapon on the cargo bay floor making a harsh cacophony and the only sounds since the inception of his dark gallows theater. He then sent a private telepathic message to Feith as he looked directly at him and then turned to leave. The terror of the crew in that moment washed over Drang telepathically as he departed, and it gave him a rush of pleasure that did help assuage the humiliation of his recent martial loss in Andromeda. Drang turned back one last time to look at the crew and the heap of dead corpses in the cargo bay, ~Soldiers of the Triangulum Horde, failure is not an option. Next time I won’t be so gentle like I was with these turncoats slain before you this day! he hissed so that everyone in the room received his telepathic message.

The crew was horrified not only because of what they had just witnessed but because they had authentically experienced Drang’s rage via telepathy. Humans have no equivalent to this sensory awareness, and it cannot be described satisfactorily. For many long minutes nothing was said or communicated as Feith and some of the others began to carry out Drang’s morbid and ghastly orders. Finally, the crew was released by Feith to go back to their regular duties.

The Jay of Thanu

When there is nothing to do, you do nothing slowly and intently.

Haruki Murakami

Ximrin Vafa walked down a long antiseptic white hallway with a ridiculously high ceiling followed by a retinue of no less than five subservient foreign policy staff members click-clacking their footwear against the floor as they slowly sauntered toward the Exquisite Hall of His Excellency the Jay of Thanu, divine ruler of the Virgin Empire in a galaxy which humans had monikered M87. That galaxy was fifty-three million light-years away, give or take, from the home of the human race in Via Lactea.

All six of these public servants were clad in long black robes, five of them with a white collar, while the one leading the entourage had a red collar. As they reached the great doors into the Exquisite Hall, two blue-faced military guards opened the doors to allow entry for the distinguished government functionary leading the pack. They all filed into the fantastically large room as the doors shut behind them. The room was full of hundreds of members of the many extant races, in other words, aliens, and the din was quite oppressive. As the cortege maneuvered through the throng, the crowd parted to accommodate their passage. Ximrin Vafa made his way toward the regal chair situated on an alien pedestal so that he might engage with his excellency on a topic of middling importance. When at last he reached a reasonable distance to accommodate conversation with his liege, the crowd began to quiet some but they continued in their varied conversations in a plethora of languages throughout the vast room. Some of the languages were verbal, some were telepathic, and some were making clicking noises with body parts other than their oral cavities.

The Jay of Thanu had been accustomed over a lifetime of rule to this exact scene. Ximrin Vafa would approach him in his Exquisite Hall while he was busy entertaining aliens from every corner of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies. It would invariably involve some matter or other that bored him nearly to tears and so he executed an audible and visible chest compression resulting in what any sentient race would consider a massive sigh of irritation. Vafa ignored his annoyance.

Excellency, we have received some small bit of intelligence that most likely requires you to do nothing at present but that if it would remain undisclosed to you and something bad were to then happen later, could possibly lead to you separating my head from the rest of my thorax, said Lord High Administrator Ximrin Vafa. Vafa was rather tall with an approximately humanoid head and face attached to a massive thorax with three legs protruding from there. All but his head was covered by the long black, red-collared robe which was a considerable kindness to the others present since members of the Ghent species were unpleasant to look at especially in the midriff region.

I have been searching for a decent reason to do just that for the last twenty years, but you never seem to make a sizable enough mistake in judgment, administrator. It’s rather vexing, replied his Excellency, The Jay of Thanu. The Jay was not as tall as Vafa, especially not while seated on the throne, in any case, but he had light blue skin and dark brown wavy hair which was more or less the visual appearance of the Sace species of which The Jay was a member. He dressed in a royal purple robe lined with the bright white fur of a tanqueray which was quite similar in appearance to one of the great cats on Earth. All things being equal nobody in the room had heard of Earth. Not only was the planet a backwater, but the entire galaxy of Via Lactea was a backwater.

It pleases me to serve your Excellency to the utmost of my abilities, sire, Vafa responded, his obsequiousness overflowing.

Please spare me the smarmy diplomatic speak, for Source’s sake, Vafa. I know what you’re really like, lectured The Jay.

Very well, Highness. You’re aware I have literally hundreds of thousands of functionaries on Thanu all working to keep this transgalactic empire of yours running smoothly. They do all sorts of tasks related to law, commerce, foreign policy, transportation, etcetera. This doesn’t even include the legions of public servants in other galaxies, ad infinitum.

Yes, of course, but surely this is not what you came here for, interrupting my reception for the inhabitants of the Whirlpool Galaxy. Can we get down to it before the heat death of the universe, man?

I do so enjoy your wit, Excellency, but it’s ‘May we’, Vafa said with a little too much sarcasm.

"May we what, Vafa?" retorted The Jay with unmistakable surliness.

"I was correcting your grammar, sire. May we get down to-," the Lord High Administrator was cut off.

Vafa! screamed The Jay in exasperation.

Yes, sire, so as we are wont to do, we keep tabs on just about every galaxy this side of the Sloan Great Wall that the powers from far beyond grant us hegemony over. While this Virgin Empire of yours controls the entire Virgo Supercluster, some twenty-five hundred galaxies, there are perhaps fifteen hundred or so other galaxies that are in our sphere of influence, as it were, that we have marginal control over, stated the administrator.

I know how big my empire is, administrator. Get to the point! thundered The Jay.

Which leads me to the intel we have acquired on a small group of galaxies on the fringes of the Virgin Empire that could present a problem down the road. One of these galaxies, in particular, Triangulum, has a leader named Drang the Gray who recently attacked his neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in an attempt to conquer it and he failed, continued Vafa.

Sounds like problem solved, Vafa, The Jay jousted playfully.

Vafa ignored the interruption and continued. First of all, Excellency, this Drang did not seek permission or gain clearance through official channels to make war on another galaxy. In his own galaxy, that would be one thing, sire. There he may make war all he likes, but we can’t have galactic leaders thinking they can just go to war in other galaxies anytime they want without chaos and mayhem raining down everywhere in the Virgin Empire! Administrator Vafa was getting lathered as he considered the egregious conduct of Drang.

OK, well, if we have to, we can send out the 20th Transgalactic Armada to make an example of this upstart, can’t we?  Calm down, Ximrin, soothed The Jay.

Vafa continued without really hearing or acknowledging his liege, And sire, that is not even the worst part. Not to be thwarted, Drang is now rebuilding his forces in preparation for another unsanctioned attack on the smaller galaxy of Via Lactea which he thinks he can easily subdue. With the additions to his forces and fleets he then plans to make another attempt on invading Andromeda Galaxy. If he succeeds, not only will he have made three separate unsanctioned assaults on galaxies other than his own, but his power will have grown precipitously. Why soon he will be knocking on the door of the Virgin Empire causing no end to issues on our southern flank.

"This sounds like a lot of what if’s? What is this galaxy, uh, you said, Via Lactea, correct?  Perhaps they will repel him and that will be the end of it. Sayonara, Drang!" The Jay of Thanu had so many other problems to deal with.  He was hopeful that this didn’t become one of them.

"Via Lactea is a barred spiral galaxy about one hundred thousand light-years across that contains a race of aliens calling themselves ‘human’, sire. In their own language Via Lactea means ‘Milky Way’. That race of humans is so backward that they named the stars in their galaxy after some bovine-like lactation. It doesn’t provide for a lot of confidence, frankly. And from the perspective of our experts, this invasion Drang is planning sounds like a fait accompli, Highness, given the level of unpreparedness in Via Lactea," explained Vafa in a rambling fashion.

Perhaps we grant this Drang the official sanction he needs, albeit a bit after the fact, to continue his crusade. Maybe he provides some needed stability in that region. It’s not like we don’t have other galactic leaders that govern more than one galaxy. You know, like the Magellanic Clouds for instance, cajoled The Jay.

Excellency, look, I admit that this could all be just another one of the many galactic situations that we monitor and that requires us to do nothing, however, I have it on good authority, he motioned to the five functionaries behind him who all nodded in unison as if on command, that this Drang is a pretty nefarious guy who has overcome many obstacles to get to this point. While he is not infallible, he is extremely determined to succeed and I have a feeling that he won’t be satisfied with just Triangulum, Via Lactea, and Andromeda. Much of what you do or choose not to do is based on the fact that I am pretty good at what I do. My thorax is telling me something on this one.

Administrator, I appreciate your concern, and I will think on this. Thanu wasn’t built in a day, and neither will Drang be ready to attack Via Lactea anytime soon. We do have time to consider the moves we make. Let’s meet in a few days to discuss this further. Bring me options and or deeper insight, administrator, again soothed The Jay of Thanu.

Excellency, as ever, your wisdom is beyond reproach. It shall be so, Administrator Ximrin Vafa bowed and turned to leave with his foreign policy experts.

The Jay of Thanu just shook his head as Ximrin Vafa departed his presence.

Zendra Starfire

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Zendra sullenly walked out of the house and saw her father across a recently cut field of green grass. He was talking with a robot close to the corn fields that spread outward into the distance meeting blue sky. If you had been an inhabitant of 21st century Earth, you would be forgiven if you thought this was Iowa or Ukraine, but it wasn’t. This simple setting of Zendra’s early life, in fact, was the planet Solitude Seven, eighty thousand light-years away from Earth on the far side of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This Earth-like, but more diminutive planet, Solitude Seven, was in the Outer Rim of the galaxy in the Perseus Arm of Via Lactea.

The seventeen-year-old Zendra yelled, Dad! as she walked slowly toward him, clearly not happy about something. Zendra had medium-length black