Bowling Green State University ScholarWorks@BGSU Honors Projects Honors College Fall 2012 Guardians, Start of a Light Novel Series Gary Tsun Tsin Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/honorsprojects Repository Citation Tsin, Gary Tsun, "Guardians, Start of a Light Novel Series" (2012). Honors Projects. 71. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/honorsprojects/71 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at ScholarWorks@BGSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@BGSU. Guardians Volume One The Phantom A story by Gary Tsun Tsin Leung Edited by Katie Duncan Victoria S Fenton Bao Luong Kenneth Rutski Brittany Sniegowski Lauren Veith 0 Prologue I swear to protect all that I hold dear. I will protect all humans of Earth, my family, my friends, even my enemies. I will serve Earth with best of my abilities. Humanity’s innocence is secured by me. My duty is my best kept secret until humanity reaches puberty. I will consider the value of my life as secondary, under any circumstances, compared to those whom I swear to protect. Earth’s humanity, not one nation or ethnicity, is my only allegiance. I will obey my duty, my order, and my oath to humanity. My life selflessly belongs to Earth’s humanity. Prologue: The Oath 1 Chapter Zero Meet Edward Alfred, age fourteen, a squad leader of the James Lawrence Franklin Semi- Charter/Private High School Tiger Marching Band Trombone. He is an average fourteen year old sophomore. Oh, okay, slightly above average. Ed is smart, straight A student with perfect attendance, and able to take several honors courses with enough time to do both marching band and track. He is well known around his school, but not popular. “Alright!” Drum Major Taylor Keble stands up and puts his cap over his long black hair covering one of his eyes and yells to the bus from the front, “We are playing for the first time this season. We will make our school proud! Let’s go Tigers! We are the best of the best in the area and the winner of several state awards and one national award. The Cobra doesn’t have anything on us!” The bus load of bandies raises their instruments and cheers. Ed puts some grease on slide of his Yamaha trombone. He ties his shoelaces on his white leather marching boot and buttons up his blue and white jacket. Pushing his brown short and slightly spiky hair down under his hat and grabbing his music, Ed holds his trombone like a rifle. “I’m ready for action!” Ed yells with an adrenaline rush. = Sept. 11, 2010. 1:13 am Greenwich Mean Time = = Sept. 10, 2010. 6:13 pm Central Standard Time = Meet Edward Alfred, codename Guide Light. Rank: Sergeant Major. He is a member of Night Hawk, an elite stealth espionage squad that fights behind the front line of hostile worlds to defend Earth and her oblivious population from extraterrestrial threats. At the age of fourteen, his assignment age is low compared to the average starting age to the frontline infantry of sixteen. The average starting age for a covert agent is nineteen. Isn’t he something special? Don’t argue with me, of course he is! “Alright!” Spearhead, the head of the unit, says under his black helmet with a spear engraving, “We are dropping in quietly into Tahton. We are to sneak inside the Rukantee 2 warehouse complex and set up the objective. We all know our jobs, so let’s get this done with speed and precision!” Waiting for the arrival at the drop zone, Ed puts a magazine of .45 caliber caseless bullets into his Tealsa-Rosa brand compact modular rifle and magnetically holsters his .50 caliber Tealsa-Rosa semi-automatic caseless pistol to his right hip. Of course being the strong silent type, he has suppressors equipped on his weapons too. He puts on his helmet with three four- point star engraved on it, and whispers with a calming tone “I’m ready for action.” = Sept. 11, 1:13am Greenwich Mean Time = = Date N/A, 27:63 mission local time (military time) = Tahton, sixth planet of Isidor System, 187 light-years from Earth Ed and the rest of the Tiger Marching Band stand up inside the Alexander Dennis school bus sharply colored with blue and yellow, the school’s color, unlike the ugly yellow buses from Bluebird that every other schools uses. Tony the bus driver opens the door and speaks through the radio, “Boys n’ girls we’re here. Have a nice time!” “Game day is here!” Taylor, the drum major, cheers and jumps out of the bus as everyone else follows. “Thank you very much Tony,” Amelia, the unofficial official photographer of the band, says as she looks into her camera’s view finder with bright blue eyes and takes a picture of him. “No problem! Just take a lot of pictures,” Tony replies, “I’ll be here if any of y’all needs to come back for anything.” The band marches into their opponent’s stadium, the King High School Cobra Athletic Stadium. The sections separate into their designated roll on the visiting team’s bleachers. They always wanted to march onto the bleachers, but physics says if they did that the bleachers could collapse. Ed leads his squad to their seats. Ed attaches his flippy-folder to the top of his trombone and sits down. Ed, like all squad leaders, awaits the signal from the drum majors to start playing. He is jumpy with impatience. The other school hasn’t even played the Star Spangle Banner yet. “Oh, I can’t wait this long,” Ed waves his flippy-folder in excitement. I’m glad that he acts his age often and know how to have fun. 3 Ed and the rest of the Night Hawk stand in line in the forward airlock of the Brosnan Class Tactical Support Micro Cruiser, a black triangular shape spaceship, named Tomorrow Never Dies. Helmets are all set and their black sneaking suits are zipped up with thin armor plating and underarmor attached and ready. The entrance door to the airlock locks and seals as the bay depressurizes and the door hatch opens. Captain Zhang adjusts Tomorrow’s trajectory into orbit of Tahton and calls through the comlink, “We’ll be over the drop zone soon.” The team looks down to the planet. “Fifteen seconds.” Ed fidgets with shoulder pads and chest plates for last minute check up. “Ten seconds.” A light on top of the airlock glows red. “Five seconds.” That light turns green. “You have the go!” “Yahoo!” Spearhead bellows as he jumps out first into the silent void of space and the rest of the team follows. “I give my thanks to thou great much Captain Zhang,” Butterfly, the medic of the squad, being polite as always, says to the captain for flying them to their mission. “You are always so polite Butterfly. No need to thank me, just doing my job,” Captain Zhang replies, “Okay I’ll come back when you set up the objective.” The team dives from high-orbit around Tahton and enters the atmosphere. Ed’s helmet visor polarizes to protect his eyesight from the flames of reentry, not even his brilliant green eyes can be seen though the black polarized visor. They are entering from the day side of the planet to mask their entry trails, the Dusk Entry tactic. This way they will not be as noticeable as the shooting stars, which they would have looked like in the night sky. As the team approaches their target, they separate towards their designated locations. In order to slow his descent, the air flaps on back of Ed’s suit open as a force field is generated around his suit which acts like a parachute. He gently glides to the roof of the 4 Rukantee warehouse complex as if he had wings. Ed kneels down as he touches the ground and puts his right palm on the ground and his left arm up in the air to stabilize himself. “Guide Light, landed,” he informs the team. Ed is a professional. I’m glad that he knows when to be a professional and focus on the task at hand. Ed sits down after the national anthem. “Remember, we have Iron Man and James Bond to play,” Taylor reminds everyone in the band with a megaphone. “Yo! Can we get some Pixie?” Asks Gabriel Stevenson, a blond trumpet, who speaks with a fake ghetto accent. “Yes, just make sure you are ready when you see my signal.” “Alright!” Nina Tisdale, one of the flutes, yells. “No-no!” Ed comments, “You will be so hyper from the Pixie Stix that you will speed up the tempo compared to everyone else.” “Agreed,” Dan Hoken, an African-American drummer, yells back up towards the flute section. “No sugar for you tonight.” “You guys are noooooo fun,” Nina sits down, crosses her arms and pouts. TOUCHDOWN!!!! The Tigers score. The drum majors make ground pound gestures on their stands resembling the pose on the Iron Man movie poster, but weirdly this pose was never in the movie. Ed stands up and yells, “Iron Man!” Ed’s trombone squad stops talking and puts down their Pixie Stix, stands up and brings their instruments to standby position. The drum majors swing their arms in harmony and each section plays their part. Bobbing left and right, almost in sync, the band section on the bleacher shines in shimmering light as the stadium lights reflect off their shinny instruments.