Science fiction INTRODUCTION to...

"The view was spectacular!  Right underneath them was a huge yellow-brown sphere!  It was a planet!  And to their left was a monstrously-big sun!   It was the biggest sun he’d ever seen!  And it was all orange, with lots of crawling flares burning up off its surface!  It looked like it was going to explode!"

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This 313-page book contains fifteen short stories, each illustrated by a Christmas Holiday-oriented animal cartoon.   Each story deals with an underlying theme from its cartoon, as to the nature and significance of our holiday gatherings, when humanity tends to exhibit both its best and worst characteristics.  

Half of the book deals with the holiday-related adventures of the "Hyperspace Trader Space Kids," a young boy and girl who two thousand years in the future accompany and help their parents as they all travel on their starship in hyperspace throughout the Galaxy, hauling cargo from planet to planet, and trading with many strange life-forms.  

In this book, the space kids encounter and struggle with space pirates, giant intelligent snakes, the mysterious Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way, and Humanity's Greatest Treasure locked in a Pyramid in a deserted Washington D.C. mall on mythical Old Earth.  [rating: "PG," parental guidance suggested.]

See below for STORY TITLES and Science Fiction-related EXAMPLE.

[See Reptile Section for Reptile-related EXAMPLE.]

Donnie woke up to a loud ringing in his ears.  It was the collision alert siren!!!

“What’s happening?” he chocked, trying to get his thoughts together, shaking his head to try to clear it.        

“We must have dropped out of hyperspace!” his sister gasped, rolling out of her bunk and fumbling around for her helmet.  “Something’s wrong!  Get suited!  You know the emergency drill!”

He was about to tell her that he knew what to do in emergencies and didn’t need her to tell him what to do when a loud “CRUMMPPP” sounded and the artificial gravity snapped off!

He drifted up into the air, his stomach doing flip-flops inside him, shocked by the instant change to no-grav, but still keeping enough wits to slip into his one-piece, flexible space suit and grab his helmet off the wall hanger---fumbling it down securely over his head.  Lucky his sister’d got him going...there must be a hull breach because he’d already started getting light-headed...a few more seconds and he’d have been unconscious from lack of oxygen...

“Here, let me help...” Suzie irritatingly insisted, slapping his helmet-locks firmly down into place.  Fully-oxygenated air immediately began to swirl around his face as the recycler in the suit kicked in, and he breathed deeply, his head starting to clear.  

Now he saw how important it was to have their space-suits nearby whenever they went into hyperdrive.  Hyperspace was too weird for people to stay awake long in, and emergency exits out of Hyperspace were often rough.  First time, though, that the drill had actually saved his life!  Usually space travel was just plain boring.  Not now, though.  Now, he was good and scared!

“What’s goin’ on?” he blinked, floating in the middle of the room with his sister, both of them in their shiny white space-suits, their clear helmets making their heads seem grotesquely large.  His own voice sort of echoed around in his helmet, but he knew that the suit-to-suit radio would let his sister hear him perfectly clearly.        

“Let’s get up to the control room,” her voice sounded in his helmet.  “Dad and Mom are probably already there!”        

She pushed out with her feet against the wall, sending her floating towards the door of the small cabin.  She had a firm grip on his arm and dragged him along with her.  She was sure bossy!  Just because he was only eight years old and she was ten, didn’t mean she could tell him what to do all the time!  Of course, she didn’t know that, and always told him what to do whether she should or not!        

Sometimes he really hated her: her snotty, freckled face and turned-up nose---and all that shaggy red hair on her head, just like some stupid little toy doll!  At least toy dolls told you that they “loved” you, whether they meant it or not!  She just yelled at him!        

“Hurry up!” she nagged as he squirmed along in the air behind her.        

“I’m going as fast as you’re going!” he complained, since it was she dragging him by his arm!        

“Hah!  It’s you, you little bald-headed squirt, that’s holding me back!”        

What!??  Bald headed???  He wasn’t bald headed!  He just had a close hair-cut, like his Dad!  His Dad always had a nice, neat crew-cut!  He was going to be just like his Dad when he grew up: a space-captain Trader, with his own wagon-train transport!  “You’re just like Mom!” he shouted at her.        

“You’re complimenting me?” she laughed.

“No, not tall and pretty and blond like her!” he sneered.  “You’re nagging and stupid and think you know everything, even though you’re just a dumb kid, like me!!”

“I’m telling,” she spat, yanking hard on his arm as they kicked off of a wall.        

“Hey!” he gasped.        

They floated down the middle of a hallway, past the eating room where plasteel pots and pans had broken free of their tethers and were tumbling slowly in the air.  One more kick and they floated slowly towards the airlock door leading to the central control room.  Usually Donnie loved going up into the control room.  He didn’t get there often.  But now Suzie might rat on him for his crack about Mom.  Just like her.  You couldn’t trust sisters!

Normally Mom and Dad didn’t allow him up in the control room.  It was very cramped and hard for a person to watch all the dials and keep control of the wagon-train if several people were stuffed into the room.  He’d only been allowed up there two or three times.  But this was an emergency!  Suzie spun an airlock door open, and dragged him upwards.        

It was very crowded.  With Suzie and him there, there was barely room to move your arms.  But suddenly Donnie didn’t care.  It was just too exciting to be up there where you could see everything!  The entire top half of the small room was a big, clear, plasteel bubble!  It was like popping up into space itself!  The view was spectacular!        

Right underneath them was a huge yellow-brown sphere!  It was a planet!  And to their left was a monstrously-big sun!   It was the biggest sun he’d ever seen!  And it was all orange, with lots of crawling flares burning up off its surface!  It looked like it was going to explode!        

“Donnie, Suzie, get off the bridge!” his Dad barked at them, desperately working at the controls with his Mom, both of them also fully clad in emergency spacesuits, their clear helmets set firmly in place on their heads.        

But Donnie was too busy looking around to listen.  Behind their lead space ship, he saw the long line of chained-together cargo containers.  Each of the containers was the size of a house.  They were strung together in a line ten miles long, trailing off into the distance.  They were normally colored bright white.  Now they were yellow from all the burning sunlight blasting into them!

“What’s happening?  What’s wrong?” Suzie gushed, grabbing Mom’s arm.        

But Mom ignored Suzie, intent on aiming a big gun-like structure that slowly rose into Donnie’s view just outside the control-room bubble, firmly anchored to the outer surface of the space ship.        

He squinted along it’s vector, and saw what it was aiming at...        

---a glittering, sleek, jet-black raider growing larger by the second!        

“Pirates!” Suzie squealed, grabbing Donnie’s arm again, really tight!        

“That’s right, Sue,” his Mom calmly replied, aiming carefully.  “They must have blasted us out of hyperspace.  Quite clever of them.  They’ll try to force us to land on the planet below, where they can loot our cargo at their leisure.  But just a bit closer and they’ll be in range for us to...”        

A FLASH of brilliant red light from the pirate ship nearly blinded Donnie---and he felt his Mother pushing him and his sister downwards as THE TOP OF THE CONTROL ROOM BLEW OFF and THEIR GUN WAS RIPPED AWAY and THE PLANET BELOW CAME RUSHING UP AT THEM and HIS DAD DRAGGED THEM ALL DOWNWARDS AND SLAMMED SHUT THE HATCH TO THE DESTROYED CONTROL ROOM and THE HALLWAY WAS WHIPPING BACK AND FORTH LIKE A FLEXIBLE SNAKE and HIS MOM WAS STRAPPING SUZIE AND HIM BACK INTO THEIR BUNKS and EVERYTHING WENT BLACK...

[Much more happens after this.  Donnie and Suzy come-to crashed on an alien, deserted, sandy, hot planet, with no food or water, with not enough air to breathe outside---having to stay in their spacesuits, with only limited air recycling left.  Their parents have vanished, apparently captured by the Pirates, who've left the kids behind---probably useless to them.  Donnie and Suzy must fight their way across the burning sands to try to find their parents and somehow rescue them from ruthless Space Pirates.]

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