The Galactic Guardians

Beepity! Boopity! Bop! The sounds of the control center whirled through my head. My name is Sarah Frazer and I am currently 30 years old. If you see a 5’7” lady with long, brown hair and blue eyes, it’s probably me. My childhood was not exactly the best that one could hope for. My mother passed away when I was 5 and I was an only child. Without a sibling for company, I spent all of my time with my dad. I had always wanted to be a part of the Galactic Guardians Group of Greatness. Ever since my father and mother had joined after I was born, I started dreaming about the days that I would become a part of it. My parents were one of the highest ranking officials, and my mom died in battle. My dad was a legendary hero. Everyone including my school friends looked forward to being just like him. Throughout my whole childhood, I researched all the things I needed to do in order to become exactly like my dad, Tony Frazer, aka the head captain. In fact, I lived right there on the battleship and hung out with its crewmembers. Unfortunately, I was just a little kid and there was one thing I had been reluctant to accept – it was a dangerous job.

I eventually realized this cold reality when it finally hit me 10 years after my mother’s passing, on January 15, 2078—the day of my father’s death. The dreaded Anti-Galactic Guardians Group of Greatness was feared throughout the universe and was known for, well, hating the Galactic Guardians Group of Greatness. They were also the ones who had killed my father in cold blood. He was trying to make a final peace treaty with them, but they had trapped him. A few years before this, they had also slain my mom. Of course I was too young to remember all of this, but as I grew up, my hatred for them rose...

“Code Red! Code Red! A.G.G.G.G. has been detected!” the alarms sounded and the crew ran to their battle stations. I was in control of the most significant part—the command center. I told each compartment of the ship what to do, how, and when. I had been waiting for this moment my whole life; it was finally going to happen. The all-out war that everyone had been waiting for – the battle for my planet’s future -- was just about to commence

The A.G.G.G.G.’s ship loomed above mine. It was fairly smaller but it made up for its size in speed. It could go into hyper-drive and run away in just a few seconds. I peered through their ship’s command center and saw their captain—Henry Kaliwog. Weirdly, he was standing beside a hooded figure that didn’t look like he was part of their group…. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something different about this guy, something strange and dangerous. I was anxiously watching him as he was about to take off his hood when, suddenly, they fired at us. The whole ship shook and I fell to the ground. As I got up to look at the hooded man again, he was gone.

“Sarah! What were you thinking?” someone screamed, “They almost killed all of us, pay attention!” I looked around at my crew as they cautiously picked themselves up off the floor—I had let my curiosity get the best of me. Luckily, I had a trick up my sleeve. I had an anti hyper-drive cannon added to the ship’s arsenal. This way, the other ship’s hyper-drive engine would shut down as soon as we made a direct hit at their engine, and they would not be able to escape. As the battle raged on, both ships sent in their drones to fight and look for any weak spots. I laughed as their drones foolishly flew around my ship. There were no weak spots, as she had been custom made to perfection. The only way for us to be defeated was for the enemy to come inside and destroy our main engine.

“It’s a hit Sarah! Their shield generator is down. We got them right where we want them,” said my most trusted friend, Brian Foremen. We had been friends ever since elementary school. It was just fate that we would both have our dream jobs and on the same ship, too! He was the offense director. Brian was in charge of all things offense and was great at it. It wasn’t surprising that we got a great hit on them.

Now that their shield was down, we could charge up our strongest weapon, the Life Planet. As soon as it started to charge up, hundreds of escape pods poured out of their ship towards the nearest planet. The Life Planet was done charging and we let it go. It zoomed through the empty space between our ships for about a minute until theirs was devastatingly destroyed. The ship, now a great ball of flame, descended into the vast space until the orbit of another planet would pull it in. The whole crew cried “Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! We finally did it!” I was soon celebrating with them until the alarm blew again. This time it was sounding for a different reason. It was ringing because someone had attached their escape pod to our main entrance gate and was trying to get in…

We heard a large groan as my crew and I inched towards the enemy escape pod. For all we knew, there could have been a bomb in there! Luckily, our entrance scanners let us know that there was something alive in it. As the pod door creaked open slowly, I gasped. It was my father! After 15 long years, he was back. He stumbled out of the escape pod and walked over to me. “Oh Sarah! Oh how you’ve grown! You finally gave me the chance to escape the A.G.G.G.G. Thank you so much,” he said. Still speechless, I just hugged him and felt so grateful for him to be alive and here with me. But strangely, I did notice a long gash behind his head, and it looked so oddly familiar … “Dad, how did you get that scar?” I inquired.

“Oh,” he replied, “That is leftover from my years of captivity…”

After he got cleaned up and everyone got comfortable with him, we had found out that the A.G.G.G.G. had held him hostage for all these years. They had been using him to get knowledge about our army’s weaknesses, and after immense torture, my father told us that he had given them all the information he knew… Fortunately, it didn’t matter now as we had finally disbanded their group forever. “You must have made some amazing improvements since I’ve been gone, though,” my father commented. “My information about the old ship was useless and it seemed like this ship was invincible from my view in the command center.

“Well, it does have one flaw. If someone were to infiltrate the ship, they could ruin our main engine and our ship would be rendered useless,” I replied.

“Interesting, just in case anything happens, you know, it would be good for me to know the code to bypass the security leading to the main engine. Can you tell me sweetie?” he requested.

It was very unusual for him to ask that but I thought, why not. I mean, he is my dad; he wouldn’t do anything to harm me. “Sure, the code is just the nickname you gave me in full capital letters,” I answered.

“Thanks honey,” he said.

The rest of the month went by normally. We hunted down space gangs and stopped illegal ship rings. It felt great to have my dad back on the team. It was just like the old times where we would fly around space together. In fact, we even went back to our home planet for him to see all the things he had missed out on. We also had the chance to visit Brian’s dad!

Brian’s dad was named John Foremen. He and my dad were the best of buddies back in college. They both attended Space School University in order to become elite members of the Galactic Guardians Group of Greatness. That is how they both ended up with their dream jobs. John took the position of offense director. My dad was the captain of the ship. They worked absolutely lovely with each other. They were the unstoppable justice force that each galaxy dreamed of. Unfortunately, after the unexpected incident of my dad being captured, the ship had no captain. That was when John realized that he had to take his best friend’s place. As well as being the temporary captain, he also fathered me, along with Brian. He was a great guardian and role model. Luckily, once he grew old and retired, I was ready enough to take over as captain. And just like that, Brian and I took over our father’s original positions.

I invited John to come aboard with us one day. It would be really good for all of us to see everyone becoming friends again. John instantly tried to bond back with his old pal. Weirdly, my dad just wouldn’t do the same. It was as if he had forgotten their friendship. He just recognized him as a retired worker. My dad even thanked him “for his service.” It was as if the immense bond in their friendship just snapped and disappeared. Although he was acting a little strange, I guess it was normal after not seeing him after a while.

One day, we got an unexpected call from the president. Apparently, a few members of the A.G.G.G.G. had escaped from our grasp and were forming a new faction. We were ordered to terminate them before they could do anything drastic. That was when the most unexpected event occurred. While we were preparing for battle with the A.G.G.G.G., the emergency red alarm sounded. This alarm only sounded if somebody attempted to enter the main engine.

As I rushed towards the room to see what the problem was, the rest of the crew ran to their designated stations. We had to get ready in order to repel any attack made by the enemy. The main computer let me know that someone had input the incorrect pass code to enter the generator. I thought, ‘Who could it be?’ Once I arrived at the entrance, I was surprised to find my father helplessly slamming the entrance, trying to get in. I yelled, “What do you think you are doing?!”

He looked at me in surprise and replied, “I just wanted to take a look at the new engine, but the pass code you gave me was not accepted.”

“Of course the pass code is correct, I use it all the time,” I say as I input the code. As the doors opened, I said, “You probably just forgot to use the caps lock.” Suddenly, my father shot the key pad with his gun, shoved me aside, and dove into the room before the doors slammed shut. On the ground, I was so shocked by what just happened. I thought ‘Why would he do that? Is this why he was acting so weird? Is this even my real dad?’ Luckily, my leader instincts took over and I rushed back to my office. We had cameras everywhere on our ship, including the engine room. Apparently, my dad was setting the ship to self destruct itself. Every ship needed a self-destruction option -- just for dire situations -- and unfortunately there was nothing that I could do to stop him. He had already shut off our communication system and our weapons. Sadly, I had to send out the emergency signal that told everyone to evacuate the ship. It was a decision that I wished I would never have to make. As the captain, it was my duty to make sure that everyone would be evacuated safely. At last, it was just me and my friend Bryan. I just wanted to know why my dad did what he did. Finally, I took one last look at the screen of the engine room and, again, saw that huge scar behind his head. I zoomed into it with the camera and that’s when it hit me. We once had a prisoner with the exact same scar who was being manipulated by a mind-control chip planted in the back of his head... I should have known. The A.G.G.G.G. was famous for their advancements in technology. Although they were ruthless beasts, they were educated. They must have inserted the chip into my dad’s body while holding him captive and sent him to our ship. That way they could mess with us without even starting a fight!

Luckily, my dad soon realized where he was and what was happening. People under mind control devices could get glimpses of what was happening. I learned that while training for the position of captain. Anyways, he looked straight at the security camera and said, “I don’t know if you are there Sarah, but if you are, I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. I was a fool to trust the A.G.G.G.G. If I had made the right choice, I could have been a good father for you. You wouldn’t have been forced to take the difficult position of captain. Heck, we wouldn’t even be in this horrible situation. But most importantly, I want you to know that even if I was never with you, I had always believed that you would amount to something absolutely grand in life. I love you.” Those were the last words from him as Brian forced me into the last escape pod before the ship would explode. That was the day that I realized the battle today would soon be a war for a lifetime, but the fight for justice would last an eternity.