Chapter 6
When the Office for the Mission to Explore the Galaxy, headed by Professor Orson Oswald, completed its top secret project—an aircraft capable of traveling to the stars—there was only ever one person who could be trusted to man the test flight. Captain Richard Ranger had proven his skills as a pilot, not to mention his bravery and valor, during the War. He succeeded in flying this experimental craft, nicknamed the Kismet, up into Earth’s orbit—but before he could make his descent, the Kismet was pulled into a wormhole, propelling Ranger light-years across the cosmos, where he crash-landed on a distant world known as Zalia. This planet is under siege by a merciless invading force called the Prox, but the Zalians continue to resist, led by their mighty, beautiful princess, Sura. When we last left Ranger, he was preparing to defend the capital alongside Sura in a battle that will determine the fate of Zalia—and all life in the universe.
But passing through the wormhole changed Ranger on an atomic level, causing a transformation he is only beginning to understand and bestowing gifts beyond imagining. Enhanced strength, rapid healing, the ability to breathe in any atmosphere, and even the power to fly. A scientific freak? A miracle? Or the next stage in human evolution? The only thing that’s certain is in order to defeat the Prox, save Zalia, and have any hope of returning home, Ranger will have to embody the indomitable strength of the human spirit. He must become…
CAPTAIN KISMET!
“This is really quite good,” said Charles, laying the recap page down on his desk.
“I’m a hack,” said his wife, Iris, over his shoulder. “But I am having the most marvelous fun.”
“So what happens next?” The first Captain Kismet story had gone down a storm with their editor at the magazine, and Charles had jumped on his offer to commission more short serialized comic adventures featuring their new hero.
“Captain Kismet defeats the Prox, of course.” She circled the small desk to face Charles. “But not before Princess Sura is tragically killed in battle.”
“Oh no!” Charles looked genuinely wounded. “But she has such gumption.”
“I know, I like her, too. But Ranger needs to return to Earth, and he can’t do that with a purple-skinned sweetheart tagging along.”
“Why does he have to go home?” Charles asked. “Why can’t he stay on Zalia?”
“Because,” Iris said, a wicked glint in her eye, “the real enemy has yet to reveal himself.”
“Go on.” Charles propped his elbow on the desk and rested his chin on his hand.
“Do you remember how Sura helped Ranger climb that mountain so he could use Zalian science to send a message back through the wormhole and let his superior officers know that he was still alive?”
“Of course.”
“Well, Professor Oswald intercepted that message before Ranger’s loyal friend Penny Haven or anybody else back home could hear it. So he alone knows of the wormhole and its uncanny effects. And now, unbeknownst to Ranger, back on Earth, Oswald is attempting to re-create the flight of the Kismet, to give himself the same powers.”
“And will he succeed?” Charles was aware he sounded like a little boy at bedtime, begging for another story. And then what? And then what?
“After a fashion,” said Iris. “But it changes him in different ways. His abilities are all mental, and Oswald becomes so malformed that his body can no longer support his engorged head. He must wear a special mechanized exoskeleton and helmet at all times. Something quite monstrous.” Charles made a note of this as Iris adopted a reedy, pantomime-ish tone: “If Ranger represents the next stage of humankind, I am its apotheosis! Let them hail Ranger as the Alpha…for I am the Omega!” She smiled and returned to her usual speaking voice. “A being of pure, terrifying intellect, unburdened by conscience, who is able to anticipate Ranger’s every move. He is to be Captain Kismet’s ultimate nemesis moving forward. A hero is nothing without a good villain, after all.”
She paced as she spoke, although there was not exactly very far for her to go. The Ambroses’ apartment, a walk-up in Flatbush, consisted of a bedroom, a narrow bathroom that was always freezing, and a living area they had converted into a shared studio, with Iris’s typewriter on one side of the room, Charles’s drawing desk on the other, and a beaten-up old sofa in between. It was just short of a flophouse—far less than Charles would have liked to offer his new bride—and Iris was in a constant war of attrition with the mouse that had taken up residence behind the stove, but it was theirs.
“This is all excellent,” said Charles, already jotting down ideas for how best to visually accompany the wild fruit of his wife’s imagination. “Haywood will love it.”
“Do you think he’ll love it enough to let me put my name on it?” Iris asked. The way she said it was offhand, but Charles knew she resented being forced to publish her contributions under a male pseudonym. It was unfair; he knew it was—the entire story was hers, after all! But Charles knew that if Iris kept insisting on bringing it up to Walter Haywood, the editor would soon be less receptive to publishing their work. And at present, his drawings and Iris’s writing were what kept this pockmarked, mouse-ridden roof over their heads.
“I know, I know,” Iris said, seemingly reading his mind. She shook her hands in the air as if to waft away a bad odor and continued her circuit of the living room. “Anyway,” she added, “I have been ruminating on something else.”
“Oh?”
“In addition to a villain, there is something else every hero needs,” she said.
“And what’s that?” Charles inquired.
“A faithful sidekick, of course.”