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Crusaders of the Chrono-Crystal

A Serio-Comic Sci-Fi/Fantasy Pulp Space Opera
Released December 15, 2023

Space Girls

In the year 2153, the Milky Way galaxy is dealing with an extradimensional invasion and a surge in space piracy, but exuberant Jane Padgett and stoic Lillis Hawker are still just trying to make their living as freelance space adventurers and heroes. Their fast thinking and faster reflexes have gotten them out of every tight spot so far.

A mysterious woman hires them to return with her to her dangerous homeworld, infiltrate an ancient, booby-trapped temple, and recover a crystal with the purported ability to transport people through time and space. They don’t know if this power is real, but others certainly think so – others who will stop at nothing to get it and rewrite the galaxy’s history for their own ends.

This book has been rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, thematic elements, and explicit sexual content. Just kidding about that last one.

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Crusaders of the Chrono-Crystal

The Birth of the Story

In the summer of 2005, while visiting my grandparents in Idaho Falls not long after watching Revenge of the Sith, I purchased and read a copy of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a novel by Alan Dean Foster that was intended to become the low-budget sequel for Star Wars if it flopped. The story follows Luke and Leia after they crash-land on the planet Mimban and have to race against Darth Vader and Imperial forces to recover the Kaiburr crystal, a gem that amplifies one's connection to the Force. Though I didn't consciously copy from it, this has to be the reason why my sci-fi fantasies started to involve a magic crystal when I started seventh grade a couple months later. The crystal was intended to be the MacGuffin in the second book of a planned trilogy, "The Legend of Aaron LaBarr," which followed the basic concept of Indiana Jones in space.

I made another attempt at a novel in August 2010, which fizzled out after two pages. But when I returned home from college for Christmas break the next year, I found it and, inspired by "Innocent Until Caught" and a couple other sci-fi DOSBox games I had recently discovered, I was intrigued enough to start working on it again. After working on it off and on for the next little while, incorporating several elements from the Aaron LaBarr trilogy and other fragments I'd written or daydreamed about, in summer 2013 it became the first project I'd ever completed - "completed" in the sense of writing it from start to finish, though of course it still needed some additional revisions to become perfect. I don't know when I'll be satisfied enough to publish it, but when I am, please buy it.

While writing this I learned a painful lesson: save your work frequently, just in case Word's autosave feature stops working and your computer decides to restart itself without warning or consent. I lost several hours' worth of writing and was so discouraged that I had to take a break for a while. But then I attacked it with renewed vigor, demonstrating true perseverence and saving every ten minutes from then on, making this possibly the only instance where I've learned from a mistake the first time. At least I wasn't Jean-Baptiste Vivien de Châteaubrun in the eighteenth century, who spent forty years writing two plays, only for his maid to mistake them for wrapping paper and throw them away. He allegedly killed himself after that. I sure would have.

The working title of this book for a very long time was "Space Girls." This is because it takes place in space and the heroines are girls. This is because I found them easier to write for some reason. I think that switching the roles of the primary protagonist in my original daydreams (Rish) with the love interest (Jane) was what finally got this thing off the ground.

Characters (Minor Spoilers)

Jane Elizabeth Padgett

Jane Padgett evolved from a character in a book idea that I never wrote, named Pias Idbea, who was completely based in terms of looks on this girl I had a huge neurotic crush on in seventh grade. I typed her name into a Star Wars name generator, with "I don't know" and "beats me" in place of her birthplace and mother's maiden name. (The protagonist was named Nichch Bror; my Star Wars name.) For this picture I searched "how to draw women", printed one of the results, and traced it on the other side of the paper. Rest assured that the actual character's figure isn't quite so "Barbie-esque".

The revolutionary idea was when I decided on a whim to make her the protagonist of the story instead of the protagonist's love interest or Galactic Commander-type liason. This was after I had started "The War" which, though unfinished like all of my books, I was quite pleased with. I decided to come up with a better name too, and after a school day of thinking of nothing else I settled on Jane Padgett. The "Jane" part came easiest. "Jane", to me, is one of the loveliest names there is. It says to me, "I am just a humble, four-letter name and there is nothing special about me", and the more it says that, the more I want to yell, "No!  You are beautiful!" I tried attaching to it the last name of everyone I knew and settled on one of my sister's best friends.

Jane Padgett is like a female Indiana Jones in a future century except instead of focusing only on occult artifacts (though this story does focus on one) she goes around the galaxy getting into whatever adventures she can find. She isn't ugly, but is rather plain by futuristic standards where sexy is the new average. Though not stone-cold fearless the only thing that really scares her, by which I mean terrifies her beyond all reason, is spiders. This is partly a tribute to Indiana Jones' infamous phobia and partly a tribute to a friend from EFY who was scared of spiders yet has an unnatural attraction for them. I remember sitting next to her on the grass and thinking, I can't believe I didn't notice how beautiful she is. And I can't believe there's a spider crawling up her chest. It was a convenient icebreaker.

Me: Jessica, there's a spider on your -
Jessica: AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEE!

Lillis Anne Hawker

Lillis Hawker is Jane's pilot, also from the same story idea as Pias Idbea. Technically she is a pilot for hire, but she only works for Jane because they're best friends and Jane always has enough to keep her busy. Her appearance was based on Toryn Farr from The Empire Strikes Back, originator of the classic line: "Stand by, ion control... Fire." In my defense, the only reason I knew her name or paid much attention to her was her fleshing-out in "Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM" by M. Shayne Bell, compiled in Tales of the Bounty Hunters.​ In the original idea, poor Lillis (actually, her name was still Toryn Farr, because I'm so creative) died at the very beginning when Nichch and Pias left her alone in the ship and it was destroyed a lá opening sequence of "The Phantom Menace". I dabbled with some thoughts of cloning but as far as my thought processes went she stayed dead. Here, she is of course one of the main characters and if she does die it won't happen for a while longer.

​The name Lillis Hawker is directly plagiarized from a girl that I met at EFY, because I happen to think it's one of the coolest names ever. And Lillis - the character, that is - is indeed quite cool. Ice water runs through this girl's veins (not literally). A secret from her past that will be revealed in the book/movie has rendered her almost completely emotionless; this idea grew because I thought it would be funny if she was flying a disintegrating ship being chased by enemies with blazing lasers, and the passengers were hyperventilating and she just calmly pushed buttons and flipped switches and stuff. Rishiflen Zhao tries many times to make her laugh, but to no avail.

KC-1138

KC-1138, affectionately known as "Kaycee" in the grand Star Wars tradition, is Jane's rude and sarcastic robot. Every good sci-fi adventure needs a rude and sarcastic robot - in fact, Jane had his personality custom designed that way. He helps Lillis fix and maintain the ship, and pilots it to bail them out when necessary, but not without grumbling about being left behind. His appearance in my mind was based on the Servodroids in "Innocent Until Caught", with extra arms a la the Treadwell unit from Star Wars, but when I wrote another story about him for Advanced Fiction Writing in spring 2018, Adrian Thompson interpreted my description into the drawing above. I'm not sure what I'll go with in the final analysis, but it will probably incorporate elements of both designs and this picture will remain a treasured gift no matter what.

Rishiflen Zhao

Rish is half-Earthling, half-Florg, and therefore encounters some prejudice due to lingering resentment against the Florg for their involvement in a war that killed millions of Earthlings. He serves in Earthling military intelligence as a go-between with Jane and the army when she goes on "unofficial" (aka illegal) assignments for them, like the one that opens the story. He has more or less retired from active duty ever since one disastrous battle where his best friend and several others died in front of him. Certain noises and phrases send him into a flashback where he relives his traumatic past until someone punches him in the face or something. He is madly in love with Jane but will never tell her because he's lost so many people close to him that he's afraid she'll die as soon as he confesses his feelings. So he keeps them inside and his soul is wracked with torment. Rish is the renamed version of Mike Peterson who was the renamed version of Nichch Bror, and therefore originally the protagonist, but he just didn't come to life as well as Jane.

"Phil"

"Phil" (whose real name is unpronounceable to Earthlings) is also from the same original story idea as the two heroines. He's a giant frog-guy inspired by the above panel in Star Wars: Droids: The Kalarba Adventures, and his name was subconsciously inspired by the plant in the "Aliens Ate My Homework" series. In my daydreams Phil evolved to be a brighter green and less angular in the head, and essentially traded his ears for bigger eyes. I also decided that his tongue is extremely long, operates like a fifth limb and can support his own weight. Originally, Nichch and Pias encountered him working as a pirate when they were captured in the beginning (around the time Toryn/Lillis died). The pirates kept him captive because he has a humongous dependence on sugar every few hours for survival. After raiding the sugar storage, Nichch and Pias escaped with him in a small pirate ship. In this "draft" he was a bungling comic relief device a lá Jar Jar Binks, whom I still thought was awesome. 

Now he's as intelligent and capable as any of the others, largely owing to...another story idea in which he made an appearance, which would have evolved into the opening sequence of the third Aaron LaBarr book if it ever got off the ground. An archaeologist enters an ancient temple on a jungle planet to recover an artifact. But inside, a statue crumbles to reveal an ancient warrior who has been kept in suspended animation to protect it. However, the warrior's species is long since extinct and the planet has changed in ways he is not prepared for. The atmosphere incapacitates him from fighting our hero and he's dependent on sugar because the nectar that fed the insects he fed on is also gone. This is more like the approach I'm going for now, except Phil actually gets to show off his 'leet fighting skills.

G'guvl

G'guvl is an alien refugee rescued by Jane and Lillis from a fascist regime on his own planet. He goes nearly all the way back to the original story draft - at first it opened with the protagonist fleeing enemy fighters, but I decided to add more background and show how he got into that situation. It was probably superfluous then, but in this version the story structure and subsequent events justify its inclusion. Of course that early draft was written just for fun during study hall and plagiarized elements from choose-your-own-adventure type books in the Star Trek, Dr. Who, and Star Challenge genres. Those have been edited out so I don't get my butt sued off.

Angelina Aguilera

A minor character whose role grew a bit, Angelina is a prostitute who hangs out in front of Musungu's Bar in Salt Lake City. She is a tribute to a nearly identical character who hangs out in front of a similar bar in "Innocent Until Caught", and the attached picture is taken from the game's box art. Though I originally put her in just to show the degenerated state of Earth in general and Salt Lake City in particular, I later fleshed her out with more personality and showed that she was about more than sex. I believe that prostitutes are often victims and deserve compassion for whatever circumstances have led them to their line of work. If they're actually sex slaves, then they deserve to have their "employers" shot.

Nico Medina

An ace reporter who sacrifices himself to convey G'guvl's plight to the outside world. The name Nico Medina entered my mind from somewhere (maybe this author) and had it hanging around for years waiting for an awesome character to attach it to.

Quaileek

Quaileek was recycled from the second Aaron LaBarr book, but she has undergone a few cosmetic changes because I decided her species shouldn't be too human. Now she has four slits instead of a nose, reverse-pointing knees, and another set of hands for feet. Quaileek is a member of the Cha'kun tribe of the mysterious and dangerous planet Maramal who leaves home and hires Jane and Lillis to secure the crystal for them. Maramal was originally Kryndamar, mentioned briefly in one of the "Aliens Ate My Homework" series, but when I found out the planet is actually visited in the last book of that series I figured I would have to come up with my own instead of plagiarizing.

Gary Baldwin

Gary Baldwin is a middle-aged bounty hunter who seeks revenge on Jane and Lillis for killing his twin brother Jerry, who was trying to kill them first. To accomplish this end he is more than willing to team up with villains like Ed Mueller, as well as an ill-fated lineage of Tobinian clones of himself. Gary and Jerry Baldwin were lifted from the Garibaldi twins in "Innocent Until Caught", and originally put into the story only because I didn't think Jane and Lillis should walk out of Musungu's Bar without some sort of fight or chase happening. But then they became inextricable parts of the plot. Funny how that works.

Edwin Mueller

Ed is a space pirate captain based on an illustration in the junior Choose Your Own Adventure book Trouble in Space. He was in the same story idea as Pias, Toryn and Phil, and was going to be in the second and third Aaron LaBarr books. Once the sweetest so-and-so around, always doing everything in his power to help his fellow man, he got frustrated that it wasn't making a difference in the overall crappy state of the world. Like that guy in Watchmen, he decided that the world needed more evil and danger, to motivate its citizenry to put aside their squabbles and come together against it. "There must be opposition in all things", as the Book of Mormon teaches.

Ida Wong

Ed Mueller's best friend from high school. After he went bad, she became a manically depressed recluse and took up smoking and drinking. Jane and Lillis pay her a call to get the scoop on him and hear the whole sordid tale. She was based on a good friend of mine from high school, and a "what if" scenario I imagined - what kind of effect would it have on her if I grew up to be evil? Unfortunately, Ida's situation turned out to have a few similarities with this friend's tragic life that I hadn't known about, and I was afraid that when I let her read the book she would think I was making fun of her. I changed a few details to reduce the similarities and explained to her what I'd done. She said, "You really didn't need to change anything because of me… and I am beyond flattered that you even thought enough of me to put me in your book. It makes me even more excited to read it. You’ve been working on it for a really long time." D'awww.

The Latter-day Saints

I used to be a Latter-day Saint (Mormon), and cringey though it seems now, my ultimate goal with my writing was to convert everybody. I knew as soon as I started working on the book again in 2011 that I wanted to make my church a part of it. There are both overt and more subtle inclusions of LDS thought, a la Orson Scott Card. The book has layers - deeper symbolism and messages for intelligent and perceptive people like you, and more obvious ones for average Americans with thirty-second attention spans.

Originally, they were portrayed as being happy and smiley while everyone else was depressed about the state of the world. (In the beginning, G'guvl asked about the smiling people in Salt Lake City; Jane responded, "Mormons and crazy people. But don't ask me which is which.") However, an exceptionally rude senior missionary and temple recommend desk staffer helped me realize that no one wants to read a Saint patting himself on the back for how awesome Saints are. I changed their portrayal completely to being judgmental and self-righteous. I figured that was a win-win - people who don't like them will appreciate it as a diss, while they themselves will appreciate it as a warning to not be judgmental and self-righteous. In either case, there's a long and venerable tradition of Latter-day Saints in science fiction, mostly by authors outside the faith. Go figure. Ironically, Jane's fictional disassociation from the church preceded my real-life one. 

But Wait, There's More!

​Click on these links to listen to the hypothetical soundtrack, read some deleted scenes, read a letter I wrote to the girl that one of the protagonists ​after, or marvel at the praise that has already come pouring in from various quarters even though it hasn't been published yet.