Christina Engela

Imagine, if you will: Meradinis! The stuff of myths and legends! The Turtle Island of the stars – home planet to the fearsome and once legendary Corsairs – the terrors of the black, the monsters in Human form who killed innocents and waged a campaign of terror against the colonies for decades! Meradinis! The reputation of that place – that terrible place, a place of death and destruction that beckoned to adventurers, killers, profiteers and fortune seekers! Meradinis… The very name of this world grabbed the imaginations of young boys and girls, and universally mesmerized dreamers and romantics alike.

Imagine, if you will: The Ruminarii Hammerhead was so named because of its peculiar hull shape. Being the main warship of the warlike Ruminarii, they were as much feared as hated. (The current advice in general circulation would be ‘if you see one, look for a hole – crawl into it and then pull it in after you.’) A hammerhead is about a kilometer long and is a dark shiny black, as black as space and – as some whisper, as dark as the souls of the Ruminarii themselves. As you may follow, they are an extremely hostile species (i.e. there is no word for ‘welcome’ in the Ruminarii language.) In four short centuries they had managed to lay waste to almost a thousand star systems, enslaving their populations and stripping them of all they wanted.

Imagine, if you will: A bright yellow star lit the darkness somewhere in deep space, accompanied by its rather dysfunctional family of nine deceptively ordinary-looking planets. During its enormously long lifetime many beings had named it from the far ends of distant telescopes, including it into numerous star clusters and constellations as they were perceived from their vantage points. Once, or maybe twice, creatures simply looked up into their own skies to name it from their own now long dead and deserted worlds. In more recent times, beings from a world that orbited a different sun far away gave it a name too – creatures that called themselves Human, who travelled here and settled on one of its inner planets. The planet they chose to make a new home on? They called that Deanna. They called the star Ramalama.

Imagine, if you will: The battle cruiser was lost. In the desolation of the vastness of space, all was silent. All, that is, except for the screaming. Then that too fell mercifully silent. Captain Armon Kaine was the last of his crew that had survived – or at least, if any others were still alive, he was unaware of them. It didn’t seem likely, given the circumstances. Somehow that… thing had managed to kill every one of his crew within the space of only a few days! All had died horribly – mangled and mauled to death!

Honestly, Gary didn’t know what to say to Jenny Grauffis! What was he supposed to say? That she shouldn’t cry because she would get to see her sister again? That Danielle might survive this terror, and one day come home? He knew that would be a lie. Nobody survives things like that intact and gets to go home again. This was the part that Scrooby had told him was going to be so hard!

Imagine if you will: Somewhere in the depths of space a somewhat ordinary, boring-looking medium-sized yellow star cast weird-looking shadow-puppets across the dark interstellar wastes that currently belonged to the Terran Empire. Nine planets spun around it in suitably eccentric orbits – tiny slivers of matter that had rolled up into little balls and wished the rest of the universe would just bugger off and stop staring. When the Humans arrived here they settled on one of them and (in polite company) called it Home. Since it was a frontier world where roughing it was a way of life, there was very little at all to laugh at. So one bright su – um, day, they called the star Ramalama – and named the two tiny moons of their new home Ding and Dong. (This is something of a local joke.) Since that time, the Terran colony known as Deanna flourished and prospered to become the bustling third rate world it was today, which in case anyone is wondering, was a bright February morning in the distant future.

"A flag is all the proof you will ever need that any government is up the pole." - Christina Engela.

Just think about it. As frontiers go, this is probably the most final of them all, not because it may be the last frontier, but because as long as we try to cross it and explore it, we take it with us. No matter how far we go, the frontier will always be just that much ahead of us, tantalizing our curiosities. Thus, we can never really cross it in so far as just push it back a little. The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so much a final frontier as an ultimate frontier; the ultimate frontier – as wide as it is deep. Stars shine coldly in the unimaginable blackness. Out of the darkness, a tiny speck caught the distant light of stars – a tiny gray speck that, as it moved, seemed to grow larger, catching the light just so until it revealed itself to be a ship. Mykl d’Angelo groaned where he sat slumped in his chair. The irritating noise was unsettling his pet dog lying on his lap. The wickerwork garden chair creaked pleasantly under him and some native Earth birds made pleasant sounds above while the cool wind wafted over him as he lazily … Wait-a-minute!

Imagine if you will: At the highly secretive, largely independent, inter-dimensional and (inevitably) clandestine organization called the Time Saving Agency, there is a saying that goes: ‘You can’t break an omelet without first making eggs’. While this may appear to be a rather flippant little idiom, there is – as is usually the case, far more to it than meets the eye. For starters, that’s a rather simple principle of Time Travel right there – and according to the pioneers of time travel, it’s one of the foundation stones of the Theory behind it. It’s something of a paradox – a mind-boggling annotation in the ever-puzzling and ever growing Anals of History. (Some readers may still be thinking that should be ‘Annals’ – however, the author of this work cannot be blamed for what you may think.)

Annie Davis was beyond furious when she was told she had been inseminated with the wrong sperm which belonged to a Billionaire who insists he wants to be in her life and the baby's life if she falls pregnant.

For years, I endured my husband Kellan's disdain, while he bent over backwards to please my scheming younger sister. When a sudden aneurysm required emergency life-saving surgery, I called him from the ER in absolute despair. He was busy celebrating my sister's new job. After listening to the lies she whispered about me in the background, he actually cursed at me. "If you're going to put on this act, don't bother coming home." He hung up the phone. I signed the surgery consent form alone, facing life and death all by myself. On the operating table, I hemorrhaged heavily. Not only did I lose my health, but I also lost the unborn little life I hadn't even had the chance to tell him about. Lying in the recovery room, I finally understood. His vows were nothing but empty lies, and I was always the expendable one in that relationship. And so, I signed the divorce papers and vanished from his life completely. Yet, he started looking for me like a madman, even taking revenge on everyone who had ever hurt me!

Just a few weeks before my wedding to Hudson, his ex-girlfriend moved in next door to us. She constantly made a huge deal out of the fact that her father had sacrificed his life to save Hudson, and even destroyed my wedding dress, yet Hudson just stood by and comforted her. Just as I secretly found out I was pregnant, he publicly announced that he was going to hold a "fake wedding" with her, claiming it was for her psychological therapy. This news quickly went viral online, sparking the fury of netizens who even ganged up to attack me, causing me to fall to the ground and bleed heavily. I lost our child, and the doctor told me that my hopes of ever becoming a mother again were almost completely destroyed. As I lay in the hospital bed, my heart completely dead inside, Hudson appeared in the ward. "Please understand why I have to hold this fake wedding for her." He begged me to support his fake wedding, and my heart was thoroughly shattered. After he left, I immediately packed my bags, contacted the wedding venue, and changed the groom's name to the man who had always stood by me through thick and thin. When he found out about this, he actually went crazy trying to win me back at all costs!

I sacrificed my career and endured agonizing IVF treatments, all just to give my husband's wealthy family an heir. But when I checked the smart ring app his company had launched, I discovered my personal profile was labeled as a "Temporary User"—all data automatically wiped every 90 days. And positioned right above me, the name of his junior employee, Katerina, was glaringly listed as the "Primary User," complete with a detailed log tracking her 24-week pregnancy. When I confronted him, Calvin didn't apologize. Instead, he brought his pregnant mistress home. He actually demanded that I act as her caretaker, while his mother sneered, calling me a disposable ornament and ordering me to leave the marriage with nothing. My husband had merely used my painful fertility struggles to beta-test his algorithms, while secretly using our marital assets to fund his new family. In this marriage, I was nothing but a temporary data point. They thought I would silently accept being treated as a disposable "guest." But I handed over the evidence of his severe data privacy violations to a shrewd, ruthless lawyer, and then decisively exposed the truth to the world.

For eight years, I lived in a freezing, unheated apartment, washing the bloodstains out of my mob enforcer boyfriend's suits every day. He strictly gave me two thousand dollars a month, saying we had to live frugally and save up enough money to escape this dark world. But when I was washing his clothes, I found a receipt for a custom engagement ring worth sixty-eight thousand dollars. That ring wasn't for me, but for his secret lover, Mia. I cracked the password on his encrypted laptop and uncovered his three-year-long double life. He wasn't a bottom-tier thug struggling to survive in a dangerous game at all. He embezzled forty-eight thousand dollars from his mob boss's accounts every month to buy Mia diamonds, cars, and a luxury apartment in Manhattan. And meanwhile, I was drinking watery porridge just to save a little on the electricity bill. When I confronted him, he didn't show a single ounce of guilt, accusing me instead: "You're too heavy. Being around you suffocates me." He thought I was a pathetic parasite who couldn't survive without his protection. But what he didn't know was that I had already quietly earned over a million dollars through legitimate antique painting restoration work. I packed my bags. It was time to let the mob know who was really stealing their money.

I poured everything I had into it—staked my entire life's plan—all for one thing: building a perfect future with my fiancé. But everything I'd given my whole heart to, everything I'd raced toward with everything I had, couldn't withstand the betrayal he'd hidden in the shadows. He stole my pendant and my wedding gown and gave them to the female student he'd secretly been infatuated with. I threw myself forward, desperate to take back what was rightfully and entirely mine. But for that woman, he swept an entire row of clothing racks crashing down. The hard metal frame slammed into my arm, shattering it completely. My career as a gold-medal architect—something I'd guarded and built for years—was destroyed in that single moment. My chance to stand at the summit of my industry was gone forever. Bone-deep, searing pain tore through my body. I clutched my ruined arm, every last shred of restraint crumbling, and I wept in utter despair. But he just stood there, holding that female student's hand, and pronounced my verdict from on high: "Your hand is finished. You'll never be an architect again. From now on, Ariel will take your place." And then I understood. Through all those long years of sharing a life together, I had never been his one and only. I was nothing but a substitute—one that could be replaced at any time. So on the day of the wedding that was supposed to be ours, I walked into the ceremony hall step by step, arm-in-arm with the childhood friend who'd grown up beside me.

For five years, I gave everything I had, using my blood to build Gabriel's underworld empire. I expanded his territory, conquered half of the turfs, and allowed him to sit on that throne. But just as I secured a billion-dollar casino contract, he ruthlessly tore the silver badge from my chest. He handed my entire career over to his new love, Serena. "Hand everything over to my fiancée, or you won't leave this room alive." Serena was a helpless outsider who had never even touched a gun, yet she wanted everything that was mine. Gabriel humiliated me in front of twelve family capos and announced that they would be married next month. He even threatened that if I didn't hand over the family's encrypted master drive to her before dawn, he would blacklist me and send men to take my life. Did he really think I would just obediently step aside and watch them take away everything I had built with my own hands? So, I calmly handed Serena a master drive loaded with a logic bomb—one that would drain their accounts and expose them to the FBI. Then, I walked out into the pouring rain, accepted an invitation from his most lethal rival, and prepared to watch his empire burn to ashes.

I was about to marry Dante, a ruthless New York Mafia boss. However, just three blocks away from the cathedral, his ex-wife sent a text message saying their son was coughing up blood. This was the third time, and Dante abandoned me at the altar once again, transferring a hundred million dollars to me as compensation instead. I accepted the money, but his ex-wife did not stop there. She moved into my home with her son, faked an illness, and tried to force me out. The last straw that broke me happened at the airport, when the little heir, instigated by his mother, viciously pushed me from behind. I fell hard onto the cold marble floor and lost the child I did not even know I was carrying. As I lay in a pool of my own blood, Dante's mother coldly gave an order over the phone: "The child is dead. You need to protect the living heir and Isabella's status." Dante looked at me, his face full of guilt, but eventually, he turned and walked away with them. To compensate for the child I lost, he threw a massive business empire at me, expecting me to continue waiting in the shadows while he enjoyed his family's bliss. I finally understood that in the face of his mafia bloodline, my loyalty meant absolutely nothing. With a steady hand, I signed the asset transfer documents and did not hesitate to liquidate all the properties he had given me. Then, I boarded a private cartel jet flying to Switzerland. This time, I am going to build an empire of my own!

I spent months overcoming my fear of heights, just so I could go skydiving with my boyfriend on our anniversary. But on the plane, Cole strapped my safety harness onto his "best friend" Giselle, telling me to wait for the next trip because she had just gone through a breakup, was feeling down, and needed this thrill to bounce back. She didn't care about my efforts at all, trying to brush me off with just a few words. Cole desperately defended her, accusing me of being petty and making a mountain out of a molehill. "She's fragile, Cathy! You're just jealous of a bond between us that you could never understand!" He actually expected me to accept being an outsider in my own relationship, while my family kept pressuring me to drop my so-called pride. For eight years, I poured everything into our relationship, only to finally realize I was nothing but a placeholder, expected to exit the stage whenever Giselle needed him. His constant emotional manipulation and blatant favoritism left me utterly exhausted. So, I packed my bags, paid him back every single cent he ever spent on me, and left without looking back. It was time for me to take over the multi-million dollar corporate project he was about to ruin. He really needed to see how I would step to the peak of my career!

asked my husband a silly TikTok challenge question: if it weren't me, who would he have married? He didn't hesitate. He said one name — Chloe, my once-closest best friend, the same woman who stole my first love years ago. This wasn't a joke. I soon found out he'd lied about a business trip. While I was in surgery, he was secretly vacationing with her, leaving me alone in the hospital. When I confronted them, my husband — to protect her — shoved me hard onto the cold floor. The violent impact made me lose our two-month-old baby. Just as my world was completely falling apart, Chloe leaned in with a victorious smirk and whispered her darkest secret: she had deliberately deleted my dying mother's final voicemail, making me miss my last chance to say goodbye. My husband knew exactly what kind of vicious person she was, and he still chose to protect her in front of his bleeding wife. Looking at the man now kneeling before me, crying and begging for mercy, I calmly pulled out the divorce papers. "Sign it. Then leave."