Synopsis: Time travel extremists attempt to destroy Utopia by crashing an orbital city of 500,000 onto a Muslim planet. Only four officers from a detachment of Federal Marshals survive. How they recover from the devastation is the gist of the story, but they're not fictional characters. The four are real historical heroes extracted from the 1800s for their valor as the most famous Texas Rangers of all time. Long Description: Attack on Orbital 454 is a science fiction novella based on the eventful chapter by the same title in Mark Clay Grove's first novel, The Serapis Fraktur: The Conglomerate Series (2013). New characters are added to the original cast; otherwise every aspect of the original Utopian novel's mid-25th century timeline remains intact. Attack on Orbital 454 is brief moment in the history of the planet Medina in a far quadrant of The Milky Way in a fast-paced colonial period when souls from the past are recycled to the future. Medina is an Earth-like red planet with a constitutional monarchy ruled by a benevolent ruler extracted from the past and settled into the far future with a devout following. Her Majesty, Queen Katy, previously known as Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (a real person ca.555-620) was in fact The Prophet Muhammad's first and most favored wife. In this story she is monarch of an Imperial Conglomerate Colony settled by The Founder, Charles Dawes (a fictional character in Serapis). Her palace is located in the capital city, Mecca. The new society that she establishes is largely secular. Most everyone addresses her as Queen Katy. The narrative is first person and the protagonist is Chief Superintendent of Special Operations, a Dawes Conglomerate Marshal, John "Jack" Coffee Hays (real person 1817-1883). Marshal Hays is the most famous Texas Ranger of all time and nephew to American President Andrew Jackson (real person 1767-1845). The Medina Star System is his jurisdiction.
About the Author: Writing fiction is Mark Clay Grove's final professional incarnation, but for assurance he maintains a day job as an appraiser. Always an avid reader, restless writer, and a reasonable gentleman with dual nationality (US/UK), he strives for perfection and insists on living by a code of honor that values integrity, fidelity, and fairness for all. Mark divides his time between homes in Fairfax and Charlottesville, Virginia, with his Peruvian wife, Chany.