Parallel Missions

Derek and Margo Ackerman were an ordinary working couple with grown children, looking forward to retirement in the next five years. Derek, age sixty, is a human-relations consultant for a high-end furnishings manufacturer in Omaha, NE. Margo is the executive secretary for the owner of Aksarben Publishing. By chance, something theyve come to regard as nonexistent, they cross paths with Tomas Talbert who is from a parallel universe. After they saved his life, they took him home with them, Tomas recruits Derek and Margo to join him in creating a team whose purpose is to save not only this world but also his own parallel world. As on Earth, so in Parallel becomes the theme for the rescue missions on which they embark. After a visit to Parallel, which is many hundreds of years advanced scientifically over Earth, they return to their own world rejuvenated and ready for the missions on which they will be sent. In Parallel, they were voluntarily implanted with language chips, allowing them to read, write, and speak numerous languages fluently. With Tomas and his wife, Judith, they make use of an advanced cigar-shaped ship, and Bart, a centuries-advanced computer able to manage rapid transit using wormholes, the space-warp technologies, and the capabilities of the ship. In addition, the team was outfitted with inner and outer suits that cover their entire bodies including multipurpose face masks. All equipment with which they were supplied is in existence or on the drawing boards of scientists in this world. With Barts help, the team turns a simple European vacation into a working one as the team is enlarged and the missions become more dangerous and complex.

This book examines the roles played by China and Europe in the domain of international security in the 21st century. Bringing together Chinese and European expertise on the Sino-European Security relationship , this book positions Europe - both the EU and the major national actors - and China in a global security context. It offers not merely an elaboration of the theme of bilateral security relations, but also introduces a wider view on Europe and China as global security actors. The chapters cover four main themes: the perceptions of and actual relations between Europe and China as security actors; relations of China and Europe with third parties such as the US, Russia, and Iran; Europe and China as actors in multilateral security approaches; Europe and China as (potential) security actors in each other’s technological domain or region. Given the increasingly prominent roles that both China and Europe play in international security as permanent members of the UN Security Council (in the European case, through the informal and partial representation of the UK and France), through their extensive global economic interests, and their important relations with the USA, this book provides a timely examination of the current state and future developments in the Sino-European relationship. This book will be of much interest to students of international security, Chinese politics, EU studies and IR in general.

This textbook is an interdisciplinary collection of scholarly and religious articles about Asian American Christianity. Its four sections -- contexts, sites, identity, and voices ? offer in-depth understanding of both Catholic and Protestant traditions, practices, theologies, and faith communities. It also highlights diversity and complexity across lines of gender, generation, denomination, race and ethnicity in Asian American Christianity.