Cleopatra in Space is an American children's graphic novel series drawn and written since 2014 by Mike Maihack, and published by Graphix, a division of Scholastic.
The premise of the series is that a teenaged Queen Cleopatra is brought to the far future to attend school and fight a space tyrant together with her friends Akila and Brian. So far, six books have been published: Target Practice (2014, ), The Thief and the Sword (2015, ), Secret of the Time Tablets (2016, ), The Golden Lion (2017, ), Fallen Empires (2019, ), and Queen of the Nile (2020, ). Maihack revealed in October 2020 he wrote the protagonist, Cleopatra, as a character with bit of ADHD and having "depressive disorder."
Plot summary Book 1: Target Practice In Ancient Egypt, fifteen-year-old princess Cleopatra shirks her school lessons and goes playing with her best friend Gozi. They discover a hidden tomb filled with all sorts of old artifacts, including a black-bladed khopesh and a stone tablet. As Cleopatra reads out a prophecy on the tablet, a bright light flashes, and she finds herself instantly transported thousands of years into the future, to the planet Mayet in the Ailuros System within the Nile Galaxy, which is populated by sentient cats, aliens and humans alike. She is received by Khepra, administrator of P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. (Pharao Yasiro's Research And Military Initiative of Defense) and head of its Cat Council, and Khensu, her son and a historian at Yasiro Academy, which is administrated by P.Y.R.A.M.I.D.
Khepra explains that Cleopatra is their prophesied savior from Xaius Octavian, a brutal dictator, and his army, the Xerx, after him having erased all electronically stored knowledge in the galaxy. However, Ailuro's late pharao Yasiro had taken steps to preserve knowledge in written form, thus enabling Ailuro to become a center of resistance against Octavian. Since they have no way of sending Cleopatra home, they enroll her in the academy, where she meets and befriends her fellow students Akila Theoris (her roommate), Akila's best friend Brian Bell (an inventor), and Zaid, as well as Pharaoh Yosira, Yasiro's granddaughter. Except for defense classes, Cleopatra has trouble fitting in academically, but finds herself adored by the student body, who know of her messiah role.
Four months later, the Cat Council, pressed into action by Octavian's inexorable advance on Ailuros, decides to test Cleopatra by having her retrieve an ancient artefact from its hiding place, despite Khensu's objections. Despite her lack of experience, and with a good deal of luck, Cleopatra manages to gain the object, which is the black khopesh she and Gozi had found in the past.
Book 2: The Thief and the Sword Octavian hires a skilled young thief, Antony, to steal the black khopesh - called the Sword of Kebechet - from P.Y.R.A.M.I.D.'s vault. While he succeeds, he accidentally runs into Cleopatra, who is attending a winter dance party at the nearby academy. When she recoginizes the sword, she chases Antony all over the academy, but is called off by Khensu (on Khepra's orders), allowing Antony to escape.
Seeing her frustration, Akila and Brian reveal to Cleopatra that they have found archival records about the stone tablet which brought her into the future. The tablet was one of two, the Ata and the Uta Tablets, created by Thoth after the god foresaw the rise of Octavian and the hero who would stop him before he retreated to a faraway world called Duat. The tablets could only be activated by the designated hero - Cleopatra - and that the Uta would be needed to transport her back to the past; a fact which could be exploited by Octavian if he could find a way to activate it himself. The trio enlists the reluctant aid of Khensu, who takes Zaid along as a decoy to commandeer a transport to planet Hykosis, a nest of scum and pirates at the edge of Ailuros, where they expect to find the tablets. He also discloses that he discovered the sword Cleopatra has recovered is a fake, and that there is a little-known part about the savior's prophecy regarding the sword.
Meanwhile, Antony delivers the fake sword to Octavian, who destroys it and then tries to kill Antony, who escapes to Hykosis. When Cleopatra and her friends depart for Hykosis, Octavian sends his entire armada after them.
Book 3: Secret of the Time Tablets Unable to outrun their pursuers, Cleopatra's team try to use their ship's escape pods, but Cleopatra, Akila and Brian are separated from Khensu and Zaid. After reaching Hykosis, they infiltrate its capital and encounter Antony being cornered by bounty hunters, led by one Fod Franze, after Octavian posted a reward on his head. After fighting them off together, the youths join forces to find the tablets, and Antony leads them to Harkhebi, a cat who runs a secret orphanage in which Antony grew up and collects ancient artefacts. Forced to fight a Xerx, Cleopatra unexpectedly manifests a strange power, and Antony recognizes her as the prophesised messiah. After learning about the true nature of the tablets, he realizes that Octavian might also know that Harkhebi has them, and they hurry toward the orphanage.
Meanwhile, Khensu and Zaid have landed in a different part of Hykosis and made their way to Harkhebi, from whom Zaid learns that his parents Ziyad and Sadia were vital contributors to Harkhebi's cause until they were killed by the Xerx. Khensu and Zaid receive a key to the tablet's hiding place from Harkhebi, but after they leave, it is revealed that Octavian has found the orphanage and forced Harkhebi to use Cleopatra and her friends to find the Ata tablet for him. He mortally injures Harkhebi just before Cleopatra, Antony and Akila arrive, but Harkhebi is able to direct them to the hiding place before he dies.
At their destination, Cleopatra and her friends find Octavian already present, with Khensu and Zaid as his prisoners. They attack, but Octavian proves invulnerable to anything they throw at him, and Akila's left arm is crushed by a falling rock. With her friends' lives on the line, and as the only one who can retrieve the tablet, Cleopatra accompanies Octavian into the tomb where it is hidden. As they enter, Octavian reveals that after he learned of Cleopatra's presence in this timeline, he planted hints (including the fake sword) to compel her to find the tablets for him. As they reach the tablet and Cleopatra reads the full prophecy on it, she learns that she is apparently destined to die in her final fight against Octavian, which Khensu knew about. Meanwhile, Antony manages to free himself and the others.
Cleopatra refuses to go back to her own time and thus allow Octavian to win. Octavian shocks her with the revelation that he is her former friend Gozi, made immortal by the Sword of Kebechet. He then tries to kill her, but Zaid sacrifices himself to shield her from the lethal blast. In her fury, Cleopatra manifests her mysterious power again and hits Octavian with a teleportation blast, which sends him to a remote planet, before collapsing from the power drain. After she awakes in the Yasiro Academy's infirmary, she follows her fate connection with the tablets and finds the Uta hidden in the very chamber in which she had arrived. Khepra, who joins her, explains that the Cat Council also knew of the tablets' significance and therefore arranged for Cleopatra to reunite them. She gives Cleopatra the choice of being able to return home, but Cleopatra, feeling guilty of having inadvertendly hurt her friends - including Gozi - decides to stay and continue the fight.
Book 4: The Golden Lion One year after her arrival, Cleopatra is summoned before the Cat Council, where she meets Akila's parents Tuluk and Sina, both scientists for P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. She is informed that the Golden Lion, a fallen star which is referenced in the savior prophecy, has been found on the ice moon of Cada'duun. As the immense energy source it is rumored to be, P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. assumes that Octavian will certainly use it to further his conquest plans, and the decision is made to recover it. To her frustration, Cleopatra is forbidden from participating because she was grounded as a consequence of the events on Hykosis. However, after the deliberation is over, Kek, one of the Council members, secretly gives Cleopatra a FTL device which will allow her to reach Cada'duun in time, and she is further equipped by Brian. However, worried that her friends might get endangered again, Cleopatra decides to go off on her own. Elsewhere, Octavian informs his master, Anubis, that he has found the resting place of the Golden Lion; but after his fiasco on Hykosis, Anubis sends one of his minions, Ophois, in his stead.
Right after landing, Cleopatra is attacked by an immature giant ice spider until Antony, who is also after the Golden Lion, happens upon the scene and saves her. Soon afterward, Ophois arrives and attacks them, but is frozen stiff by the brutal cold. A violent snowstorm forces Cleopatra and Antony to take shelter in a cave for the night, and in the course of the flight Cleopatra's as yet unknown new power activates again. The next morning, they are met by a native lifeform, a male snow otter, whom Cleopatra names Mihos. Mihos leads them to a trapped gate, beyond which they are surprised to find an inhabited subterranean oasis. After spending some time recuperating, they discover the Golden Lion in the village's close proximity, which is the source of warmth for this hidden haven.
Just then, Ophois, who has thawed up, and an army of Xerx arrive and attack the village. While Cleopatra, Antony and the villagers defend themselves, Ophois proceeds to the Golden Lion and breaks the rock crust covering it, causing the ground to crack up into a number of plasma-filled clefts. Cleopatra and Antony fight Ophois; Ophois stabs her with his spear, but Cleopatra inexplicably recovers and casts Ophois into the plasma, where he perishes. Then Akila, her parents and the rest of the academy cadets, who have been tracking Cleopatra, arrive and defeat the Xerx.
In the aftermath, it is decided that the Golden Lion should remain at its present location, since its removal would destroy the oasis; Tuluk and Sina stay behind as part of the P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. team studying its properties. Cleopatra expresses a heartfelt apology to her friends for going off on her own and risking her life like this, and later in private Khensu expresses his pride over her efforts and bravery. Antony also leaves, but before they part, Cleopatra kisses him.
Soon afterward, it is revealed that Antony was tasked to find the Golden Lion by Octavius, in return for sparing the orphanage and rescinding the bounty on his head. He delivers a fragment of the Lion in a box, but as soon as he is far enough away, he activates a self-destruct device in the box, setting off the fragment which obliterates Octavian's fleet.
Book 5: Fallen Empires In a flashback, a story is told about what happened in Egypt after Cleopatra disappeared into the future. Gozi was rendered immortal by the Sword of Kebechet, and he and Cleopatra's teacher Bakari were imprisoned for "allowing" the princess to disappear. When alien pirates attacked the pharao's capital, he and Bakari were taken as slaves. Years later, when the pirates were themselves attacked, Gozi evacuated Bakari in an escape pod but stayed behind as the ship he was on exploded. He was found by other aliens, who reconstructed his body as one of their own; he built a new life until it was all destroyed by constant warfare, and in his bitter desire for revenge he consigned his soul to Anubis.