Galaxy of Heroes Read online

  Galaxy of Heroes

  By Gus Flory

  Copyright©2009

  [email protected]

  Cover by Kim Sook-Yung

  Part 1

  Militarism

  Torture is supposed to be painful, but this was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if he had anything of strategic or tactical value to tell them, either.

  There’s no point, he thought. Death is preferable to hanging on any longer.

  But then, it wasn’t in his nature to give in.

  Abruptly, the pain ceased. Capt. Jace Spade fell to the floor in a ragged heap of bones.

  Two Craaldan guards stood over him. They were all muscle and sinew, coated in form-fitting black body armor. Their yellow eyes looked down from behind faces of taut gray skin.

  The guards reached down and scooped him up, dragging him by the armpits from his cell.

  The Craaldan guards walked briskly down the dark corridor. They were infantry soldiers, about seven feet tall.

  Spade was taller than your average human, but only the toes of his boots dragged across the floor behind him as the towering Craaldans pulled his limp body along.

  They dropped him on the cold, black floor.

  “Captain Jace Spade?” said a voice from above.

  “That’s me,” he answered from the floor. Spade struggled to focus his one eye to see who he was talking to. His other eye was missing, and he tried to keep his eyelid closed over the empty eye socket. It was always uncomfortable to have cold air blowing around inside his skull.

  “You are a human from the Naos moon in the Roga System?”

  “Affirmative,” Spade answered.

  He pulled himself to his feet and finally focused his eye on his Craaldan interlocutor who was sitting above him, looking down from behind a large black bench. The big Craaldan wore black body armor like the guards, but centered on his armored chest was a silver rank in the shape of an eagle-like creature—the rank of a Craaldan colonel.

  “I give you two options, Captain,” the colonel said. “Accept my demands, or face decapitation forthwith.”

  “How forthwith?” Spade asked.

  The Craaldan guard next to him brandished a four-foot blade that gleamed in the artificial light.

  “Forthwith, as in here as soon as you give your response.”

  Spade stood in his gray flight suit looking up through the harsh light at the Craaldan colonel who was glaring down at him from behind his large bench of black metal. Spade shifted uneasily in his boots.

  “What are the demands?”

  “I offer you a mission to transport a negotiator to Naos,” the colonel said. “Once on Naos, you and a squad will infiltrate enemy lines so that our negotiator can parlay a cease fire with the Diocon aggressors.”

  The guard next to Spade tightened his grip on his blade.

  “And if I don’t accept your mission, this thug here cuts my head off?”

  “Affirmative,” the colonel said.

  “Mission accepted then,” Spade said.

  “A wise choice,” the colonel said.

  The guard sheathed his blade.

  Spade shook his head and looked down at his boots. “You Craaldans have got another thing coming,” he muttered.

  “Say again?” the colonel asked.

  “Nothing,” Spade said. “Disregard.”

  Spade dreaded the thought of returning to Naos—his home world, and the scene of an awful crime committed by the Diocon Empire against his fellow humans.

  “Take him away,” the colonel said.

  The guards seized him and dragged him out of the chamber. They pulled him outside onto an endless tarmac under a dark sky.

  They tossed his limp body into the back of a transport craft. The tall Craaldans sat stiffly beside him. The transport hovered upward several hundred meters and then began to coast over a tactical assembly area that appeared endless in scope. Military machinery and troops were lined up from horizon to horizon. Column upon column of artillery, armored vehicles, battle tanks, interstellar destroyers and infantry troops stretched as far as the eye could see. This bleak planet was nothing more than a giant staging ground for the Craaldan war machine.

  At one time, this planet—Goff—had been home to a vibrant ecosystem. Several civilizations had developed here over tens of thousands of years, each with rich histories and impressive records of cultural and technological development.

  But then, the Craaldans arrived, and now all that was left was rock, wind and ash.

  Spade pulled an eye patch out of a pocket in his flight suit and put it on over the empty socket that once was home to an eyeball. He slicked back his black hair and tried to get as comfortable as was possible sandwiched between these two oversized armored guards.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” Spade asked.

  The guards ignored him, so he lit up a cigar and puffed on it.

  The transport circled over an airstrip. Spade saw his interceptor below—still red, black and deadly with shark’s teeth painted under its nose. Its mammoth engines affirmed it was a ship built for speed. Painted on the hull was the drop dead image of a nude female cyborg sitting atop a skull and crossbones and holding the ace of spades in her hand. Stenciled underneath the cyborg were the words “Red Wrath.”

  “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” Spade said.

  The guards were uninterested.

  The transport alit on the tarmac. The guards hustled Spade out the hatch and shoved him along to his ship. They tossed him inside. He crashed into a bulkhead and fell to his face.

  “Attention on the deck,” said a lazy, monotone voice.

  It was his navigator, Tanaka, who remained seated in his chair gazing down through glowing green spectacles. Tanaka wasn’t the type to stand at attention for anyone.

  “Give me a hand,” Spade said, extending his arm upward.

  Tanaka clapped slowly, staring blankly through his green lenses.

  “Funny,” Spade said.

  Tanaka had the thin, weak body typical of humans from the low gravity planet of Paltros. His slender limbs were encased in mechanical prostheses that allowed him freedom of movement in the relatively higher gravity of this planet. Tanaka was eccentric and wasn’t exactly the life of any party, but he had his talents. He was an information addict who would sit in a trance for days on end sifting through databases, files and technical documents. He knew more about every corner of the galaxy than anyone Spade had known. As a navigator, engineer and information technician, Tanaka was second to none.

  Spade was happy to see that Tanaka was still aboard and still alive.

  Spade’s cigar lay on the deck of the ship, still lit. He picked it up and popped it into his mouth and rose to his feet.

  “Where’s the rest of my high-speed crew?” Spade asked.

  Two massive humans lumbered into the cabin, crouched down in the confined space. The two big humans were almost as tall as Craaldans, and even more heavily muscled.

  “We thought you were dead,” said a hulk of a man.

  “I ain’t the dying type,” Spade said.

  The large man’s name was Leonard Brute, and he was Spade’s copilot. Brute had a bald head and a long, black goatee that touched his chest. He was from the planet Meglos, which was a high gravity planet that humans had settled generations ago. The Megalans had adapted to the gravity of their planet by developing huge, muscular frames.

  Brute’s companion was a Megalan female named Mingus, who was as big and muscular as Brute. She had a square jaw, but an otherwise attractive face, and long black hair. She was Spade’s crew chief.

  Mingus smiled broadly at Spade. She looked honestly surprised and relieved to see him. She rushed up to him and gave him a crushing bear hug. “Oh, Jace,” she said. “W
e are so happy to see you.”

  Brute pulled the two of them apart. He held Spade suspended a few inches from the floor with a tight grip from one of his enormous hands.

  “We’re not that happy,” Brute growled.

  Brute dropped Spade to the deck.

  “OK,” Spade said. “Listen up. Due to recent developments, we’re going to make a detour before we voyage back to the Outer Galaxy. We’ll be making a short stop at Naos.”

  Spade’s crew groaned and then exchanged nervous glances.

  Intellectualism

  A cloaked little humanoid walked across the windswept tarmac to Spade’s ship. Craaldan guards followed behind him, pulling wheeled pallets piled high with metal crates and canisters.

  Spade reached out a hand to the tiny hooded figure inside the purple cloak. “I’m Captain Jace Spade.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Captain. I am Professor Mahlis.”

  The little Noctish professor extended his tiny, thin hand to Spade and offered a limp grip. Two of his diminutive fingers bore rings with large gemstones.

  The professor was only four feet tall and thin, but he had a paunch of a belly that pressed outward against his cloak. He looked up at Spade with inquisitive pink eyes. Whiskers twitched under a pointy nose. Then a kindly smile crossed his face.

  Professor Mahlis stepped into the ship. In a quietly commanding manner, he instructed the towering Craaldans to be careful as they unloaded canisters and crates into the Red Wrath’s cargo bays.

  The professor turned to Spade. “So, you are the fellow from Naos who is key to the success of the most important diplomatic mission in the galaxy.”

  “Negative,” Spade said. “I’m the driver dropping you off on a lifeless rock before I jet back to the Outer Galaxy.”

  Professor Mahlis removed his cloak and folded it neatly in his arms. The little humanoid wore a wrinkled white shirt, dark pants and scuffed shoes. His ears were large and coated with fuzz, but were mostly hidden under the shaggy black and gray hair on his head that connected around to his white beard and to the white whiskers under his nose. He was fuzzy for sure, but if it wasn’t for his tiny stature, he might almost be mistaken for human.

  “Your lifeless rock has become the focal point of a looming conflict between the two most powerful empires in the galaxy,” the professor said. “If our mission is successful, we will have averted a galactic cataclysm of such destructive force as to swallow worlds and reduce civilizations to ash. I trust you are up to the task, my good fellow.”

  “You must be the trusting type,” Spade said.

  “I trust you to understand the urgency of our mission,” the professor said. “We must be off. There is not a moment to spare.”

  Spade turned to leave the cabin for the cockpit.

  “Captain Spade,” Professor Mahlis said. “The human species and the Noctish have been separated by cosmic expanses of space and time, but we have a few things in common. Your species and the Noctish have both lost our home worlds to the treachery of more war-like species. Do not think we are strangers without common ground. We can discuss this once we are on our way.”

  The professor shooed Spade away and situated himself for an immediate departure. Spade’s interceptor soon blasted off.

  The ship accelerated against the gravitational grip of the planet Goff and then hurtled away through interstellar space.

  Brute sat in the cockpit next to Spade. “Dammit, Spade,” the big man grumbled. “You swore our next voyage was to Meglos. We’ve chased the ghost of your Dr. Zander through the Inner Galaxy one close call too many.”

  “It’s out of my hands now, Leonard,” Spade said.

  Brute smashed his oversized fist on the control panel. “I say we throw that little Noctish rat overboard and jet straight for Meglos.”

  “Negative,” Spade said. “We deliver our Noctish friend to Naos. Then we voyage to Meglos.”

  “This is my last voyage with you, Spade, one way or another.”

  Brute unhooked himself from his chair and floated upward in the zero gravity. He pulled his large bulk out of the cockpit.

  Spade sat alone and gazed into the black void. Even with all the power and speed of his ship, these interstellar voyages were interminable. There was too much time to think.

  He knew somewhere out there in the emptiness of space Dr. Zander was still alive. Every last soul in Zander City had been killed off in the Diocon assault, but for some reason the Diocons had spared the doctor’s life and had carried him away.

  At the time of the attack, Spade had been in the Red Wrath patrolling the perimeter of the Roga System. The Diocons had appeared without warning and had caught the tiny human colony on Naos by surprise. Somehow, a small Diocon force had landed on Naos, evading all patrols, as well as the moon’s carefully constructed early warning system. Diocon soldiers had razed Zander City and killed its 85,000 inhabitants, who had time only to mount a token resistance.

  Spade had engaged a few Diocon fighters out on the Roga perimeter before losing his wingman and narrowly escaping with his life. He had observed the destruction of Naos from afar.

  Years later, he had heard rumors that Dr. Zander had survived the attack and had been set free by the Diocons. But that had been decades ago.

  “Captain Spade?” a voice said over the intercom. It was Professor Mahlis.

  “Go ahead,” Spade said.

  “May I have a moment of your time?”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Spade unhooked himself from his seat and pulled himself out of the cockpit.

  The professor reminded Spade of Dr. Zander in some ways. Spade recalled the large collection of Noctish literature that Dr. Zander had kept in his library. The doctor possessed actual hard copies of ancient Noctish texts. But Spade had never given much thought to those old books at the time.

  Spade floated weightlessly down a transport tube to the galley where he found Professor Mahlis sitting alone before a chessboard. The professor examined with curiosity the pieces on the magnetic board.

  Spade pulled himself in the zero gravity through the galley and sat across from the professor.

  “A human game?” the professor asked.

  “Yes,” Spade said. “Ancient humans played it on Earth—our home world.”

  Spade explained the rules of the game to the professor.

  “Your move,” Professor Mahlis said.

  Spade moved a pawn. “What’s the intel on Naos?” he asked.

  “All eyes in the galaxy are on Naos,” the professor replied. “Your moon has become a trip wire set to explode. Unfortunately, Dr. Zander had no way of knowing that he had set up his little human utopia in what would become a fault line between two expanding galactic superpowers.”

  As they moved their chess pieces, Professor Mahlis explained how Zander City had become an outpost for a Diocon brigade, and how a Craaldan expeditionary fleet had entered the Roga System unaware of the Diocon presence, and that the two great militaries blundered into a firefight. The Craaldans had landed two brigades on Naos before the Diocons brought a missile defense shield online. Now the Craaldan brigades were dug in and pinned down on the surface awaiting reinforcements while their fleet hovered outside the range of the Diocon nuclear umbrella.

  “It is a very precarious situation,” Professor Mahlis continued. He carefully placed a knight in the center of the board. “The Diocon and Craaldan empires have been avoiding their inevitable face-off for ages, while they have busily consolidated their territories, turning the focus of their conquests to the Outer Galaxy. At this point in time, they are evenly matched and neither would have a decisive advantage if a war between them were to erupt. The outcome of such a conflict would be uncertain, except in the scale of its destruction. We sit at the precipice of total war because a small fleet stupidly stumbled into an ambush that should have never been set. Yet, the two rivals are so martial in outlook that neither will back down, and a rapid escalation to apocalypse appears inevitable.”
/>
  Spade moved a bishop.

  “However, Captain, if you are able to get me to Naos, past enemy lines and into the Diocon command and control center, I believe I can convince their commander to allow the Craaldan brigades safe passage off Naos. I think their commander may see the logic in holding off the day of judgment until another era.”

  “Sounds like a suicide mission to me,” Spade said.

  “Pessimism serves no purpose now, Captain Spade.”

  “What do you care if the Craaldans and the Diocons go to war?” Spade asked.

  “The Noctish seek an end to conflict in the galaxy. We believe it is our purpose to bring about a halcyon age when all sentient beings unite under one benevolent rule. With our efforts, we hope to bring peace to the galaxy.”

  Spade laughed. “Good luck with that.”

  “Do not doubt the Noctish, Captain. One day the galaxy will be politically unified. It is inevitable.”

  “I’ve found that whenever someone speaks of inevitabilities, they’re trying to put one over on me,” Spade said.

  “The Noctish are a people of peace. We will not stop striving for peace until the horrors of war are eradicated from the galaxy.”

  “A people of peace wouldn’t ally themselves with the Craaldans,” Spade said.

  The professor appeared slightly agitated. “It may be beyond your ability to comprehend, but over the eons we Noctish have gained a great deal of understanding of the workings of the universe. A long journey often takes unexpected turns. Many hardships must be endured before a distant and difficult destination is reached. In the far off future, you humans may develop the wisdom to appreciate the accomplishments and sufferings of the Noctish.”

  “How are you going to reason with the Diocons?” Spade asked. “They’re a bunch of robots.”

  “Ah. Your organic biases cloud your perceptions. The Diocons happen to be a sophisticated civilization, quite self-aware, and capable of subtle and nuanced reasoning. At times, I have found them to be pleasant partners in conversation.”

  “They are cold-blooded killers,” Spade said.