Galaxy of Heroes

Grimes stood shirtless in the center of the pit. The roar from the heavily inebriated crowd shook the terraces and rumbled the roof.

Grimes pumped his fist to wild cheers.

“Grimes faces the challenger, Chank, a deserter from the Craaldan Empire.”

The tall, shirtless Craaldan strode into the pit. His movement, gray skin and yellow eyes called attention to his alien essence.

A hush fell over the amphitheater.

The Craaldan’s muscles flexed and tightened, like steel cables moving beneath his granite-colored skin.

Disconcerted murmurs arose from the terraces.

“Chank,” Spade said. “That name is familiar.”

The uncertainty on Grimes’ face was displayed close up on the screens.

“This isn’t right,” Capt. Casey said. “Joe didn’t sign up to fight a Craaldan.”

Grimes looked up and raised his fists, and the crowd exploded with cheers. He faced off with the tall Craaldan, who stood motionless at the other end of the pit.

Chank exploded forward in an instant. His speed was inhuman. He knocked Grimes senseless with several lightning strikes.

Grimes crumpled. He appeared tiny as he lay on his back with the tall Craaldan standing over him. Chank lifted a gray, serrated fist and cocked it back.

The crowd gasped in unison.

Capt. Casey stood up from her seat. “He’ll kill him.”

Chank uncocked his punch at Grimes’ face. In a flash, Genie sprang into the pit and caught the Craaldan’s fist in her hand.

She shoved Chank hard, flipping the giant alien through the air to excited roars from the crowd.

Chank landed on his feet and then exploded toward Genie.

But Genie did not stay to fight. Like quicksilver, she scooped up Grimes and sprang from the pit, darting away through the crowd with Grimes’ unconscious body slung over her shoulder.

Chank stood in the center of the pit watching her flee.

A few boos rang out from the terraces. Someone threw a drinking container. More boos and jeers and containers rained down as Chank strode out of the pit.

“Calm,” Jod said over the intercom. “Please, calm.”

The rain of containers intensified. Now chairs were being flung from the terraces into the pit. The humans overturned tables and smashed display screens.

“Calm!” Jod commanded. “He is not to be feared! Control yourselves! Calm!”

Spade and Capt. Casey pushed their way through the crowd as a mob mentality quickened and took hold. Fear and anger burned out of control after the sight of a Craaldan pummeling a human nearly to death.

Thuggish security guards dressed in black body armor roughed up rioters in a failed effort to restore order, but their heavy handedness only further fueled the mayhem.

Capt. Casey grabbed Spade’s hand and pulled him behind her down a staircase. She and Spade ran down a corridor and out of the amphitheater.

“Where did Genie take him?” Capt. Casey asked.

“The spaceport,” Spade said.

Capt. Casey and Capt. Spade trotted down a raised walkway toward a hover transport platform.

“Look,” Spade said, pointing down to another windy walkway that led out of the amphitheater.

Between skyscrapers they could see Jod walking, flanked by two Craaldans.

“He’s got Chank with him,” Spade said. “And another Craaldan.”

“A Craaldan officer,” Capt. Casey said.

While neither Chank nor his Craaldan companion were wearing armor, the Craaldan officer had his executioner blade strapped to his left thigh.

“What is this Jod character up to?” Spade asked.

An atmospheric transport craft hovered down to the walkway and Jod and the two Craaldans stepped aboard. The craft zipped away between the towers.

Crowds of humans were now spilling out of the amphitheater onto the walkways, escaping fires that were burning inside the amphitheater complex.

Capt. Casey and Capt. Spade jogged over to the hover platform and stepped onto a transport. They glided through the night air between the city’s slate towers and emerged over lush mountains. Moonlight softly reflected off the top of the forest canopy.

The transport skimmed the trees as it climbed the ridge, then dropped sharply and floated down the steep slope.

The transport slowed and alit on the spaceport tarmac.

Spade led Capt. Casey through the darkness between parked ships, containers and cranes. Cyborgs repaired spacecraft in the dark. Ships were landing and departing on the tarmac. Humans caught hover transports at various stations on the landing strip and zipped to and from the mountainous ridgeline.

Spade and Capt. Casey entered a small hangar. It was empty save some crates stacked against the walls and a shuttle parked in its center. They sighted Genie at the far end of the hangar. She stood over a prostrate Joe Grimes, who was stretched out over metal crates.

The side of Grimes’ skull was smashed and pulpy. His eyes were rolled back. His mouth was covered by an oxygen mask. Genie was busily working on his exposed brain using a multi-tool.

Capt. Casey and Spade walked up behind her.

“Is he OK?” Capt. Casey asked.

Genie did not look up. “The brain damage was severe,” she said as she worked. “I am repopulating his left frontal lobe with neurons and reconnecting damaged dendrite networks. Once complete, it is a matter of gluing the shattered portions of his skull together and then performing some cosmetic procedures. The shattered teeth and cheekbone can be reconstructed and his ruptured eardrum can be repaired.”

“So, he’s going to live,” Spade said.

“Roger,” Genie said.

“What about brain damage?” Capt. Casey asked.

“I have a map of Joe’s brain on file so I can rebuild what was destroyed by the blows from the Craaldan. Some of these dendrite networks are the source of behavioral patterns that I am not fond of, but I am only minimally altering them as I restore them. I will correct some behavioral annoyances, but I am being spare with the adjustments, against my better judgment.”

“Can you fix Captain Spade’s brain next?” Capt. Casey asked.

Grimes groaned loudly and Genie pumped more painkiller into his bloodstream.

“Joe is going to have a significant recuperation period before he is back to equilibrium,” Genie said. “I must take him to a medical center in the city.”

“No,” Grimes groaned. “No medical center.”

“Brain injuries shouldn’t be corrected with a multi-tool, Joe,” Capt. Casey said. “At a proper surgical facility, you could be as good as new in a day or two.”

Grimes shook his head.

“Joe has decided that we are leaving Gallos as soon as I stabilize him,” Genie said.

Boot steps clicked from the open bay of the hangar. Capt. Casey and Spade turned to see Jod walking toward them, flanked by his two Craaldan companions.