Galaxy of Heroes

Three soldiers in black armor pushed their way through the crowd toward her. Capt. Casey un-holstered her M-2 pistol, but she was being roughly jostled on the crowded overhang.

She fought to maintain her footing as she watched Jod’s goons rapidly barge forward.

She caught sight of an angry faced man in the crowd who glared at her with eyes ablaze. “You Crypto bitch!” he yelled out, and swatted her M-2 from her hand. “You Crypto murderer!”

The man took a swing at her, but she ducked and swam through the mass of bodies, attempting to retrieve her pistol.

“Grab her!” a big Megalan GDF soldier shouted.

The angry man in the crowd attempted to grab onto her, but she jumped up onto the terrace’s ledge.

A shot rang out from a GDF soldier below and the ledge exploded under her feet, spraying chunks of debris into the crowd behind her. The humans in the crowd ducked in unison, and then rushed for the cover of the corridors behind them.

Capt. Casey was thrown upward by the blast, flipping through the air. She fell backward and then hurtled downward past the terraces below. In mid-fall, she gained control and flipped around feet-first just as she smashed through a table piled with plates of food and cups full of drinks.

She hit bottom hard and bounced and then collapsed into a heap of debris, feeling that her ankles and ribs had shattered on impact.

Three GDF soldiers rushed at her. This was it, she thought.

Suddenly, shots cracked down from above, dropping the three GDF soldiers into lifeless lumps.

Capt. Casey looked up to see Tarvey Rigo shift his rifle. He was on an overcrowded terrace above. He drew a bead on Jod, who was still standing in the center of the arena. Rigo discharged his weapon, but a Portogallan woman slapped at it and the shot went wide.

Jod sprinted out of the arena as his soldiers fired their weapons upward, fully automatic, into the terraces above. Screams rang out as the humans scattered for the corridors as explosions ripped through walls, ledges, screens and overhangs. Bodies exploded in red carnage.

The soldiers pulled down their masks and began firing canisters upward into the terraces. Gas and smoke swirled through the arena in rapidly expanding clouds of orange and black.

Capt. Casey rose to her feet, coughing from the fumes. Her ankles and ribs were in pain from the fall, but not broken to her great relief.

She trotted with her head down and jumped up onto the pit floor. She ran to Yancy’s body. She kneeled down and looked into his grizzled, but now clammy face.

His guts were congealing in the large open wound, and rigor mortis was beginning to set in—but there was still time.

If she could get him to a medical center, his dead cells could be rebuilt and restored and he could be revived. It would take weeks of delicate work, but, at this point, with the decay of death rapidly despoiling his tissues, there was not a moment to waste.

She coughed from the fumes as she dragged his body over the floor. She desperately needed to get him to an exit and out of the arena.

A masked GDF soldier spotted her and sprinted toward her from behind. The big soldier smashed his rifle butt between her shoulder blades, sending her sprawling face down onto the arena floor.

He smashed her again in the back of the head for good measure, and then grabbed her by her hair and dragged her out of the arena through clouds of gas and smoke.

She grasped for Sgt. Yancy’s body, but she was too stunned by the blow to focus on him as she was dragged away.

The GDF soldier tossed her onto the cold floor of a dark corridor. She sat up and tried to focus, wincing as she touched the back of her throbbing head.

She examined the blood on her hand. She looked up at the large masked man standing over her.

“What are you hitting a lady for?” she asked him. “Well, explain yourself, soldier.”

The big Megalan lifted his mask and looked down at her. He eyed her with a lustful leer that put her on edge.

Suddenly, he yanked his mask down and snapped to attention.

“Bring order to this mob,” Jod commanded into a handheld communicator as he walked down the dark corridor toward Capt. Casey and the black clad GDF soldier. “Shoot to kill those who resist. Seal the arena and dispose of the wounded. Do you understand, commander?”

“Roger,” a voice crackled over the handheld device.

The masked soldier remained at attention over Capt. Casey as Jod approached.

“As you were,” Jod said. “Report to your squad leader. Shoot any of this rabble destroying my arena!”

“Yes, sir!”

The soldier saluted and then turned and ran out the corridor.

Capt. Casey looked up at Verman Jod as she sat on her haunches on the cold floor.

Jod, tall and cadaverous, looked down at her in the dim light.

“You,” Jod said to her. He unloaded a kick into her stomach, sending her sprawling onto her back.

She groaned in pain.

“You have been an irritant in all this unpleasantness,” he said. “I would kill you right now for your insolence, if it weren’t for your friend who wants you alive.”

“I don’t have any friends,” Capt. Casey said.

“Oh, but you do,” Jod said.

He reached down and lifted her to her feet. He pulled a handgun out of a pocket and poked it into her side. He grabbed her by the arm and shoved her forward.

The powerful grip of his elongated hand was painful.

“Hey, ease up, mutant,” she said.

Jod squeezed harder, shoving her forward.

She walked in the darkness of the corridor, feeling aches and pains with each step. Jod walked slowly behind her, prodding her in the back with the barrel of his handgun.

An elevator door opened. He pushed her inside and stepped in after her. The elevator began its ascent.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Our imperial guest has an interest in anthropology or biology or some such pursuit,” Jod said. “You caught his eye, for one reason or another, and he would like to add a specimen to his collection.”

The elevator slowed and stopped and the doors slid open to reveal a large, dark room with a high ceiling. Enormous windows looked down on the smoldering city of Portogallos.

In the center of the room was an oversized chrome chair. A desk sat in front of the windows that looked out at the view of the city below. Outside, giant plumes of black smoke climbed upward into the pink sky. This was Jod’s office and the desk from which he ran his fledgling empire.

A dark figure stood up from behind the desk.

He wasn’t human. He was Craaldan. Strapped to his leg was the long executioner’s blade of a Craaldan officer.

“Is this the human female?” the Craaldan asked.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Jod answered.

Jod shoved Capt. Casey and she stumbled and fell and slid across the smooth floor toward the feet of Lieutenant Zeth.

“I will be leaving Gallos shortly with Captain Jace Spade and Captain Mina Casey,” Lt. Zeth said.

Jod bowed.

“The Craaldan Empire thanks you for your service, Executive Jod,” Lt. Zeth said.

“I thank the Empire for granting the human colony on Gallos a chance for peace,” Jod said.

“You are dismissed,” Lt. Zeth said.

Jod bowed again and stepped back into the elevator. The elevator doors slid shut.