Galaxy of Heroes

Lt. Zeth looked down at her. The tall alien was all muscle and sinew, coated in black body armor. His large, yellow eyes stared into her from behind his face of taut gray skin.

He was beautiful in his own horrible way, she thought. To her, he seemed the embodiment of power. He was destruction and death in the flesh.

Capt. Casey sat on her haunches on the cold floor and rubbed out the pain in the back of her head.

Lt. Zeth squatted down. He reached out his bony, gray hand and gripped her face between his hard fingers, examining her closely.

The calm intensity of his piercing yellow eyes was terrifying. His stare burned through her, like a death ray.

She looked away.

“Is Captain Spade still alive?” she asked him.

“You were not a natural birth?” he asked in his deep and sulfurous voice.

“No,” she answered. “I was brewed in a pot, like most humans from Heliac.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“If you say so.”

“Your genes are not as disparate as Captain Spade’s,” Lt. Zeth stated. “You had only two parents?”

Capt. Casey couldn’t focus. The Craaldan’s face shifted and blurred through her awareness.

Lt. Zeth shook her face in his fingers.

“My mother and father spliced their DNA,” she said. “I was gestated at Fetus Clinic 2 on Nebas. You know, Nebas, that planet you guys destroyed?”

“I see your parents selected your genetics for military traits,” Lt. Zeth said.

“I was born to be a pilot,” she said.

The tall Craaldan stood up. He towered over her.

He yanked Capt. Casey to her feet.

Capt. Casey took a moment to regain her balance and composure. “It’s been nice talking to you, Lieutenant,” she said. She slapped him on his armored arm. “I’ve really got to get going. I’ve got housecleaning to do. You know how it is. Hey, maybe I’ll see you around.”

She turned and walked briskly for the elevator.

Lt. Zeth stepped forward and grabbed her by the arm. He lifted her up as if she were weightless. She struggled desperately and took a swing at his face, which he deflected without effort.

He sat her down in the polished chrome chair in the center of the room. She faced outward at the massive windows that looked down at the smoldering city below.

Lt. Zeth pulled up a stool and sat facing her with his armored knees pointing upward. “Control is evidence of an advanced mind,” he said. “Control your fear.”

She looked away.

“Do not be ashamed, Captain Mina Casey,” he said. “Fear is the appropriate emotion. These are your last moments.”

“Look, I don’t have any information for you,” she said. “There’s nothing to torture or kill me for.”

Lt. Zeth pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt. It had a shiny, thin, razor-sharp blade.

“I will not torture you for actionable intelligence,” he said. “I am only curious to learn the limits of your tolerance for pain.”

Capt. Casey tried to stand, but all it took was a pointed finger into her chest to sit her back down in the chair.

“You Craaldans really suck,” she said.

Lt. Zeth smiled. “My sergeant does not understand my predilection for human torture.”

“I understand your predilection,” she said. “You’re a sicko.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I indeed find it interesting to observe how a species at your stage of development reacts to pain in the face of death.”

He put the tip of the blade of his knife under her chin.

“Different species die in different fashion,” he said.

He examined her face curiously. “Just as you were genetically selected to be a pilot, I was produced to be a military intelligence officer for an infantry unit. Where your inborn predispositions are for piloting spacecraft, my mind has analytic inclinations, especially in regards to enemy life forms. This is why autopsies on live humans are a pursuit of mine.”

He pushed his knife upward, forcing Capt. Casey to stare up at the ceiling. A trickle of blood ran down the blade.

“Can I ask you a question, Lieutenant?” Capt. Casey said through clenched teeth.

He eased up on the blade. “Go ahead.”

“Why did you make a deal with Jod? Usually, you guys just show up and kill everybody and burn everything to the ground.”

“In your time here, you may have surmised that Executive Jod is a fool,” he said. “In his primitive brain, he believes he has secured this planet for himself, unaware that the 8th Fleet carrying the 6277th Craaldan Planetary Assault Brigade will commence an attack on Gallos in less than three hours. The brigade commander does not want to waste too much time here, but he promised the infantry a bayonet charge. The infantry has grown weary of strategic exchanges at distance against Diocon brigades and above. This attack on Portogallos will allow the infantry a chance to bloody their blades—a diversion every Craaldan soldier appreciates.”

“But you promised Jod that the Craaldans would let the humans here on Gallos live in peace,” Capt. Casey said.

“Correct,” he answered.

“It was a lie?” she asked.

“Our actions do not lie,” he stated.

“But you gave your word,” Capt. Casey said.

“Words and language are crude and simple modes of communication. The Craaldan has observed that your species has a tendency to give unwarranted weight to words, even when those words do not correlate with reality. Executive Jod knows through his own experience that the Craaldan kills without quarter. We are notorious throughout the galaxy as destroyers of worlds. Yet, Jod has allowed my words to cloud his judgment and overpower his rational mind. He has turned Captain Spade over to me for a promise of peace. Yet, only a fool would believe there will be peace for Gallos. Our intentions are known across the galaxy.”

“What are your intentions?” she asked.

“Our intention is your extinction.”

“You Craaldans may have a million years of evolution on us, but you’re all just a gang of liars and murderers,” Capt. Casey said. “You have no honor or integrity.”

“Captain Casey,” Lt. Zeth said. “We Craaldan do not kill our own. Verman Jod massacres humans for power and profit. For a human such as you, I would expect that Jod would only induce feelings of contempt.”

“But why lie to us?” she asked. “Why give us hope?”

“My commander sent me here on a mission to retrieve Captain Jace Spade alive. Jod simplified this task. Now I have Captain Spade and I have authorized the destruction of Gallos. My mission here is over.”

Lt. Zeth traced the knife blade down Capt. Casey’s cheek and back onto her throat.

“Why is everyone so interested in Jace, anyway?” she asked.

“Captain Spade is believed to be an agent of the traitorous Noctish,” Lt. Zeth said. “In fact, Captain Spade has been the most formidable human the Craaldan have ever encountered.”

“Jace?” she said. “Yeah, right. I don’t believe it.”

“The Craaldan High Command believes Captain Spade and a Noctish advisor named Professor Mahlis sabotaged the 17th Fleet and betrayed our assault on the Rogan moon of Naos,” he said.

“Your intelligence is wrong,” she said. “Jace isn’t the double agent type.”

Lt. Zeth pulled the knife away from her throat and leaned back and looked into her eyes. “I am inclined to believe that you are correct,” he said. “My preliminary interrogation suggests Spade was merely a Noctish pawn.”

Lt. Zeth reached into a pouch on his hip and pulled out the small severed head of a Noctish female. “This one came to Portogallos in search of Captain Spade, but I found her first. My interrogation of this Noctish revealed that Spade has become their hated enemy. The Noctish lust for revenge because they believe Spade transmitted a message that betrayed to us their secret alliance with the Diocon Empire. This transmission resulted in a Craaldan purge of the Noctish from our ranks. Our own vengeance was ruthless as we exterminated the Noctish from our empire. We slaughtered them in their millions and burned their corpses in great fiery pyres. They blame Spade for this decimation and demand their vengeance.”

“So Jace is not your enemy,” Capt. Casey said.

“A more thorough interrogation will determine that,” Lt. Zeth said. He looked at the small Noctish head that he held between his bony thumb and forefinger. “Our analysts will compress the brains of this female and Spade into a thin film so that a map of their neural nets can be produced and their neurons probed in order to extract a more thorough intelligence.”

The large Craaldan named Sgt. Chank entered the room from a side door and stood with his back to the high window. Behind him outside, huge plumes of smoke rose upward from the city in billowy columns. Fires engulfed the towering skyscrapers in the northeastern quadrant. High in the pink atmosphere, the smoke columns touched a jet stream and abruptly broke and drifted south.

Sgt. Chank barked out several words in the harsh Craaldan language. Lt. Zeth did not turn, but continued looking into Capt. Casey’s face. He inserted the Noctish head into his pouch. He calmly answered Chank in measured tones. Sgt. Chank stiffened and then strode out of the room.

“He says this fetish of mine for humans disgusts him,” Lt. Zeth said. “He asks that I hurry so he can join his squad and participate in the assault on Gallos.”

Lt. Zeth pressed his knife blade against Capt. Casey’s chest. He slowly pushed the point into her skin.

Tears welled in her eyes. In Heliac, Capt. Casey had seen first hand the aftermath of their cruel diversion of carving up human captives.

“I enjoyed my time here on this planet,” Capt. Casey said. “I only wish I had a little more time before you butchers showed up.”

Lt. Zeth slowly traced the tip of the blade up her chest to her throat leaving a red line in her skin.