Galaxy of Heroes

Spade pulled himself onto his bunk. His joints ached. Intermittent jolts of pain shot through his nerve endings as his body attempted to recover from the severe torture session the Craaldans had inflicted on him.

One thing Spade knew, though. Dr. Zander had designed him to be tough.

Old Dr. Zander had only wanted one thing from this life—a safe place far from the conflicts that raged through the galaxy—a place where he could rebuild a free human society before the last of the human species had died off.

On Naos, the doctor believed he had found that place. He had landed alone on the barren moon. In the laboratory on his ship, he had used his own DNA to create new humans. He grew fetuses in iron wombs pieced together from scrap and spare parts.

To ensure genetic diversity, he had mixed his own genetics with DNA from other biological material that he had scraped up to form a meager DNA bank that he had amassed and preserved over the eons through countless battles, shipwrecks and radiation storms.

On Naos, Dr. Zander slowly produced and raised three generations of humans. Those humans had gone on to grow families, and eventually a thriving city took shape on his faraway moon in an uncharted sector.

Spade had no mother, but instead had been birthed from one of the iron wombs on Dr. Zander’s ship. The doctor had carefully selected Spade’s genes for steady hands, coolness under fire and the quick reflexes of a fighter pilot.

Ninety-four percent of Spade’s DNA came from Dr. Zander, but the doctor had thrown into the mix assorted genes from his DNA bank. The remaining 6 percent was a jumble of genes spliced together from genetic strands taken from a dead Kailek sergeant, a German shepherd and a nematode that the doctor had collected from the Vomis asteroid out on the perimeter of the Roga System.

Spade didn’t like to think about the fact that one of his ancestors was a small, legless creature without a brain that burrowed through rock and congregated during mating season in large pulsating, gelatinous clots. Dr. Zander had explained to him that the DNA from the Vomis nematode was the reason for his high tolerance for pain and his ability to quickly heal from injury; but still, Spade never brought up his ancestry in polite company.

Spade knew nothing about the Kailek sergeant other than that the Kailek civilization had long ceased to exist. Dr. Zander had apparently found the sergeant’s corpse drifting through space, and never told Spade any more than that.

Capt. Casey, a human pilot Spade had once had a relationship with, said the source of his loyalty to Dr. Zander—and his dogged determination to find him—came from his canine DNA. Of course, Capt. Casey also said that this was also the source of his hound-like nature when it came to women.

A knock on his door broke his reverie and returned him to wakefulness.

“Who’s there?” Spade asked.

The door slid open and Mingus pulled her oversized frame into his cabin. “May I come in, Jace?” she asked.

He put his eye patch back on. “You’re already in,” he answered.

She closed the door behind her. “We need to talk.”

Mingus was so large and meaty that her bulk filled nearly all the cabin. Her long, black ponytail floated upward and pressed against the ceiling.

“What’s on your mind?” Spade asked.

“It’s Leonard. I’ve never seen him this way—I take that back. I have seen him this way. It’s the way he gets right before he loses control and really hurts someone.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Spade said. “Whatever happens on the Naos mission, I will make sure that the crew remains out of harm’s way and behind enemy lines. Naos will be a brief stop before the ship is voyaging back to Meglos. I promise.”

“It’s not the Naos voyage that he’s angry about,” she said.

Mingus had pulled her black hair back in a pony tail to keep it manageable in the zero gravity, but it snaked around the ceiling and down the wall with every movement of her large head.

She pulled herself down onto the bunk and sat next Spade.

“Why is he angry?” Spade asked.

“He’s jealous. He sees the way we look at each other, Jace. It drives him into a rage.”

“The way we look at each other?”

“It’s no use, I can’t fight it any longer!” Mingus threw herself onto him, kissing him hard on the mouth. “Oh, Jace! I was so frightened that you had been killed. I didn’t sleep for three days.”

She held him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. He feared his ribs would crack inside the bulging mass of her arms.

“Not so tight, princess,” he gasped.

She looked deeply into his eyes. Her blue eyes were red and teary.

“Where is Leonard?” Spade asked. “He’ll kill us both if he finds you in here.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I slipped a trank in his water bottle. He’ll be in a coma for ages.”

Mingus kissed Spade hard again. He felt as if his face were being sucked into the flesh of her oversized lips.

Mingus quickly stripped off her boots, her pullover and her black trousers. She was now naked in his bunk.

Her big biceps twitched and flexed. Her thighs were as wide as Spade’s torso, and her powerful shoulders looked strong enough to lift a Craaldan battle tank on a planet with greater than moderate gravity levels.

She was large, but Mingus was definitely female. Her long black ponytail was silky smooth as it brushed over his arm and writhed around onto his back. She clutched Spade’s hands and pressed them into her massive bosom.

“Oh, Jace,” she said.

It had been so long since Spade had seen another human female. All the time together on his ship, just the four of them voyaging through the emptiness of space, he had never thought he had looked at Mingus in a romantic manner.

Perhaps he had been looking at her as something more than just a crew member.

“Oh, what the hell,” he said.

Spade unzipped his flight suit and pulled off his shirt. He was still in his undershorts when Mingus threw herself at him and he was quickly buried under mounds of rippling muscle.

Spade thrust her upward with his hands, which was not difficult in zero gravity. He then flipped her over and mounted her.

The door to the cabin flung open with a crash and Brute’s massive frame filled the tight doorway. “Dammit, Spade!” Brute bellowed. “You are a dead man!”

Oversized hands, giant arms and bulging muscles surged through the narrow opening. Brute’s huge hand gripped Spade by the neck and then flung him hard against the wall.

The wind was knocked out of him. He gasped for air.

“Stop, Leonard!” Mingus roared.

She threw her large fist at him, catching him in the nose and staggering him backward into the doorway.

Spade kicked off the wall and shot forward like a diver between Brute’s legs, and then out into the transport tube. Spade then scrambled up the tube as fast as he could pull himself.

“Come back here, Spade!” Brute yelled. He clambered up the tube in pursuit.

As Spade emerged into the galley, Brute grabbed him by the ankle. Spade kicked his heel into Brute’s face, but this only angered the big man. He flung Spade hard into a bulkhead.

Spade felt as though his skull had cracked open. He struggled to regain his bearings, only to see a giant fist barreling toward his chest.

The force of the blow was so strong that Spade thought for sure several of his internal organs had ruptured.

“Stop this madness!” Professor Mahlis screamed. “Stop this madness now!”

Brute pulled back his fist and launched it into Spade’s face, and with a crack, immediately knocked Spade into unconsciousness.