Galaxy of Heroes

Spade led the squad as quickly as he could move up the steep ravine, which was merely a narrow channel that cut upward through black rock.

Spade didn’t like this. If the Diocons had gone through the effort to emplace a bunker at the foot of this ravine, they believed it was worth defending. Spade felt exposed at the point of the squad column, which had been reduced from nine to six, not including himself and Professor Mahlis.

“Stay tactical,” Rupa said.

If they had reached the ravine undetected, they could have safely climbed to the mine shaft without incident. But they had been detected, and now they were boxed in and could be easily picked off from above if a kill team were in position.

The sergeant major had deferred decision making to the professor. For all his experience, Spade thought the sergeant major was being reckless driving them forward like this. He thought it was unwise for a hardened soldier like Rupa to take orders on a battlefield from an intellectual.

But what did Spade know? He was only human, he thought. Rupa and Professor Mahlis had been tromping around the galaxy for ages long before Spade was born.

The squad continued its climb upwards in a wedge formation with Spade on point. Pvt. Reep was to Spade’s left, Pvt. Hett to his right and Pvt. Gango to the right of Hett.

Further back, Sgt. Shard was at the head of what used to be the alpha fire team. All that was left was Pvt. Chank, carrying his big gun, walking to the right of Shard.

Sgt. Major Rupa was at the center of the formation, directing the movement of the squad and keeping his eye on Professor Mahlis.

“Take cover,” Rupa ordered.

The squad members concealed themselves in the moonscape.

Three large drones in tight formation zoomed up the ravine, spitting up a cloud of dust behind them. They shot past, and then zoomed vertically when they reached the ravine’s far end. The drones disappeared high overhead.

Once the drones had passed, Spade stood up and waved them forward. It was not much farther to the entrance to a mine shaft. The entrance would be impossible to find in these rugged mountains without prior knowledge of its exact location.

The humans that had lived here had extensively mined these mountains, which were filled with rich veins of every sort of ore. While Naos lacked an atmosphere, it had an abundant supply of natural resources—a primary reason for why Dr. Zander had chosen this isolated moon for settlement.

“Get down! Get down!” Rupa commanded.

Spade turned around to see Pvt. Gango fall backward and hit the dirt—the soldier’s mech armor punctured by a sniper round. Gango had taken a direct hit to the chest. His guts spewed out into the vacuum through the puncture hole in his armor.

Spade tried to take cover, but there was nowhere to hide between the ravine’s narrow walls.

“Sniper, three o’clock high,” Rupa said.

The squad fired as one toward the three o’clock position. Their weapons chewed up the ridgeline, lighting up the dark ravine in flashes of light.

“Hold your fire,” Rupa said.

Spade scanned the ridgeline but saw nothing. He glanced to his rear and saw Sgt. Shard’s head explode in a cloud of pink mist and twisted metal. Bull’s-eye, struck by a sniper round.

“Move, move, move!” Rupa commanded.

“Pull back!” Spade shouted. “There’s a kill team up there! They’ve got our number!”

“Forward!” Rupa commanded. The sergeant major sprinted past Spade, followed by his squad.

Spade rose to his feet and sprinted after them. An armonium round exploded in front of him—a direct hit on Pvt. Hett and Pvt. Reep. The two Craaldan soldiers were ripped apart by the blast.

Rupa ran fast, but he didn’t know where he was going other than onward. No cover was to be found in the tight confines of the ravine.

Spade sprinted through plumes of fire and dust, trying to reach him. Another kilometer more and they could duck into the mine shaft.

A round from an armonium cannon struck Rupa, slicing his torso in two. Rupa’s body was flung apart into separated halves.

“Sergeant Major!” Spade yelled.

The top half of Rupa’s body landed in the cold dust, but Rupa continued firing. He fired off a last blast from his CX-649 before he went still.

A round exploded nearby, flipping Spade off the ground. He landed hard as rounds exploded around him. He rose to his feet and sprinted upward to the mine shaft opening.

Another round exploded at his feet. Spade was thrown across the ravine. He slammed into the rock wall and tumbled down to the icy ground, landing with a crunch. He couldn’t move. His visual display flickered and went black.

No more oxygen was reaching his bloodstream. He began to suffocate within the mech armor.

He was fading fast. He desperately used the last of the glucose in his brain to access the mech armor’s computer. He attempted to send out a distress signal, but he was unable to transmit.

He descended into darkness. At long last, this was death.

He was unsure how much time had elapsed when his visual display flickered back to life.

“Captain Spade, Captain Spade.”

An armored soldier was staring down into his faceplate.

It wasn’t a soldier. It was the professor.

“Are you still alive, Captain?” the professor asked.

“It appears so.”

“We need to move quickly,” Professor Mahlis said. “Can you still get us to the entrance to the mine?”

“Where is the rest of the squad?” Spade asked.

“They have been killed,” Professor Mahlis answered. “The Diocon kill team is advancing down the ridge. We have to move out immediately, Captain.”

Spade rose to his feet and looked around. The remains of the squad were scattered about the ravine.

A round exploded nearby. Rocks and dirt spattered against their mech armor.

Three Diocon soldiers descended the rock walls at the far end of the ravine. Another Diocon soldier at the top of the ridge was taking potshots at them.

“We have to move, Captain,” Professor Mahlis said. “They will be upon us in a moment.”

Spade recovered his faculties and sprinted up the ravine with the professor following closely behind. They scrambled over rocks and ice until Spade was able to locate a small hole in a rock wall.

“Over here, Professor,” Spade called.

Three Diocons were sprinting at full speed up the ravine. They fired rounds from their armonium cannons.

Spade ducked into the shaft and pulled the professor in behind him as the rounds exploded against the rocky mountainside, throwing Spade and the professor onto their backs in the darkness.