• • Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way
• May 19, 2024

Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way (Chapter 1)

Tissue, Blood, and Bones

 Terra’rork

“I don’t really think about it,” I tell my co-worker. 

We work at Hazman’s Emergency… it’s just a hospital, it’s name doesn’t matter. We’re in Aloy, the largest city above ground on Tora, the homeworld of the Techanots, and also a Regamorph colony.

Worlds away from my partner, my children, and my friends.

If you looked at me, I’d look like any other Techanot. A creature of rock, with long arms that support my large frame underneath. More than one Regamorph has told me that a Techanot’s stomach looks fat atop our “stubby” feet. To them, we look the same. 

If you weren’t one of us, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between our rock formations, the way in which the groves of our exterior turn, bend and chip like the minerals of our home world, and the gems our eyes invoke.

The most the average Regamorph notices is when one of us is smooth or a different color, so I look like every other Techanot, but I’m not.

I was on Team Sunset, serving as the Guardian from the Techanots. Every species has a Guardian, but I was unlike the others in that I was the healer when I wasn’t piloting our ship. After we were forced to separate, the Regnorian government had me installed as the lead doctor in a hospital on my planet, but in their city, in their hospital, treating mainly their people, only sometimes mine. 

I don’t hate Regamorphs, not at all. My oldest friend is a Regamorph. She was one of, no, probably the bravest person I’d ever met. She was my leader, but her species’ government, the one who raised her upruined me, my family, our friends, and probably her too. 

‘Well maybe she deserves it,’ the demon in my head says. 

I’m not spiteful. She thought she could trust them, I tell it.

‘Keep telling yourself that. Either she was complicit, or a fool. You decide which is worse.’ 

As pessimistic as he can be, I consider myself  lucky with the demon stored inside me. He never tries to take control or hamper my ability, he just always questions my inner thoughts and distracts me. Luckily, only I can hear him. 

‘As if hearing me would actually hurt them,’ he jabs again. He’s like a little a rollyball. They’re common pets. They’re icy on the outside, seemingly thankless for the attention youo give them, but then they unroll from their shells and rub next to you until you look them in the eye.

I can feel him recede back into my consciousness, hating the comparison to a pet. 

All Guardians have a demon inside, that’s what denotes us as the Guardian of our species. When Guardians are together the demons can’t speak as they’re repressed by being so close to another of their kind. It was one of the smaller things I miss now.

“Really Terra?” my co-worker brings me back down to the ground, away from my reminiscing. I lied to him, and he’s so close to knowing it, but the lie was so innocent, I doubt he has much of a problem with it.

From first glance, Regamorphs don’t appear like they should be able to take advantage of Techanots. I didn’t really see it until my friend, Jackal, a Lupian, a whole other species pointed it out. 

Regamorphs are in the middle of the galactic average of everything physically. Men and women of their species average between 6’3” and 6’8” with a decent amount of exceptions, taller than the average Human and Rivertan, but shorter than Lupians and Techanots.

They’re in the middle terms of strength and life expectancy too. 

Regamorphs and Humans look a lot alike, but the silver skin of the Regamorphs, the liquid hair, and the typical muscle make them look… more evolved. From the one Human on Team Sunset, I know they have a lot of vestigal appendages and organs Regamorphs don’t have any more. 

My co-worker, Hanon may seem like the average male, but he’s built to last. There isn’t a patient in this hospital he couldn’t physically carry and gently move around. And yet…

I should squash him. 

If I roll over him he’s dead. More than one Regamorph has died from a Techanot falling on them. We have the strength, the size, the dexterity, and yet… they own everything we have. 

Then I realized it’s because of something so simple.

We can’t open doors.

I mean that literally and figuratively. My arms don’t lift higher than my ankle. They swing back and forth on the ground, possibly more than my feet, and I can’t lift them over my head. And because of that, the majority of the universe is off limits to me, at least without someone to help.

I can’t carry anything other species make, I can’t open their doors, I can’t operate their vehicles, and I can’t…

My whole species would never have left the planet if not for the Regamorphs offering us the stars and just moving us from one place to another. So when Hanon asks, “You don’t miss traveling the galaxy, being up to date on what everybody’s doing, hanging out with a cool crowd?” I can’t help but think to myself… 

The galaxy was not made for me, and makes that known everyday.

But I can’t tell Hanon that, that will bring him down. It’s not his fault, and it’s not mine.

“Hanging out with a cool crowd?” I ask, poking fun. Amusement is an easy thing to fake. “But in all seriousness, no, I don’t really think about it.”

Hanon opens his mouth to ask another question, but before he can speak something comes up in his earpiece, which prompts him to put two fingers to his ear. He then turns and informs me, “You’re needed upstairs, room 117. A Regamorph was in a hovercraft accident where he crashed into a pole. Apparently, he was playing some game about pocket monsters instead of looking at the road.”

“Why am I hearing about it now? I should have known before he came in?” I asked.

“Sorry, Terra, we had a doctor with him, but another person started getting worse and you were on your legally mandated break. Now he’s getting worse.”

‘They can’t even respect your name, Terra’rork.’

Shortening names isn’t a big deal to most species, so I had to get used to that. But adding prefixes for respect was a common thing I wasn’t given.

But I don’t make a thing of it. I have a job to do so I nod my head at him and let Hanon push a cart around my lumbering frame. The halls are tall enough that I never hit my head, and long enough to fit one Regamorph besides me, but it’s a tight squeeze. They’re made to make sure I could get where I needed to go, a fine publicity stunt for the hospital when I was installed here. 

I follow Hanon to the elevator that was installed for me and the two other Techanot doctors who were hired after me. 

The two of us move as quickly as we can to the elevator and out towards room 117, my operating room. Hanon goes in first to move his equipment, but when I walk in I can tell he isn’t going to be able to help me with this poor young soul. 

The Regamorph is obviously only an adolescent, probably just got his license to drive the family hovercraft. He’s hooked up to the operating chair, the skin over his stomach shredded with some holes to his insides. His liquid hair was seemingly drained so his skull can be inspected, but by the color of his eyebrows I can tell his hair was light blue, which reminds me of a friend’s. 

He has other scratches and cuts all over, but those don’t appear as serious as what must be going on under the surface.

Hanon groans at the sight, despite having had this job for a long time. Somethings always get to you, and that’s okay as long as you always get over them and do you job without delay.

Hanon does that by bringing up the holographic check board with the summary of the boy’s injuries as I walk behind the operating chair. I then move my arms to the patient’s sides and my head over his.

“Terra, it looks like his skin was completely torn off as he skidded on the ground. Wasn’t wearing a seatbelt so he went through the windshield and clipped the pole.” He stops and looks at me to continue. I nod my head and he does. “Thankfully, his organs didn’t fall out as he didn’t fly very far, but his skull is cracked and his brain shows signs that it may be bleeding.”

I can tell what needs to be fixed based on the information and the holographic x-rays in front of me. 

“I’m going to target his skull first, find the bleeding, relieve the pressure, fix any issues and then assemble the skull itself or fill it in. We want to make sure his brain doesn’t have any permanent damage above all. He has enough blood being pumped into him so we won’t lose him to blood loss, and the bleeding isn’t severe so I can attend to those in a few minutes.”

“Do your thing, boss.”

‘He’ll call you boss, but not Dr.’

I ignore the demon.

I slowly droop my own rock surface over him, causing it to look like my stomach is melting into sludge around him. 

All Techanots can do this to other Techanots, they release a portion of their body to cover another’s injured portion. Then the donor can give its own tissue, blood, and bone if the donor has a healthy body and strong control. Even their internal organs can replicate into the body of the injured. 

I don’t only have a good handle on my body, but I have studied the bodies of almost all of the sentient species in the galaxy, allowing me to also heal others that are not Techanots. 

It’s why I’m in a hospital for Regamorphs.

At this moment, tissue, blood, and bone are the only parts from my torso region that need to replicate into this young lad. Small portions of my tissue seep in through the crack in his skull and check on his brain. 

He has a concussion, but thankfully, that won’t kill him or cause any irreparable damage. It’s simple to treat nowadays. The bleeding has more to do with the cracks in the skull, and after relieving the pressure, it’s easy to close the wounds on the brain, getting him back to where he was. 

My cells work like stem cells, they can change into whatever the patient needs. Once that cracks in the skull stop causing the brain to bleed, I can fill the crack in his skull. I have to leave my own internal minerals around to do that, but that’s not difficult.

His brain and skull are through the worse of it in less than a minute.

After that, I go on to repair the many cuts and bruises along his body, but leave some bruised bones as reminders not to be so stupid while driving. There’s only so much of my own body mass I’m able and willing to give. 

When I get to the more serious looking openings over his stomach, I find that they are not too serious at all. The previous doctors may have overreacted to his injuries when they decided to call me up. I fill in his gaping cuts and take back in my own tissue, blood, and bones.  

“He’s fine now,” I inform Hanon. “It wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked.”

“That’s good to hear,” Hanon sighs. “I’ll take him to a room to rest up, you go on to that meeting with Dr. Tanora you had planned.”

“Oh, yes that’s right. I’ll go after I’m cleaned up,” I respond. I forgot in the excitement that I have a very important meeting with the Chief of Medical Staff. 

She has the power to get me out of Aloy for the first time in five years. I guess if one lays their guts out and onto someone else they might forget even the most important of things.

*****

“Come in Dr. Rork.” That’s how Dr. Tanora greets me after her secretary informs her of my presence. She sounds almost annoyed that she has this meeting. Hopefully she’s angry over something that doesn’t have to do with me, or my request. 

The Regamorph secretary’s name escapes me, but when she smiles at me it is so well done I almost believe it’s real. Of course, it probably isn’t. Who would like having to open a door for someone because their arms don’t raise that high? I try to walk in as fast as possible so she can let it swing shut. As soon as I’m inside I try to say thank you, but the door is already closed.

‘She’s not going to let you go,’ the demon comments.

You don’t know that, I shoot back.

‘It’s not like I’ve watched her deny you before,’ he says.    

“Please sit down, Dr. Rork,” Dr. Tanora say. She’s a Regamorph too, only her liquid hair is black and short. The front resembles the bangs my friend and captain had when we first met. I should really find another reference for what Regamorphs look like besides their Guardian. 

“Dr. Rork, sit down,” she repeats to me sternly.

“I can’t Dr. Tanora,” I remind her. She can sometimes be forgetful over the fact that I’m a Techanot and cannot sit in her small and low to the ground chairs, or maybe she purposely ignores it. It would not be a surprise when she ignores the fact that Rork is not a last name. Techanots do not have those so I should just be called Dr. Terra’rork, but she never calls me that. I should probably stop putting stuff past her.

She looks up from her desk where she is writing and her stern frown doesn’t change. “Hmm, that’s right,” she mumbles. More clearly and loudly she asks, “Why did you make this appointment again?”

I quickly remind her, “I wanted to talk about my application to be a relief aid to Riverteria, to help treat the Watree tribe, I can provide better treatment than their government will- I mean can provide.” 

Dr. Tanora starts rubbing the bridge of her nose as she remembers the answer she always gives.. “Dr. Rork, don’t you think you should be here? Being the Guardian to your own people?”

“I barely treat Techanots as it is in Aloy. The population in this city is 92% Regamorph, and rising. Besides, this is a time of peace, so it’s not like I’m needed here to protect anyone,” I offer.

Insultingly… she chuckles. “Ah, yes, protecting the people is what you’re here for.” 

The fact I am insulted must have been pretty obvious on my face, because she sighs and then explains her insult. I wonder if there is a species that has realized that explaining the insult never makes anyone feel better. 

“Dr. Rork, let’s be honest. You were the medic, not a combatant. You weren’t fighting or protecting anyone, you were the doctor. Not to say that you shouldn’t be lauded for being able to operate on the bodies of so many races…” 

Dr. Tanora is digging her hole deeper, so she gives up on explaining herself. I assume she realizes that she doesn’t actually care for my feelings.

I eat my pride to accept her insult, to push her on the important subject. “Well, then we both agree I’m not needed here. I can be a real help to the Rivertans, and if allowed, the Waverites trapped on that planet after the Dion Expansion. You let others go with less experience with the other races than I, I’m the perfect candidate to be sent for relief aid.” 

Dr. Tanora looks up at my face and meets my gaze with irreverence, there’s nothing resembling compassion in her eyes. Good thing I don’t need compassion, I just need her to see the logic of my request rather than the personal need. 

Then she sighs and tries to make herself seem like a good person. “Listen Dr. Rork, if it was up to me I would send you-” 

It is up to you.

“-I don’t want you here if you don’t want to be here. But the higher-ups want you here where they can see you. Not in those underground death traps the waterboys call towns, and most certainly not on the uncontrolled planet of another member of your old team. I’ll have officers, lawyers, and worst of all, politicians up my ass about it. So I’m sorry Dr. Rork, you can’t go to Riverteria.”

I look at her for while, and she looks at me. Her expression tries to mock compassion, but it needs empathy to even look a little convincing. She couldn’t care less about how I felt, she was just annoyed. I’m a nuisance to her since the government has made it her job to watch me.

I sigh, and I thank her for her time before I left. She expresses a cold goodbye as she has her surely annoyed secretary hold the door open for me. That Regamorph lets me out, and I continue to lumber out into the hallway, where no one is there to see me.

I slam my head against the wall of my prison, and I can’t help but ask how I went wrong?

*****

I go to my apartment to sit and wallow. To eat my same old tired meals, and watch the same old holovids. I can’t stand it here anymore, all alone. 

I let my eyes drift around my necessarily large space, and the memories of old set upon me as they usually do. Isn’t that the point of old holo-pictures? Don’t you hange them on your wall so they can haunt you in the middle of the night? 

A picture makes it easy to think about what was. What could be again is the only thing that makes me smile outside of the hospital anymore.

Part of that isn’t true either. It can’t be like it used to be again.

I get up from my couch and lumber over to the same old holo-picture I always go to first. The one from a decade ago. It is of Alloya, Jackal, and me when Team Sunset was first starting out. 

We were so much younger then. Alloya had those bangs she wasn’t allowed to forget, and she had just gotten her a medal from the Regnorian Army Core for bravery in something. I forget what she did to earn it but I remember how Jackal and I went to see it handed to her. She was wearing her Regnorian Officer uniform, standing next Jackal, as they both stood and tried to hang on me. They were both much younger then. They were always like the siblings I never had. 

Jackal’s looks didn’t change much with age, at least to me. Lupians are so much farther from Techanots than Regamoprhs. I’m sorry to say that I struggle to distinguish between many of them without relying on the color and texture of their fur and canine snout.

‘You sound like them.’

I… I remember why he had the fur slicked back on his face. It was common among Lupians of his persuasion. Alloya tried to tell him that with his fur slicked back he only looked preppy, but he wouldn’t listen so she poked fun at him incessantly. Somehow, the bangs still felt worse. 

This was the year before I met my partner and I was worried of being too old to find someone. This was when I worried all about Team Sunset and expanding it outside of just the three of us.

I turn to the family picture I had taken a few months before Team Sunset was separated. It was on one of the many trips I would take back home after a mission to see my family. The holo-picture was similar to the one with Alloya and Jackal, where I stood in the back being the tallest, and then my partner, Lass’took, standing in front of the crook of my left arm. My two youngsters, Allis’rork and Esse’took. My children, son and daughter when he was a year and a half, and my daughter when she was two and half. 

I miss them. When was I forced to be relocated to Aloy, they wouldn’t come. Aloy was a city made mostly to house Regamorphs, with minor adjustments for Techanots. The stairs were difficult to walk, and my son’s ligaments were too weak for him to lift his arms high enough to get up the stairs of most places. 

The buildings were built with Regamorphs in mind, and my partner couldn’t stand being made to come through the back of any building. 

My daughter, now she just couldn’t stand how I could let foreigners tell me what to do, to make me stop being a hero, ‘her hero’ she said. 

They stay in the city where Lass’took and I were born, Tortack, an underground city made by Techanots for Techanots. They used to visit me but making the trip across the planet became too difficult to make. The Regnorian government rarely allows me to leave the city to go see them, especially since it’s to go somewhere where they can’t watch over me regularly.

But that’s life now, as it has been for a while. I try calling them, but eventually what kid wants to talk to a parent who doesn’t see them, and not even because they are saving the world. At least on Team Sunset my family accepted long breaks from seeing me because they were proud of what I helped to accomplish. 

Nothing really to be proud of now when you stop saving the day.

I go back to my couch to wallow. I make the choice to turn on the news to bring my mind to other concerns. I don’t really watch for a while. The newswoman goes over the usual information going on in the galaxy. One thing catches my eye though.

The news anchors are a Regamorph woman and a Techanot male. The woman was reminding the audience, “The Ruleden Tourney is sneaking up on Riverteria.” 

I remember that, a tournament that happens every 25 years to determine who rules the planet. It was an out-of-the-world concept to decide a political leader, even moreso than the others. It’s a terrible thing to turn the channel on, but I did. I don’t have it in me to watch it. In fact, I just turn off the holo-vision. I get up and go where I usually go to sleep when I don’t have work in the morning. I lumber to the elevator in the back of my apartment and tell it to take me to the top floor, where the hangar is.

It takes me up to the highest point of this large apartment complex where the wealthier tenants keep their personal spacecraft.

I wait for the elevator doors to open and then I walk in, gazing upon the many different and interesting looking spaceships. Some are small and meant for short travel, not meant for sticking around in space. There are one or two large ones, mean for vacations to explore an asteroid belt, or gaze down from a foreign planet’s lower atmosphere. 

I lumber past all of these ships for the only one created to house multiple species, created to be piloted by a Techanot. 

The Rango.

The Regnorian government allowed me to keep the ship. I hadn’t asked why, but I always wondered. The risk of asking questions and being punished was too high.

It wasn’t hard to get the damage done to it repaired after the Dion Expansion. I was surprised when that didn’t set off any red flags either. Maybe they expected me to let her fall into further disarray, but with the healthy amount of money I’m paid as an especially skilled doctor, I have managed to keep her in top shape. 

The Rango is so large that it houses half a dozen dorms, a brig to hold one or two individuals, a lounge, a kitchen, and the bridge. This spacecraft is larger than several houses. In exterior design it’s simple. The front is pronged like a short trident, with three points facing forward and slanted to add to the ship’s aerodynamics. The back is the same only with two points. 

The ship has a lot of space in the middle, where if one tried to walk up it no matter from which direction, it would be like walking up a mountain, as the ship has what looks like a fin at the top. 

To top it off the Rango had a beautiful matte red paint job. 

I’m a bit of a spaceship guy.

I walk underneath where the ship is being held up, and it immediately recognizes me and lowers down the back ramp to let me in. I wait and then board through the back. 

I continue to walk through the clean ship; it has an automated system to keep itself clean. I walk past each room of a previous member of Team Sunset. Then I make my way to the lounge where we all used to gather in our downtime. I sit at my spot on the couch, and I’m about to close my eyes to rest a bit when my piloting helmet moves over my head and tries to perch itself on me. 

“No, that’s not what I’m here to do,” I tell it, but then I remember that the Rango needs the helmet to be attached to know my orders. I telepathically control the ship through the piloting helmet. 

I put it on and the familiar systems and directions flood my mind. It brings up an image in my head of Reganora, the location of the Captain, Alloya, and the last place it had traveled from before being permanently docked here. 

No, I tell it telepathically, we’re not going anywhere. 

It asks me why, and then it brings up minor distress calls around the galaxy that we would normally go to help. Then it shows me the locations of Team Sunset. Each member is categorized by where the Regnorian government has them registered, and wherever they are updated to be. Each member is on their home planet. Then it shows me how long they’ve been there. They have not left their home planets in all of this time.

Wait, why would Alloya or Hideo not have moved? Alloya is an active officer, she should have leadership duties she should be completing around the galaxy. Or Hideo, he should have gone to Riverteria, to negotiate on his people’s behalf. Why are they all stationary?

They must all be grounded to their home planets, stripped of their positions in society or forced to go by the Regnorian government like me. Clay and Womby’s locations make sense, their species aren’t space-faring but the other two? 

No.

Surely, they’re stuck, just like me, unhappy just like me, wanting to come back to the fold, just like me.

No, that’s just my overactive hopes, imagination. I can’t stand it here any longer, but what would happen if I went over to see Alloya or Hideo, just to see if everything was alright.

No, I would be in massive trouble, stripped of everything I have, and prosecuted for treason for disobeying Regnorian directives.

But then… didn’t I do that when I upgraded and updated the ship? They didn’t… they didn’t care then. They didn’t care for the joy rides I’ve taken it on around Tork. Why haven’t…? 

This is the kind of question I ignore when I don’t want to be upset, but what about now? Don’t I want to be upset now?

But what’s there to be upset about? What do I have to look forward to? Nothing.

The Rango asks me if I want to turn on the ignition. 

I do.

The Rango asks me if I want to go to Regnora. 

I do.

The Rango asks me if I want it to execute these wishes. 

I do.

But should I? Is it worth the risk? Will Alloya want to see me? I don’t know if I’ll even make it there.

I order the ship telepathically and out loud, “Systems, execute piloting commands, let’s go see the Captain.”