Nathaniel is sick. His healing power can restore him once an infection or injury is over, but not necessarily while it is ongoing. This is a strong pathogen. Thinking back to his latest expedition, he guesses that he picked it up from the jungle of the popping leaves. Every leaf he brushed against would pop and release small amounts of sticky slime. It was a weird planet.

Every joint aches. He is simultaneously too hot and too cold. He wants nothing more than to stay in bed and remain perfectly still, but he itches too much. The urge to scratch is unbearable. He scratches his skin raw and loses half his feathers. Meanwhile, his play-starved Stuffians lie lifeless on the floor. Finally, he rolls over, and walks to a computer terminal. “Where is the best hospital in the galaxy?” he speaks into the microphone. The computer digs through its extensive historical records downloaded from the future. The results show on the screen: Ratula 35, year 4664. He sets the time machine. Within an hour, he is registered and in bed.

“I found a mystery for us to solve,” Captain Nathaniel says, placing a history book on the round table at the very center of his spaceship.

“I like mysteries,” Doctor Bill says.

“I know you do,” Nathaniel responds.

“What is it?” Haticat asks.

“The Gortrons of today are strong fighters known for their bravery and loyalty to allies, but one hundred eighty-seven years ago they had no ships and did not know that other planets existed. This changed when they were invaded by scary aliens with superior technology. The Gortrons repelled the invasion, but the event changed them. Having learned of other races, they developed their own space program and built their own weapons. This one event changed the trajectory of history,” Nathaniel says.

“So what’s the mystery?” Haticat asks.

“Who were the invaders?” Nathaniel asks.

Everything about Nathaniel’s new spaceship is super comfortable. The brightness, noise, gravity, humidity, and temperature adjust with his moods. The bed is amazing. He peeks between the covers to watch the sun rise. Finally, he gets up and puts on his shoes. His Gruezhling crew wakes too, feeding off his play-energy.

This is the day that they travel through time back to the ten years of prohibition on planet Ninosa, which ended long before Nathaniel was born. In those days, the adults decided that salsa was too spicy, candy was too tempting, and that straws and dancing were too dangerous – dancing with straws even more so. Fortunately, guns and scissors were still allowed. Nathaniel plans on helping the boys of the planet by sneaking in supplies of salsa, candy, soda, and straws. He watches the countdown to arrival on the time machine.

Pop! The cross-shaped ship appears on top of a dune in the Ninosan desert. Nathaniel and his crew step outside and look around. There are no adults in sight. There are footprints going right up to the side of the ship, though. “Jasit! Not so fast.” Two boys run around the side of the dune and stop when they see the ship. “Wow.”

“Hi, I am Captain Nathaniel. I’m from the future and I brought candy.”

“We’re not allowed to eat candy,” the first boy says.

“That’s why I brought it,” Nathaniel says.

The asteroid ship slowly approaches a grey and black planet. Haticat reads its measurements off the monitor. “Gravity levels comfortable. The atmosphere is almost pure nitrogen. We’ll need to carry oxygen with us.”

The hero business has been tough. The galaxy seems to be experiencing a period of relative peace. What little need there has been for mercenary work has gone to others. In the meantime, Nathaniel has been focusing on exploration. It has been fun, but for a long time he has seen nothing truly special. Every planet has begun to look the same. Just one week past his twenty-first birthday, he is feeling quite bored. “Special features?”

“There are some rough-looking mountains just south of the equator,” Fred reports.

Nathaniel sighs. He has already lived longer than most boys and girls, who tend to live short, violent lives. His intelligence from drinking the smart juice has allowed him to keep clear of trouble. His health from drinking the healing juice has given him long life. He is now entering a phase in his life where most of his peers in experience are adults, but adults are boring. “Okay, land us somewhere in the foothills where we can see them. I’ll be eating lunch.”

As expected, the planet is grey sand and black sand. In some places, the sand gives way to a fine silt. There is nothing to see here. Then they see the footprints. “These are Snarugi prints,” Nathaniel says.

“There were no signs of life on the sensors,” Fred says.

“Well, let’s go see what they’re up to,” Nathaniel says.

They follow the prints for about six kilometers until coming across a mine entrance. Doctor Bill scans the area. “The mine is shielded – to both intruders and sensors.”

“That’s why Fred didn’t see it,” Haticat says.

“Why hide a mine? There must be something awfully valuable inside,” Nathaniel says.

“I believe a neutron pulse will destabilize the trazonic field long enough for us to slip through,” Doctor Bill says.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Nathaniel says. He pulls a small, black device from his pocket and tosses it at the mine opening. It stops in midair for a second, caught in the field, then it falls straight down. “Hurry.”

The four explorers run through the opening and Nathaniel retrieves his device before continuing down the steep tunnel. The sand gives way to sandstone and then to harder minerals. They don night vision goggles able to convert the small amounts of reflected infrared they produce into visible light. The tunnel branches several times and they still see no Snarugi. “Just typical mining equipment. No clue of what they are after,” Doctor Bill whispers.

Exploring a little further, they come across some baseball-sized crystals imbedded in the rock, faintly glowing blue. “Look at those,” Haticat says.

“Do you think this is what they’re mining?” Fred asks.

“Maybe,” Haticat says.

“I don’t understand. These readings make no sense. I can’t even figure out where the light energy is coming from,” Doctor Bill complains.

“Let’s take one back to the ship for analysis in the laboratory,” Nathaniel says.

After picking one free, they carefully return the way they came and use the same device to break out of the mine that they used to break in. It is dark outside! “Is it night? How long were we in the mine?” Fred asks.

“Haticat, how long is a day on this world?” Nathaniel asks.

“Thirteen hours. We should have plenty of daylight left,” Haticat answers.

Nathaniel looks up and sees the stars moving across the sky, leaving blurred trails behind them. “What is going on?” he whispers to himself.

They are suddenly surrounded by six Snarugi aiming trazer guns at them. “Who are you and how did you find this place?”

Captain Nathaniel and his crew explore the jungles, swamps, and beaches of planet Dahk, where the days and nights are six hours each. It is hot and humid. On Dahk, the leaves are green and tree bark is orange. Most of the plants smell like pasta. Others smell like rubber, smoke, habanero peppers, garlic, fried chicken, or mud. The jungles are home to intelligent dogs with brown bodies and white tails. The swamps are home to intelligent eagles with brown plumage. The beaches are home to intelligent, “pogostick” seals that hop on their tails while on land. The sea is largely unexplored, even by the seals. In many places are small islands of turquoise topped by amethyst. There are many volcanoes strung along tectonic plate boundaries. No one knows what dwells in the deep.

While on the shore one morning, Nathaniel and his friends stack towers of small stones, challenging each other to make taller and taller towers that will not fall over. Nathaniel is careful to pick out the best stones, looking for ones with relatively flat surfaces.

Then the shellfish arrive. Haticat looks up from his work to see several large bivalves walking onto shore. They resemble both oysters and scallops along a spectrum, with some being more oyster-like and others being more scallop-like. Many tiny feet project from their hinges, allowing them to walk upright, holding their shells vertically. Five eyes poke through each shell, giving the bivalves ten eyes each. They stand about three meters tall.

Fred sees them at the same time. “What are those?”

This gets Nathaniel’s attention. “Let’s go see.” The others follow Nathaniel as he approaches the strange creatures. Looking out over the waves, he sees at least a hundred more breaching the surface. Land is being invaded by sea. They are seeing some sort of migration. Haticat takes a photo and Nathaniel turns on his scanner. “The shells are only partially mineralized. They have big brains. I wonder if we can communicate.”

One of the giant shellfish turns to face the explorers edge-on. Haticat yells at it, “Hey, can you talk?”
Suddenly, a narrow jet of seawater squirts out with such force that it knocks Doctor Bill over. He falls between two turquoise boulders into a tidal pool full of daisy corals. “Hey! Why did you do that?” Nathaniel yells.

Another jet of water hits Fred, knocking him over as well. Then Nathaniel is hit. As he stands up and dries himself off, Haticat and Mojo are hit. Some other creatures have crawled over the rocks behind them and close in. Nathaniel warily grasps his holster. “Let’s move away,” he says.

As they retreat, Doctor Bill is hit two more times and surrounded. Nathaniel shoots a warning shot at a rock. The shellfish seem not to notice and continue to close in. The one closest to Doctor Bill opens its shell slightly and what looks like a tongue sticks out towards him. Zrrrrrt! Nathaniel shoots a laser right inside the shell. A loud scream-like noise fills the beach and the injured creature immediately returns to the surf. The others seem not to notice.

Nathaniel, Haticat, and Fred shoot the other creatures around Doctor Bill, leaving several burn marks, but with their shells closed, they seem not to feel the lasers. By this time, those further down the beach in both directions have clearly started to close in on them. One shoots a water jet at Mojo, who returns fire. “Into the jungle!” Nathaniel yells.

Two Halpile crabs, Dram and Draam, walk through what was recently a forest. While a few smaller plants remain, there are no trees. Great holes remain where they were rooted. “What could do this much damage?” Dram asks.

“Probably the same thing that left these trails,” Draam says. They follow wide paths where the soil has been smoothed and compressed. Soon, they come across a pile of ash.

“Were the trees burned?” Dram asks.

“I don’t know,” Draam says.

They keep walking and eventually see something strange in the distance. Getting closer, they recognize the planet guardian of Halpile, the aracial adult that manages the planet. It is a crablike creature the size of a house, covered on top and sides by curved, telescoping spines. It is not moving. Wanting to keep a safe distance from any adult, the boys send over a drone to get a better look. The guardian is dead. It appears to be rotting apart. Several of its spines have fallen out. It is covered with black, burrowing worms the boys do not recognize. “Do you suppose what burned the trees killed the planet guardian?” Dram asks.

“We need to tell someone about this,” Draam says.

“We’re The Newest Heroes. We’re responding to your distress call.” Nathaniel says upon entering the radio station on planet Yogo.

The giant centipedes who live there explain the situation. They are being terrorized by a monster. It destroys everything they build and beats up anyone who tries to stop it. It seems to hate technology. The only reason it hasn’t taken down the radio tower is because of the electric fence around it. “You mean the broken fence we stepped over to get here?” Haticat asks.

The Dwokdeer was used to the rain. In fact, it preferred it. Rain kept away insects, hid its smell from predators, and rain clouds blocked out the hot sun. Seeing some Dwokweed, the animal bends its neck down for a bite, gobbling up the sweet, crunchy plant.

The deer’s ears perk up. There is a subtle change in the sound of the rain as it hits the leaves in the trees. The surface tension of the droplets is different. The rain is green. Suddenly, the deer feels very sick. Strange pains fill its body. Cells begin to divide rapidly. Hooves erupt from its skin. A third antler grows from its nose. Its brown fur falls out and is replaced by yellow and white. All this activity uses up its fat stores and it becomes ravenously hungry. It runs around eating all the vegetation in sight, no matter the taste or caloric value. Still in pain, it lets out a wild hiss toward the sky.

A metal cube speeds straight for planet Dopla. The living spacecraft in orbit see it coming, but do not know what to make of it. Just as it seems about to pass by, it rapidly decelerates and enters orbit. A few of the more adventurous individuals speed ahead to meet it. The cube then unfolds into a rectangle of blinking lights from the corners of which four long cables uncoil.

“Hello. This is the Dopla system. May we assist?” the foremost Doplan radios.

The response is immediate. An arc of electrons travels between two of the cables through the Doplan. The voltage is so great that even the perfect insulator of empty space is not enough to protect. He is killed instantly.

Later, across the galaxy, Darryl hangs up the phone. “We’re going to Dopla.”

“Where’s that?” Nathaniel asks.

“You can read all about it on the way there. We need to hurry. The Doplans are being exterminated by some sort of electrified robot,” Darryl responds.

“Like an electrobot,” Haticat comments.

The lizard skitters across the rock over to the sunlit side. It stops. The sun feels good today. All is right with the world. The lizard fills with energy and confidence, ready to take on the day.

Suddenly, it disappears in a flurry of feathers and claws. “I got it!” Nathaniel shouts.

His newest friend, Darryl, runs up behind him. “Oh good, that’s one of the tasty ones.”

The two of them sit down to share a meal while their psychosymbiotic Stuffians gather around them. Nathaniel peels off the meat and hands Darryl the bones as he had done with every kill. They always ate different parts of the animal. This was why their hunting partnership worked so well. Darryl tips his head all the way back and drops the bones into his open throat. He was from a little-known planet on the edge of the galaxy where all creatures had two mouths – one for talking and one for eating. Several years ago, he had driven the girls from his planet and earned three medals. He then did some traveling and eventually met Nathaniel on Ninosa. “I think it is the ratio of potassium salts that makes the bones so good,” he says while his gizzard crunches away.

“I like hunting with you and Mojo,” Nathaniel says.

“I like hunting with you,” Mojo, Darryl’s tiger-like Stuffian, says.

“We make a good team. I eat meat. You eat bones. You are tall enough to reach high shelves. I’m small enough to hide in small crevices,” Nathaniel says.

“We should do other things together,” Darryl suggests.

“Like what?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can be mercenaries or start a detective agency,” Darryl suggests.

Not long after starting their business and naming it The Newest Heroes, they are contacted by a Fkoojite named Captain Moke. “I don’t know what’s going on. People keep going missing, sometimes whole towns at once. I was working with a team of detectives until they went missing too.”

“Yikes,” Nathaniel says.

“Just before this happened, there were sightings of a large, lizard-like creature with a crystal head near the town where the first disappearances occurred. We have no such native species,” the Captain continues.

“So, you want us to find out what’s happening and put a stop to it,” Nathaniel states.

“Yes,” Captain Moke replies.

“Good, now let’s talk about payment,” Darryl says.