Gaunt Galaxy / Blue Angel: Book 1

Benjack

I tried opening my eyes but I couldn't. My head was spinning, my mind was reeling. What the hell had happened? Why was I unconscious and lying down, ...on a metal deck of all things? There were so many sounds booming around me. People shouting, people laughing, someone was cursing at the top of their lungs, an alarm was blaring in the distance. Was I in a ship accident or a crash of some sort? I have to get awake and see if I can help. I tried opening my eyes again, and was rewarded with only the tiniest of openings in my eyelids. What the fuck? Why was everyone gathered around staring at me? And there was some other being lying on the deck beside me. We were on the deck of a space station. Blood was everywhere (and what appeared to be a couple of organs), some of that was my blood, from what, where was I bleeding? I was slowly beginning to come back around, but that was a mixed achievement. Though I was desperately trying to figure out what was going on, my damn pain receptors were off the charts!! My body felt as though I had been hit by a stray asteroid or two and my left leg had a searing pain that was beginning to make its way up the rest of me.

Then I realized that someone had moved me into a sitting position and was actually keeping me upright by standing behind me, so that my body was resting against their leg, some... helper. This someone was also arguing with a station guard that I should not be arrested but that I was the one that was actually attacked. I was attacked? Why? Who? I was so dazed that I could not remember. Then from the new sitting position I was finally able to see my "attacker". Whoa, shit!!! I almost blacked out again at the realization of who and what being it was that had attacked me. It was Shimmerion Tarsonisan. He was the leader of the meanest and most notorious space pirate group the galaxy has ever know, The Cut Throats! The name was derived from what usually happened to those who opposed Shimmerion! He was a Tarsonite. Tarsonite's are a group of beings from the planet Tarsus in the Tarsonian system. They are very Earth bull, like beings with a large head and body to match, the head looked much like that of an Earth bull and some even had horns as well. Standing on two legs measuring almost 3 meters (9' 10") tall and weighing in at about 400 kilos (880 lbs) when fully mature. Their legs end in large padded hooves while their arms end in large hands with very thick fingers and very hardened skin. Their large bodies and extreme musculature make them perfect for combat, whether for good or bad purposes. Some of them are very racial and think that because they are the largest known planet based race in the Galaxy, that it makes them the best. They for sure are some of the most fearsome fighters around! Shimmerion was the largest Tarsonite I had ever seen!!

Fighters...... Fight.... Wait!! Another round of extreme pain and my mind seems to clear a little more. Fighter, that is what I am! I am beginning to remember now. I am a professional fighter with the GFA (Galactic Fighting Association), The Golden Boy, my body hair is so thick that it is actually fur and is gold in color. The gold of my fur seems to glow in the light of the ring, so much so, it is how I got my name, Golden Boy. I actually hold the Galactic record for the most fights won in a season for the last 5 seasons in a row. How could I not remember. The GFA is what saved me. I was able to go by a surrogate name, Golden Boy, and after I won my first 10 fights straight, no one really cared. Jarroda is my promoter, he's here with me. Where the hell is he? Maybe he's the one holding me up, no he's too small, I'm very large to be and Earther. Jarrod was my Mom's boyfriend when she died. He really doesn't understand me but I make us both a good living and he had promised my Mom he would take care of me. He is the closest thing to a friend that I have, now where the hell is he? Damn, the pain!!!........

.....My mind drifted back into blackness and I was back on Earth, I was a child again, the first day of public school. I had rode the public school transport to school like most of the kids, Mom had to work. All the kids were starring at me as if I were some sort of freak and I guess I really was. I was big for my age, too big, this was first grade and I was as big as some of the teachers. And I had a lot of body hair, golden blonde body hair, it actually looked almost like the fur of an animal. My head was too big and shaped funny. My hands were to large for my body, my fingers were thick and it made me drop things, a lot. Mom had not wanted to send me to school but she had no choice. She had managed to home school me my kindergarten year but it had been tough and had almost cost her, her job. She had to work, my father had been killed in a mining accident in the asteroid belt a couple of cycles before and we didn't have much. She worked at a nice diner as a waitress and always made pretty good tips, but it took it to keep us going. Now here I was, in a public school with normal kids and I was anything but normal.