StarHawk (5 page)

The
BonoVox
was in the throes of a saturnalia.

The entire ship was high on something. Food, wine, and other exotic intoxicants were available throughout the vessel, and anyone not on duty was permitted to indulge in any vice of their choice. This was no more true than inside Zap Multx’s enormous stateroom. Here, the upper echelon of the
BonoVox’s
officer staff had gathered to revel and feast.

The starship had something to celebrate. The assault on Vines 67 had been an unqualified success. With the regular Empire Forces troops holding the flanks, Multx’s highly trained soldiers had gone into the key bandit strongholds and quickly eliminated them, destroying all of the opposition’s weaponry and razing their base camps. No prisoners were taken. The victory had been so complete, the bandit groups on the two remaining outlaw planets were already asking for cease-fire terms.

So Multx’s 23rd Special Operations Corps had done in a few hours what Loy Staxx’s men had been unable to do in nearly a year. As a result, Vines 67 was in the Empire’s fold, and Multx’s fortunes had gone up a notch. The key to the victory had been the proper coordination between Multx’s hunter-killer battalions and the Kaon Bombardment ship. This was an option not afforded to Loy Staxx simply because he did not have the connections that Multx had. This alone spoke volumes about the inner workings of the Empire’s military elite.

Multx’s victory had been so swift and total, the
BonoVox
had already left the Sileasian System and was now streaking Inward. The star commander himself was said to be extremely pleased and had sent a very upbeat report back to Earth to herald his success.

So why then had he invited Erx and Berx to his victory party
without
the requisite bottle of wine as a gift?

That’s what puzzled the two explorers now as they made their way forward from their billets in aft Uppers. They had watched the battle for Vines 67 unfold from the top-side observation deck; it was the perfect place to follow all aspects of the fighting. And even though they were veterans of similar actions in the past, they had never seen such ruthless efficiency in combat as displayed by Multx’s corps this day.

The speed by which his special operations soldiers had eliminated their opponents was frightening. To say victory had been expeditious was a vast understatement.

So why, then, no bottle of Venusian wine with their invite? The explorers could not fathom a reason for such a breach of festivity protocol, especially from an old friend such as Multx.

Even more inconvenient, Erx and Berx had to walk the entire length of the ship to reach the celebration’s location, something that could take an hour or more. Usually the ship’s command officers would send a transport beam back for those they didn’t want to inconvenience. No such beam arrived for Erx and Berx.

About halfway to their destination, they passed a long line of troopers who had returned from Vines 67 just before the
BonoVox
began heading Inward. These men were in the same combat suits as they’d been wearing when they embarked on the lightning-quick campaign. But there was something different about them now. They were covered with dirt, mud, green soot, and no little blood. Their weapons appeared used and depleted. Even more telling, the men themselves looked drained. There was little evidence of the spirit the unit was known for prior to battle. These men looked grim, exhausted—disillusioned, even. To an uninformed eye, the question was obvious: If the soldiers had just won the recent engagement, why did they look so downcast?

But Erx and Berx didn’t have to ask.

They
knew why
…

The explorers finally reached the front of the ship and were ushered into Multx’s stateroom.

The place was packed with the high officers of the ship, several hundred in all. There was lots of wine, lots of vivid dress uniforms, lots of holo-girls. People eating, people drinking. High-pitched background music provided the sound track. The air smelled thick of bravado.

But all was not right. Standing alone in the far corner was Multx, the star commander himself. He looked awful. His face was drawn and pale. His normally razor-sharp eyes were bleary. His substantial shoulders were sagging.

Erx and Berx quickly got drinks and then approached him. One look told them all was not well. But before they could say a word, Multx spoke instead: “Do you know where your friend Mister Hunter is at this moment?”

The explorers looked at each other and shrugged.

“In his billet, I hope?” Erx replied uncertainly.

“Nay, he is in the lower brig,” Multx said in a stern whisper. “For transgressions that carry the ultimate penalty, I might add.”

“The
brig
!” Erx cried, a bit too loudly. “What has he done?”

Multx yanked them deeper into the corner. They did not have the protection of a hum beam now.

“He was caught in a highly restricted area of the ship during the operation against Vines 67,” Multx said, again in a whisper. “He saw it all: from the battle formations before the attack, to the Kaon Bombardment ship in operation, to the beginnings of the invasion itself. He observed more than a half-dozen state secrets in process. Greater souls have been dispatched for less.”

Erx and Berx were both alarmed and confused.

“But how was he able to leave his billet to do such things?” Erx asked. “The plan was to keep him sealed in for the rest of the voyage.”

Multx took a shallow breath. “We have no idea how he was able to get out. And neither does he. Or so he says.”

A small crowd of officers drifted by them, trailed by a bevy of holo-girls. Multx allowed them to pass.

“What is Hunter’s fate now?” Berx asked worriedly. “Certainly you can’t execute him.”

Multx wearily shook his head.

“It is only that my troops so handily won this engagement that I am able to go easy on him,” he replied.

“Few know of his indiscretion at this point. They are too busy with other things.”

He waved his hand to indicate the roomful of inebriated officers.

“And I can maintain our façade,” Multx went on. “But only if nothing else happens. I just hope Mister Hunter is smart enough to keep his lips sealed about what he saw.”

“He
is
smart,” Erx said quickly. “That much we know.”

“And he will remain in confidence about this matter,” Berx added. “We will guarantee it.”

Multx wiped his brow with his uniform sleeve. He seemed pale.

“I don’t want to regret taking him along with us,” he said wearily. “But if our scheme to get him into the Earth Race goes awry, not only will the happy days we dream of not be forthcoming, we might have some answering to do to my superiors as well…”

“All will be well, my brother,” Erx tried to reassure him. “It’s only by risk that our rewards might be great.”

Multx gulped his drink and grumbled: “Let’s pray that is so. Still, I think it’s best that our feathered friend stay in the brig for the remainder of the journey Inward. Only then can we be sure he’ll find no further trouble to get into.”

It pained them to do so, but the explorers raised no objections to this. Though a jail cell was not much different from his original billet, Erx and Berx felt responsible for Hunter’s plight. But it would be wise not to argue against Multx’s decree.

Time to change the subject.

“We, too, watched the battle closely,” Erx told him, trying to pump Multx back up again. “We could tell it went just as planned. Your troops were sterling in action. Your strategies, flawless.”

Multx leaned back against the wall and rubbed his tired eyes.

“All true,” he told them. “But this fight was not pretty, my brothers. Far from it.”

Erx and Berx fell silent. What was the matter here? Where was the eternally confident Multx? The ever-boastful Multx? Multx the warrior? Multx the conqueror? The man known as the most-connected officer in the Space Navy? Certainly the incident with Hunter was not all that was weighing on him.

Finally Erx leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper.

“I must tell you, old friend,” he said to Multx, “I’ve seen you looking better. Is something else troubling you?”

Berx jumped in: “You’ve just won a major engagement, Zap. So it did not go as ‘cleanly’ as you hoped—war is not supposed to be clean. We all know that. Why then so low?”

Multx hesitated for a moment. Rarely did anyone speak to him on such a personal level. But he knew his friends were right.

“I cannot answer why I feel this way,” he finally revealed, looking down at his hands. “Because I do not know myself.”

He paused to take a breath. It was almost painful to watch.

“I realize I have just eliminated a problem that has been plaguing the Empire for too long,” he went on.

“And did it quickly, too. Therefore I should be deliriously happy. Yet I am not, because I can’t get rid of this notion that something bad is about to happen. To me. To this ship. To
all
of us.”

“An intuition, you mean?”

“Something like that,” Multx replied.

The star commander looked up at them, his face more ashen than before.

“And I cannot tell you, comrades, just what an unpleasant feeling it is…”

Fly down to the dry sea today…

Yes, that might be a good idea. See the south side of the sky for one last time and then hurry back. The false sunset looks blood red today, especially from fifty thousand feet. Bury the throttles, lean back in the cockpit, open the canopy, and stick his arms out.
Now you’re really flying, man
. Helmet off. Belts unbuckled. The beams from the crimson giant wash over the face, warming whatever it was beneath the skin. Can the embers of a dying star actually touch the soul? Can they penetrate and open any memories stored there?

Through the scarlet cloud, turning this way and that. The sky, spectacular. Throttles forward. Yes, everything is a blur.
But life is not just about being good, it’s about being better
. Right on time, the face appears on the clouds ahead. The red giant glows brighter. The clouds swirl. He sees her smile. He hears her laugh.

You must see this
.

Then…

Suddenly Hunter was awake.

The ship’s Klaxons began blaring so loudly, he almost fell from his bunk. What was going on? They were twice as urgent as the day before. Was the ship about to fight another battle? So soon?

Now the lights inside his cell started flashing wildly. The thunder of boots running through the ship could be heard once again. Hunter was off his bunk and by the cell door in a flash. It did not dematerialize before his eyes this time. Rather it slid open cleanly. A security officer was standing on the other side.

Behind him, soldiers were rushing up and down the long corridor. Some were dressed in battle gear, some not.

“What’s happening?” Hunter yelled to the security man.

“Wake up, man!” the officer yelled back. “The ship is under attack! All prisoners are to report to the evacuation bay!”

Under attack
?

“By who?” Hunter yelled at the security man, but the man was already gone, lost in the stream of troops.

Hunter tried to get his bearings. He wasn’t even sure what part of the ship he was in. The chaos of the passageway was only getting worse. Lights flashing, the Klaxons at earsplitting level. Soldiers pushing their way around each other, running in different directions.

Where the hell was the evacuation bay?

Hunter began moving with the stampede. He found his way to a balcony similar to the one from which he’d watched the attack on Vines 67. The vast war chamber lay in front of him once again. But something was wrong here. Soldiers seemed to be stumbling this way and that, floating, colliding, falling.

Gone was the choreography, gone were the fluidity and well-drilled movement. At best there was controlled pandemonium inside the war chamber. At worst, panic.

Some of the troop transports were floating at the top of the chamber, but the soldiers in motion were ignoring them. Instead, the troops were igniting their rocket packs and hurling themselves directly through the huge protective membrane and into the wilds of outer space beyond.

What was happening here
? Hunter didn’t have a clue at first. Were these men abandoning ship?

Dozens of ship’s security men were rushing by him now, but none of them gave a second look. Hunter moved down the passageway to the nearest observation bubble. Beyond the glass was an even more fantastic sight!

Far from jumping ship, the stream of troopers leaving the
BonoVox
were meeting a stream of other spacemen heading in the opposite direction. These unknowns were coming from a huge ship that had materialized off the
BonoVox’s
starboard side, not two hundred yards away. This vessel was black, very sinister in appearance. While it was less sleek, less impressive than the
BonoVox
, it was bristling with small weapons and was dispensing armed spacemen as fast as the Empire ship could spit out soldiers to stop them.

Hundreds of soldiers began fighting within the small area between the ships. Some were shooting ray guns, others were engaged in vicious hand-to-hand combat. Space was suddenly filled with colors. The bright yellow of rocket packs. The deep red of ray gun blasts. Powerful beams from hundreds of weapons were streaking off in all directions. The sudden ferocity of the battle was simply mind-boggling.

Those hit directly by a ray gun blast found themselves propelled at high speed off into deep space, a gaping hole in their spacesuits, and leaving only a trail of blood bubbles behind. Others were simply exploding whenever an enemy ray gun blast hit their own weapons’ supply. A dark red mist was enveloping the fighting now. Hunter even thought he could hear men screaming as they fought and died out in the void.

Do something
…

Hunter felt a strange sensation rise up from the back of his neck. It was coming from deep within his brain. A voice seemed to be speaking to him, riding billions of receptors to the base of his skull. The voice sounded very much like his own. The
BonoVox
was in danger. That meant he was in danger as well.

Do something…

The next thing Hunter knew, he was running.

Down the passageway, past the balcony, down a descent tube to the entrance to the vast war chamber itself. He jumped right through the force field protecting the main door. He found himself being lifted up to the chamber’s ceiling.

He began tumbling out of control almost immediately.

Head over heels, arms over legs. He tried to focus his attention on the closest troop bug; it was about two hundred feet above him, and indeed it was the only flying machine anywhere nearby.

He put his head down and his arms at his side, thinking this was the thing to do. It did cause him to pick up a great amount of speed very quickly. But then he had no idea how to stop. He wound up slamming hard into the nose of the troop shuttle and bouncing off. Tumbling down about a hundred feet, he regained his balance and went shooting upward again. Another hard collision with the transport’s nose.

Another ricochet. Another plunge downward. Dazed and battered, Hunter twisted himself over and finally managed to “swim” up to the bug and climb inside.

One step in and he realized he was no longer floating. The shuttlecraft had its own gravity. His knees and elbows severely banged up from his collisions with the craft, he painfully made his way up to the flight compartment and squeezed himself behind the bug’s control column.

The operations panel was a bewildering array of light switches and holographic buttons. Hunter had no idea what any of them did, so he just started pushing things. In seconds, the spacecraft began to shake and yaw.

He hastily studied the control panel’s main 3-D screen. It seemed to offer a variety of options on what kind of controls he desired to fly the troop carrier. One icon presented a panel with the outlines of two hands. The fly-by-finger method—Hunter was not into that. Another offered a head ring, a band put around the head. Flying by brainwaves, he supposed. Again, not his thing.

He finally located an icon that most looked like the controls on his old flying machine. Basically a short stick for his right hand and a throttle bar for his left. He tapped this icon and instantly these controls appeared.

He quickly righted the spacecraft and then turned it around. He took it slowly and carefully at first, trying his best to avoid hitting any of the flying soldiers still rushing through the clear membrane to the battle beyond. When he saw a break in this stream, Hunter pushed the throttle bar ahead and suddenly found himself rocketing through the invisible portal and into space himself.

Now this was a strange situation for him. To the best of his knowledge, he’d never flown in space before.

It didn’t seem to be a problem, though. He was able to maneuver the awkward troop carrier through the swarm of battling spacemen, avoiding the never-ending streams of ray gun blasts coming at him from every direction. It was funny, though; Hunter wasn’t even trying hard. He was turning this way and that, but it was almost as if the controls were moving themselves. Or was something deep inside him moving them? If so, they were working perfectly every time. Hunter felt like he was just along for the ride.

And he noticed something else: At first glance, it seemed as if the battle between the two starships was taking place as they were hanging motionless in space. The truth was, they were both flying in Supertime.

The telltale sign was a slight blurring effect that surrounded everything and everyone, Hunter included.

Very strange…

Hunter finally cleared the ferocious battle and turned hard to port. Now he had a clear view of the situation. The
BonoVox
on his left, the unknown attacker on his right. The space between them still ablaze with vicious combat.

Two words popped into his head now, and they didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere deeper than the top of his skull.

Now what
?

Directly below the
BonoVox’s
vast bubble-top control room was another chamber.

Just as big, with twice the amount of machinery and apparatus, by tradition this place was known as the ship’s Oculus. Some believed the ancient name meant “the eyes.” If so, it was apt. From here the ship projected thousands of sensor rays into every dimension of space for one thousand light-years in all directions. This was where the ship was steered, where its speed was determined. The glassy control deck above was simply a window into this place. A small army of technicians lorded over innumerable monitoring stations here. Among other things, they could detect anything moving—man-made or not—for more than a billion miles away.

Or at least that was how it was supposed to work.

No one had seen this attacker coming, for one simple reason: There wasn’t supposed to be any enemy spacecraft in Supertime; only Empire spacecraft had the ability to cruise the Ethers. For all its magical machinery, whenever the
BonoVox
was in the seventh dimension, the Oculus was simply concerned with its navigation, and not scanning for enemy threats. That’s how the attacking spaceship was able to appear right alongside the Empire vessel and begin spitting out spacemen before anyone in the Oculus even knew what was going on.

Even worse, this was no ordinary warship off their starboard bow. This was a Blackship, a vessel used by Fringe pirates to pillage unsuspecting planets and attack commerce vessels in flight. By definition, its occupants were ruthless and fierce, and known to show their victims no mercy. How had such a ship gained entry into Supertime? No one in the Oculus had a clue, simply because nothing like this had ever happened before.

A kind of controlled chaos was sweeping the Oculus now. The
BonoVox
had fought in countless engagements in its long history. But the starship’s role in each of those battles was to provide purely offensive punch. The
BonoVox
attacked planets; it carried no defensive weapons of its own. So powerful was its vast arsenal that no weapon on board could be used against a target fewer than one hundred miles away. Using such a weapon would mean death to both the attacker and the target. The older class of Empire ships, those built more than three hundred years before, had carried self-protection systems. But as the techniques of using Supertime became more defined, and as the Empire strengthened its hold on the supertechnology, the need for such weaponry disappeared. The
BonoVox
carried no self-protection weapons because ship-to-ship duels were supposed to be a thing of the past.

But one was happening now—and it appeared the situation was growing more dire for the Empire vessel by the second. Reports flowing into the sensor center said that some enemy spacemen were close to reaching the hull of the
BonoVox
, intent on burning their way into the ship itself. The battle might soon be taking place
inside
the vessel. Fighting in the passageways? Battling enemy spacemen right on the control decks themselves? Absolutely no one on board the
BonoVox
was prepared for that.

But even among all this, something else very puzzling was happening out there. In addition to the sensors going crazy by continually detecting the marauding Blackship, the men in the Oculus saw that a third spacecraft had appeared on the scene. It was flying among the warring spacemen with considerable aplomb. It wasn’t another Blackship. It was far too small for that.

So what was it?

Instantly the sensor arrays identified this third object as one of the
BonoVox
’s own troop transports.

It was empty except for its pilot.

His identity was unknown.

What happened next was witnessed by most of the officers inside the Oculus, as well as those in the ship’s command center one deck up.

After hovering for a few moments on the edge of the mid-space battle, the small troop carrier began accelerating very quickly. In seconds it was flying much faster than its previously known top speed. It roared over the top of the
BonoVox
, climbed steeply, and then went into a mind-bending dive just above the bow of the Blackship. Just as quickly, a barrage of Z-beam blasts erupted from behind the enemy vessel’s control deck—unlike the
BonoVox
, the Blackship carried loads of self-protection weapons. But even though the Z-beam streams were many, the troop carrier began dodging them with astonishing agility.

Then something even more remarkable happened. Empire troop shuttles were armed with only rudimentary ray guns. These were provided in the unlikely event that a bug was caught on the surface of a planet, alone, during an invasion and was forced to defend itself. The mysterious pilot was now firing these guns at the Blackship’s flight deck—indeed, he was coming down in a screaming dive and directing his twin beams at the vessel’s main control bubble. This seemed like madness! The shuttle’s small ray guns were designed to kill troops, not do battle against miles-long spaceships. Yet the shuttle unloaded on the Blackship’s command bubble and kept right on going, its guns full blast, making impacts all the way down the length of the attacking ship. Only after it delivered a concentrated barrage on the ship’s propulsion section did it turn up and away and climb again, a storm of Z beams following in its wake.