StarHawk (2 page)

The dwelling was built into the side of a mountain.

It looked like a castle. Two high towers. A rampart. Stone walls forming one barrier about five hundred feet out, a deep, dry moat providing a second ring of protection closer in. The drawbridge was made from the cargo hatch of a long-ago crashed spaceship. It lowered automatically now as Hunter’s sleek aircraft approached.

Inside the walls was a courtyard, a small house at its center. Plain and square, it was made from pieces of skillfully melded debris. The house had many windows of different shapes and sizes, all of them filled with bits of superglass. There was a hole in the roof through which to see the heavens. A place to park the aircraft was close by.

The view from the dwelling was spectacular, if desolate. A vast desert stretched for many miles to the south. Towering mountains dominated the horizons east and west. Only a few trees dotted the barren landscape; they were stunted and windswept. There was very little water in evidence here. No vegetation. No animal life. Two suns hung in the sky, a large dull red ball and a smaller yellow disk. They were the only stars for three hundred light-years around, and indeed this was their only planet.

Hopelessly isolated, this place was known as Fools 6 because so many hapless space travelers had met their end here.

Even for a Fringe planet, it was way, way out.

The interior of Hunter’s dwelling was not spacious. Three floors with a main room, it was built mostly of stone and superwood, much of which was salvaged as well.

A huge fireplace had been cut into the east wall. A large fire was blazing away inside it. Suspended above the flames, a pot of synthetic stew was bubbling away. Erx and Berx collapsed into two chairs placed near the fireplace. They painfully pulled off their space helmets.

“I can’t believe that just happened to us,” Erx said, accepting a cloth from Hunter to wipe the blood from his face and hands. “One hundred and thirteen years flying the Galaxy, I can’t recall having so much as a panel light go out…”

“Nor can I,” Berx agreed. “The closest we’ve come was near Anteaus, when we lost the inertia booster.

That was forty-five years ago.”

Erx moaned loudly: “I believe my heart is beating itself right out of my chest.”

Hunter passed them both an enormous bowl of stew.

“This will fix you up,” he said. “Or at least I think it will. The truth is, you are the first dinner guests I’ve ever had, so I’m not so sure if it’s any good or not…”

Both Erx and Berx gave their bowls a sniff. Erx grimaced.

“I believe we were thinking more of a
liquid
solution to the problem,” he said.

Hunter pondered this a moment. “Do you mean like wine?” he asked.

Erx and Berx both smiled. They looked good for their ages, 146 and 151 respectively. Both were low to the ground, stout but unquestionably powerful. Both had shiny bald heads and were sporting huge, drooping mustaches. Battles scars on their hands and faces marked them as onetime frontline soldiers.

Their uniforms—what was left of them—were dark blue with gold collar badges shaped like a double-X.

These men were senior military officers and well-known throughout the Galaxy. They possessed friendly dispositions, though. And neither was opposed to drinking on duty.

“You have some spirits?” Erx asked, his features brightening, instantly perking up. “Way out here?”

Hunter disappeared into a storage room, returning with three mugs and a flask.

“I salvaged it from a wreck on the other side of the mountain,” he explained. “I think they call this ‘slow-ship wine.’ ”

Erx and Berx smacked their lips in unison. They were no strangers to slow-ship wine. A sweet liquor of dubious ingredients, it was known for its calming, opiate quality.

Hunter poured each man a healthy dose. The visitors began to drink—but then stopped in midgulp. They had forgotten their manners.

“Our apologies,” Erx said as he made a quick toast in Hunter’s direction. “To you, sir—and to your bravery. We owe you our souls!”

Hunter sheepishly raised his own mug. “It was more by chance than bravery,” he replied. “It was hard to miss your rather spectacular entry.”

“Courage and luck go hand in hand,” Berx said—he was the more boisterous of the two, his mustache was longer, and he was slightly taller. “We’re fortunate you were in the right place at the right time—so let that be our toast.”

They all drank heartily.

“There will probably be a reward in this for you,” Erx said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I believe a bag of aluminum coins may soon be yours, Mister Hunter.”

Hunter was baffled.
Aluminum coins
? This was not a familiar term.

“What would I do with a bag of aluminum coins?” he asked, looking around the house. “Unless—well, I could melt them down and…”

“
Melt them down
?” Erx cried. “Good sir, aluminum coins are currency—you can go just about anywhere in the Galaxy on their value.”

“You
do
know that,” Berx asked him. “Don’t you?”

Hunter just shook his head. These men would probably be shocked by how much he
didn’t
know.

He quickly changed the subject. “What happened to your ship?” he asked them. “Do you know?”

Both men shrugged and after some more sniffing, began nibbling at their stew.

“We haven’t the faintest idea,” Erx said between mouthfuls. “One moment we were cruising along, the next thing we know, we’re losing power, we’re losing speed, we’re losing our propulsion core.”

“We popped out of Supertime,” Berx said. “And headed for the first place we saw. This place.

Apparently we are not the first to choose it as an option to blowing up in space.”

Erx drained his mug and nudged it toward the flask. Hunter poured both men another full mug.

“And what about you, Mister Hunter?” Berx asked. “How long have you been marooned here?”

Hunter hesitated again. Many times he’d wondered just what he would do when this moment came.

When he would finally meet another human being and be asked
the question
.

“I don’t think ‘marooned’ is the right word,” he finally told them. “The truth is, I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.”

Both men stopped eating for a moment.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” Berx asked.

Hunter just shook his head again. “It sounds strange, I know, but I
didn’t
crash here. At least I don’t think I did. It seems as if one day, I was
just here
. Standing on the side of this mountain, wearing this uniform, with not a clue as to where I came from.”

Erx and Berx just stared back at him. This was an unfamiliar concept to them. Everyone in the Galaxy knew where they came from.

“Well,
obviously
you were part of the crew of this shipwreck nearby—and suffered amnesia as a result,” Erx said.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Hunter said. “That wreck happened way before my time.”

As proof, he pointed to the wall next to the fireplace. It was lined with electron torches, small, tubelike device capable of assembling or disassembling just about any form of matter in nature. Trillions of them could be found throughout the Galaxy.

Berx took one of the torches from the wall and examined it. “It is an old design,” he confirmed. “Three hundred years, at least.”

“I built my aircraft with those tools,” Hunter told them “Melding parts I took from the crashed ship and putting them together from a sketch I made one night. Believe me, I’ve been over every inch of that wreck and it is in an advanced state of decay. It was certainly here long before me.”

Berx retrieved a small handheld device from his belt. This was known as a quadtrol. It could do just about anything, from reading a planet’s atmosphere, to scanning of piece of machinery for defective parts, to doing a complete physical examination of a human being. Erx passed the device across Hunter’s forehead and began reading results.

“There’s no indication that you’ve suffered any trauma,” he announced. “Strangely enough, you’re in perfect health. And it says here that you are thirty-three years old, Earth time.”

Erx leaned forward a little. “And you really have no memories of childhood? Parents? Siblings?” he asked. “No evidence of your past?”

Hunter just shook his head. “All I have are these,” he said.

He reached into his left breast pocket and came out with a small piece of fabric. It had a strange design on it, a series of red stripes with a square blue block in one corner containing a field of stars.

“Foreign to me,” Erx said, examining it.

“Me as well,” Berx agreed.

Hunter unwrapped the cloth to reveal a small piece of wrinkled material inside. On this was the faded image of a woman’s face, but not much more could be told from it.

“I found these two things in my pocket the day I realized I was here,” Hunter said, carefully folding everything back up and returning the small bundle from where it came. “Along with the fact that the name ‘Hawk Hunter’ was written inside my boots, they are my only clues—if they are clues at all. I have constantly racked my brain, trying to remember how it is that I got here—but it seems to be impossible to recall.”

He took a long drink of wine.

“I mean, I’m not without a brain,” he said softly. “I know how to speak, how to breathe, how to take care of myself. I figured out how to use the electron tools. I know how to fly—”

“That might be the strangest thing of all,” Erx interrupted. “Even the Master Pilots on Earth cannot fly like you. The best fighter pilots in the Space Forces would be amazed by your ability—as well as envious.”

Hunter poured them more wine.

“The name ‘Earth’ sounds familiar,” he said. “This is your home planet?”

“It’s
everyone’s
home planet,” Berx said. “It is our mother world, the place from which every person in the Galaxy is descended.”

Hunter looked across at them. “Even me?” he asked.

The two spacemen nodded.

Hunter thought about this for a moment, then said: “I was able to get into the logs of that shipwreck as well. About half of them were undamaged. About half of them I could understand. I know the crashed ship was part of the ‘Fourth Empire.’ Do you know where that is?”

Erx and Berx laughed. “The Fourth Empire is everywhere,” Erx told him. “It is
the
Galaxy. This Galaxy.

This planet, its stars, everything around it. Even you, my friend. You are part of the Fourth Empire.”

Hunter almost seemed proud. “Well, at least it’s good to know I
belong
here…”

“You are happier than some upon hearing that news,” Berx said under his breath.

“And as our greatest astronomers are certain that in the entire universe our galaxy is the only one that’s inhabited,” Erx went on, “the possibility that you are
not
from here is, well, impossible. Therefore your home world
must
be Earth. So there—one part of your mystery is solved.”

More wine was poured. Erx intentionally spilled some of it into his stew. So did Berx.

“Could I be from a different time, then?” Hunter wondered aloud. “From somewhere in the past? Or even the future?”

Erx and Berx screwed up their faces in identical frowns.

“Well, actually, we’re not into time,” Berx said, his voice dripping. “No one is anymore, not really.”

“He means the term itself is outmoded,” Erx explained. “Ancient words like ‘weeks’ and ‘months’ are still used in charting travel through space as a passage of time. But like other archaic words we all use, they are merely convenient and part of tradition. Something for the quadtrols to recognize. At least that’s my understanding of it.”

“Of course, theoretically, we are always moving in time,” Berx said, finally feeling the wine taking effect.

“That’s the principle behind the propulsion cores in our starships. Or at least I believe that’s how they work.”

He turned to Erx for help, but not much was forthcoming. “I think the propulsion core creates some kind of exception in the fabric of time that allows us to enter the faster dimension and move great distances quickly. Is that it?”

Berx just shrugged. “I think so.”

“You really don’t know?” Hunter asked them.

Both men shook their heads.

“No, not really,” Erx admitted. Clearly this was a source of embarrassment for them.

“It all has to do with the Big Generator,” Berx said. “You’ve never heard of that either, I suppose?”

Hunter just shook his head no.

“Well, it’s a very complicated thing,” Erx began sputtering. “But because of it, our ships fly and our weapons work, every planet can be sustained, and we can travel to the farthest reaches of the Galaxy in just weeks. But the truth is, we are not privy to the great secrets that it holds—or even where it is located.”

Hunter thought a moment. “Are you saying this Big Generator has an effect on just about everything you do… yet you don’t know how it works?”

Erx and Berx stared back at him for a long moment. Then they drained their mugs and in unison said: “
Bingo
…”

They ate their stew and drank their fill of wine.

Then once Erx and Berx had recovered somewhat, the three of them climbed up the mountain behind Hunter’s dwelling.

It was about three thousand feet high, but he’d carved a trail along its slope one day, ensuring a steady but easy climb. Still, this would be the longest distance Erx and Berx had walked in many decades. True, they were interstellar explorers. But the vast majority of their Galactic travel had been done on the seat of their pants.

No surprise, then that they were out of breath and sweating heavily by the time they neared the summit.

“My God,” Erx said, slumping next to a conveniently shady rock. “Does this planet have
any
oxygen at all?”

Berx checked his quadtrol. “All of the vital readings are very low and there is an atmosphere leak of more than ten percent.”

“Do you know when was the last time this planet was ‘puffed,’ Mister Hunter?”

“I don’t know what puffing means,” Hunter replied simply.

“Every planet in the Galaxy has been puffed at one time or another,” Berx explained. “The Ancient Engineers used to call it ‘terra-forming,’ I think. It means the planet’s biosphere has been altered to fit human habitation.”

“Why do you think you can walk around out here without an oxygen tank to breathe from, my friend?” Erx asked. “Or a spacesuit to protect you from the rays?”

Hunter just shrugged. It was a good question.

“I guess I never thought about it before,” he said.

Erx wiped his forehead of perspiration. “I envy your lack of knowledge,” he said wearily. “Sometimes I think I know too much.”

On the other side of the mountain was a vast salt plain. It stretched, nearly unbroken, to the far horizon.

About twenty miles to the east were the remains of an enormous starship. It was sticking out of the ground at a seventy-degree angle. Its monstrous tail went up at least a mile into the sky, so high, clouds were forming around its top.

There was no real mystery how the massive vessel had wound up in this position. When it came down here, the vast salt plain had been a small ocean, and Hunter’s mountain quite possibly no more than the tip of an island. The starship had hit the water at hypersonic speed—and kept on going. Driving itself deep into the soft sea bottom, it stopped only when it reached a depth of a half mile or so.

Had the impact contributed to the quick retreat of the ocean’s waters? It was a good guess. But why hadn’t the ship’s prop core blown up? Mostly likely the crew had been able to shut it down before they even entered the atmosphere.

Or then again, maybe something else had happened…

Erx held his quadtrol out in front of him now and began reading information from its readout screen.

“Mister Hunter is right,” he announced. “This wreck has been here at least three hundred years. It’s a regal S-Class design. Old Empire markings…”

He paused a moment. “My God, its name is the
Jupiterus XVI
…”

“
Jupiterus
?” Berx said. “Are you sure?”

Erx showed him the quadtrol’s readout. They looked back at the massive ship with new, if troubled interest.

“That’s no ordinary spacecraft,” Erx said urgently to Berx. “It’s a Kaon Bombardment ship.”

Kaons
? Hunter had never heard the term.

“What was this ship’s function?” he asked them.

Erx and Berx exchanged a worried glance.

“I’m afraid that’s a state secret,” Erx said. “As officers in the Empire’s military forces, we can’t really tell you more than that. Suffice to say, it was a weapons system of incredible power. Then and now.”

“I should have figured that,” Hunter said, looking out at the ship now. “Not only did I build my aircraft’s body from parts reassembled from that wreck, I built its power plants from the salvage as well. Interesting…”

He checked the sky. It was getting dark, and a stiff breeze was blowing up. In less than an hour, it would be a howling gale. Then the rains would come and the sands would blow. The combination could cut a man to pieces in minutes. Fools 6 was not a place to be traveled at night.

“Time to head back,” he announced. “I hope you’ve seen enough.”

The two spacemen assured him they had. But as Hunter moved away back down the trail, Erx grabbed Berx and asked him in an urgent whisper: “Is it possible that he reassembled some of the Kaon Bombardment system components to power his craft? Could that be why his aircraft flies the way it does?”

Berx nervously ran a hand over his bald dome.

“It’s a good question,” he replied. “But I’m not sure we want to know the answer.”