The Fourth Empire s-3

by Mack Maloney

  His jaw dropped.

  It was a holo-girl capsule.

  He could just barely read the inscription on it: "Echo 999.9, Transdimensional Test. Top Secret. Activate Immediately."

  The waves were high and beautiful.

  It was almost sunset, and the glow upon the ocean was incredibly warm and inviting.

  The crystal-blue water would come rushing in, leaving clouds of soft, white foam to momentarily linger on the gemstone sands before retreating once again.

  Hunter took Ashley in his arms. The girl he'd met so briefly back on Planet America was now magically standing before him again, looking even more beautiful than he remembered. He lowered her to the wet sand and kissed her. She laughed. He kissed her some more. He was suddenly down to his bare essentials. She had removed her top.

  "Why didn't you just rescue me when you had the chance?" she whispered in his ear.

  "I thought I did," he replied.

  She laughed again. It echoed across the waves. Hunter gently lay on top of her. More kissing, she with an especially probing tongue. Some of the waves crashed on the high rocks nearby. Others came closer. One came right on top of them, soaking them in their moment of desire.

  "Can we?" she asked Hunter.

  "Should we?" he asked her back.

  "I thought that's why we are here," she told him.

  "Then there is nothing standing in our way," he whispered back to her.

  Passion flowed like the waves now, in and out, each one stronger than the one before it. Hunter felt like he was inside a dream, which, in a way, he was. The setting became even more perfect, the sun even warmer. The sky more beautiful. The water. The waves. Ashley was stunning. Her body wet and glistening. They were just moments away from completing the act, when…

  Hunter looked up and saw two people walking on the beach toward them.

  "What the f…" he said. This did not compute. This couldn't be part of the program.

  He stopped what he was doing and concentrated on the two approaching figures. They weren't holo-girls, that much was for sure. They were two soldiers, in uniform, one slightly taller than the other, both squat, muscular, and very, very bald.

  "Damn," Hunter breathed. "Am I going crazy?"

  It was Erx and Berx.

  What the hell are they doing here?

  They walked right up to him.

  "Brother Hawk!" Erx bellowed. "We have found you!"

  Hunter didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He scrambled to his feet; Ashley was soon up beside him, silent, but not bothering to cover her chest.

  Hunter didn't say a thing. Instead, he put his hand on Erx's face, his arms, his chest. He was thumping him, expecting his hand to go through him. This had to be a screw-up in the holo-program, right?

  "We are here," Berx told him simply. "All of us. The whole gang. The whole fleet."

  Hunter just looked back at them in astonishment.

  "We've been hiding here in the thirty-fourth dimension," Erx tried to explain. "All safe. All happy. Waiting for you to arrive."

  "But how?" was all Hunter could mumble.

  They didn't reply. They just pointed over his shoulder. Hunter turned around — and found Princess Xara standing right behind him.

  "I'm the one who arranged for them to come here, Major Hunter," she told him very formally with a distinct chill in her voice. She eyed Ashley, who was simply standing by, free-spirited and open, listening but not speaking. She was the only nonreal thing here.

  "And this is actually a military operation, Major," Xara went on. She was dressed in a very skimpy outfit herself, almost amazon-like. Hunter's eyes were glued to her. "It might be wise to turn your own thoughts in that direction."

  But Hunter was still astonished that all his comrades were alive.

  "But how?" was all he could ask again. He was completely bewildered.

  Xara liked that, of course.

  "Let me explain it to you quickly," she said, pulling him aside from the rest. "I won't dare ask if you've ever been inside one of these holo-things before. But your friends told me that when battling the Bad Moon Knights on Planet America, you used an escape device based on a Twenty 'n Six field?"

  Hunter nodded numbly. They had combined the forces of four Twenty 'n Six devices to create a transdimensional field. During a series of guerrilla actions, which opened the war on Planet America, the American Forces harassed the BMK invaders inside the big cities, disappearing at the last moment through this Twenty 'n Six window. It made for the perfect escape route just as long as the BMK soldiers never caught them before the last man went through and collapsed it, sealing it off forever. By the time the BMK figured out what they were doing, it was too late.

  "We usually had the other side of the field hidden near our base at Ghost River," Hunter told her. "It was just like stepping through a door. There one moment, here the next."

  "Almost like traveling in Supertime?" she asked him. "You're moving so fast, it doesn't seem like you are moving at all."

  Hunter just stared into her big, beautiful eyes. God, she was cute. "Well, yes," he was finally able to reply. "I guess…"

  "Then that's what we did here," she told him. "Just on a much grander scale."

  Hunter wasn't sure what she meant. "This you will have to explain to me," he said.

  "My pleasure," she said, snapping her fingers but still without a smile.

  Suddenly they were standing alone on a very high peak.

  The beach and the ocean were off to the east now, far below them. Up and down the coast, for as far as Hunter could see, was nothing but paradise. Trees, hills, flowing grass, lakes, rivers, the ocean itself. Beautiful. Inviting. Tempting…

  Xara turned him around.

  He was now gazing West, into a deep valley; it looked like something from a dream. It was just as beautiful, just as peaceful as the coast. More trees, more high grass and flowers everywhere. Small clutches of tiny houses, cottages, even house boats. More lakes, rivers, and streams. A soft wind in his face. Very comfortable temperatures. A slight white glow around everything.

  In a word, heavenly.

  And hanging in the air above the pleasant valley, the six blue and chrome spaceships of the UPF, along with the six stolen cargo 'crashers.

  "If I am not imagining this," Hunter said with a gasp, "then it all must be true… Right?"

  "We've managed to find a way to hide your fleet in here," Xara told him proudly. "Along with all your friends."

  Hunter just shook his head.

  "Well, it was Vanex really," she explained. "Once he and I explored this place, he came up with a way to create a portal, just like the Twenty 'n Six field you manufactured on Planet America. Except with this one, we opened a large window to here, the thirty-fourth dimension. Or what people commonly refer to as the thirty-fourth…"

  Below him Hunter could see Erx and Berx again, and Tomm, Calandrx, Klaaz, Zarex, and his robot. He saw Gordon and many of the top officers of the UPF. They were all alive and lazing about the placid green fields, talking in small groups, lying out in the warm sun. Farther away, the crews of the UPF ships. Beyond them, more hills, more mountains, and undoubtedly, more beautiful things over those mountains.

  "But I was told that the fleet was destroyed," he said. "And everyone aboard had perished."

  "Who told you all that? The Solar Guards?"

  Hunter nodded numbly. "Well, yes…" He quickly told her what he'd seen after being seized by the SG once he'd returned from the mind ring trip.

  "The Solar Guards lied," Xara told him plainly. "The truth is, they have no idea what happened to the fleet. From their perspective, your ships were on the sensor screens one moment and were gone the next. They've undoubtedly been spinning it for their bosses, and my father, and, I'm sure, to Joxx himself. Manufacturing evidence of fighting right aboard the ShadoVox itself? This, after our friends had already blinked out? Fairly clever, I guess. But Joxx figured out the truth anyway. And he has since played his part. After all
, he was the one who passed the holo-capsule to you."

  "And saved me," Hunter whispered, realizing now just what the SG commander had done. "But I'm still a little confused about this whole thirty-fourth dimension thing."

  Xara looked like she wanted to conk him on the head. He was supposed to be this brilliant superhero, but at the moment, his mind seemed to be back down on the beach.

  She explained it all to him again, this time slower, in more detail. It all started with the visit from the spy to her quarters, his tip that the advanced holo-girl capsule was actually a technology that went far beyond what people thought they understood about trips to the thirty-fourth dimension. That's when she brought Vanex in, and after she and the master engineer spent the equivalent of two months in this place, they figured out a way to open a hole large enough for the rebel fleet to pass through without the Solar Guards ever knowing what was happening. That's how everybody got away, she told him. That's why everybody was still alive. In this very beautiful place. With absolutely nothing causing them to return to the real world until they wanted to.

  "But everything you just told me seems too pat," Hunter told her once she had finished. "Too perfect."

  "Exactly," Xara replied. "That's the way everything is in here. Every problem solved, always by the perfect solution. You feel everything seems dreamy here, sort of?"

  Hunter nodded. It did feel like he was walking on air.

  "Well, I feel that, too," Xara said. "We all do. That's got to be just one of the reasons people thought this place was, well, so different when they first discovered it — what? Eons ago? It's in all the myths. All the legends. We just never thought of it as a real, tangible place."

  Hunter still looked confused.

  "What I'm trying to tell you," Xara finally said, "is that I think everything is connected. Twenty 'n Six technology, this sexual fantasy land, Time Shifters, and Supertime. They are unified in a way. Just take a look around you. How realistic does all this seem?"

  Hunter could only shrug. Compared to what was experienced in a mind ring, this was a quantum leap in improvement.

  "It looks very real," he said.

  She finally smiled. "That's because it is," she told him, "People have been using the sex trips to come here for God knows how long now. But have you ever met anyone who has gone anywhere other than the beach? Anyone who hadn't just stayed put with whatever flavor girl they'd chosen? No — no one ever moved, ever explored, because they thought they were inside an illusion. Like that nutty sixth dimension or the thirteenth. But the truth is, they were not inside an illusion. Not a typical one, anyway. This place is real. It's a different place. A place we know very little about, just like we don't know exactly who invented the means to get here. But it is real… and it is definitely somewhere on a higher plane. That's why you feel the way you do here. That's why everything is perfect."

  "Are you saying the thirty-fourth dimension is actually someplace else?" he asked her.

  She smiled and touched his lips.

  "What I'm saying," she replied, "is that the thirty-fourth dimension is what people used to call Heaven."

  Hunter would never pretend to understand very much Xara told him after that. It was just too much information, too much of a leap of faith, all at once. He had to take it in slowly.

  So they stayed atop the hill, looking out on paradise, the twelve warships hanging lightly in the sweet air. He told her everything he'd gone through since last seeing her on Earth, before he went AWOL. Then she went over her story again, emphasizing some points here, other points there. On some level, Hunter was just happy to be with her, happy just to hear her talk. He could have stayed atop the hill with her forever.

  Finally, though, after what seemed like hours of this, he asked her, "But what do we do now?"

  "We prepare the fleet," she replied quickly. "We figure out what to do when we blink back into real time. When we all step back down from Heaven. Now that I know what you discovered about the building of the Empires, I think it's imperative that we overthrow the current regime, no matter what. That should be our first step of many."

  Hunter nodded but with some uncertainty. He felt like he'd been fighting all his life. He looked around at the beautiful setting and then rested his gaze back on Xara.

  She was a beauty amid beauty.

  "Or maybe," he said to her. "We can just stay here."

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