Starhawk s-1

by Mack Maloney

  Once the green box had been put in position, Calandrx activated an electron torch and sent a long, thin beam of red light crashing into it. A small storm of sparks came cascading from the box. A strange mist filled the air. Then there was a sharp crack, and then a distinctive odor filled their nostrils.

  A moment later, the contents of the small box popped into their existence.

  “My God,” Calandrx said with a gasp. “What is it?”

  Hunter was stunned. Long, thin, rugged. A wing. A canopy. Wheels…

  It was his old flying machine.

  Erx and Berx began laughing.

  “Brother Multx!” Erx said, shaking his head. “Never at a loss for the dramatic!”

  “That old mutt,” Berx exclaimed. “Did he take it with us when we left Fools 6, or did he have someone go back to get it?”

  There was no answer to that question now — and frankly Hunter couldn’t have cared less about how Multx had been able to retrieve it. The important thing was this: His flying machine was here, and obviously it was what Hunter would pilot in the Earth Race.

  Once he had regained his composure, Calandrx began shivering with delight.

  “It’s such a beautiful machine!” he declared, approaching the strange craft and passing his hand along the underside of the fuselage. “It’s so not like the flying triangles everyone flies now. It’s so less boring.”

  He began walking the length of the aircraft, fascinated by its unusual design, its wings, its overall sleekness. When he arrived back where he’d started from, he could not stop shaking his head.

  “I’ve never seen such a machine as this, not while I was awake, anyway,” he said. “This thing is stunning.

  It looks like it should be flying, not like those cheese wedges the Empire insists on churning out.”

  Calandrx looked to the stars and began searching for the right words. “Your machine contains what no one else can see these days. There is a unique design here. A unique passion. This thing has… what is the word they used many years ago?”

  “ ‘Kick-ass’?” Erx offered.

  “ ‘Ballsy’?” Berx weighed in.

  Calandrx was shaking his head. “No, you dullards!” he said. “The word was ‘style,’ I think. Yes, that’s it. Style. This machine has style.”

  Now that Hunter had been immersed in all things Empire for the past few weeks, he had to agree that his flying machine certainly looked different.

  He was still astonished that it was here at all, on Earth, right in front of him. Its familiar smell wafted through his nostrils. He always believed an invisible aura surrounded the aircraft — he could feel its vibrations now just like every time he was near it back on Fools 6.

  “They will freak out when they see this thing pull up to the starting line,” Calandrx said.

  “Bingo that,” Erx agreed.

  “And you should see this thing fly!” Berx said.

  Then, to Hunter’s embarrassment, the explorers recounted for Calandrx aerial displays he’d put on for them during their brief stay on Fools 6. Though their retelling was tinged with hyperbole, Calandrx took in every word as if it were Bible truth. He was clearly delighted at this turn of events.

  “The Earth Race hasn’t been shaken up in a long while,” he said, rubbing his hands together at the possibilities. “If this thing can fly half as good as my brothers here say it can, I think we are in for some very interesting times in about a week or so.”

  Hunter looked skyward, through the streams of Star-Scrapers, out into the rim of the Milky Way. He imagined he could see Fools 6 way out there. Less than a month ago, he was on that isolated planet, wondering if there was anybody else in the universe. Since then he’d witnessed one space battle, fought in another, been smuggled across the Pluto Cloud, and had set his foot on Earth— again.

  How much more “interesting” could it get?

  That’s when Calandrx turned to him and said: “So how does this magnificent craft work?”

  Hunter began to say something but then stopped. Calandrx just stared at him. Erx and Berx did, too.

  “How does it work?” he heard himself mumble.

  “Yes, my son,” Calandrx said. “How does it fly? How is it propelled through air? Through space?”

  But Hunter was finally stumped. He had to speak the truth: “I don’t know,” he said.

  And finding out would not be easy.

  It took Hunter and Calandrx three hours just to get the flying machine’s power plant access door open.

  The problem came from the transfer out of the twenty and six. Such interdimensional leaps weren’t always perfect things; distortions could occur. In this case, the flying machine that came out of the twenty-sixth dimension was slightly smaller than the one that went in. Mere micrometers in difference, it was enough to nearly weld the access door fasteners to the body of the craft. Using the electron torch didn’t help. If anything, it made the atoms in the fasteners expand even farther.

  Finally they had to replicate a tool that looked like a knife with its leading edge flattened out. By inserting this edge into the cross-groove in the fastener and twisting it, the fasteners gradually loosened up. But it took a lot of work and a lot of time to do the twisting.

  Erx and Berx had fallen asleep somewhere along the way. They eventually drifted into the sixth dimension, where a good night’s sleep was always a guarantee.

  But Hunter and Calandrx stayed awake and took turns twisting, and finally the seized covers came off.

  But while gaining access to the interior of the flying machine’s power plant chamber answered one question, it brought about a few million more.

  “What madness is this?” Calandrx asked upon getting his first glimpse of what lay within Hunter’s craft.

  What he saw was a massive jumble of wires, hoses, fasteners, screws, all surrounding a long shaft of steel that seemed to have thousands of small, shiny blades attached to it. This shaft ran nearly the length of the flying machine. A multitude of other unidentifiable things did, too. For someone like Calandrx, who was used to seeing a starfighter’s orderly and compact power plant, this was madness.

  “The shaft spins,” Hunter began explaining. “It sucks in the atmosphere, it mixes with the power source, and together they produce propulsion. More than enough to get the thing airborne.”

  But Calandrx was still baffled. “In theory I can see how it would work — this just seems like such a strange way of doing it.”

  He looked up at Hunter.

  “How did you say you built this?”

  Hunter began to give his standard answer. “I gathered parts I’d salvaged from a crashed ship that was—”

  Calandrx interrupted him with the wave of his hand.

  “I know all that,” he said. “I mean, how did you build it? How did you come up with the concept? The design? The blueprint?”

  Here comes the really strange part, Hunter thought.

  “It was just after I found myself on Fools 6,” he began. “I woke up one night. Got dressed. And started drawing.”

  “Drawing?”

  “Yes, drawing — I took a piece of burned wood and made drawings on my floor, my walls, my chairs and table. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I don’t know where it all came from. I don’t know if it was set off by a dream, or whether one piece of my lost memory decided to come back. I just don’t know.

  “But I transcribed everything I put down that night. And from that plan, I built this. And believe me, I was astonished that it actually worked.”

  “So, it really does fly?”

  “It did,” Hunter replied. “And assuming nothing else was skewered in the transfer, it should still be able to.”

  Calandrx went back to studying the machine’s guts.

  “You were obviously more than just a pilot, wherever you’re from,” he told Hunter. “You must have built your own machines as well. I mean, how else can we explain the fact that you were not only able to come up with this concept, but to pu
t it together, successfully, as well.”

  Hunter just shrugged good-naturedly.

  “You know how those electron torches are,” he said. “Sometimes all you have to do is think about what shape you want something to be — and the torch just takes over and does it, big or small.”

  Calandrx looked up at Hunter very queerly.

  “That’s not how electron torches work,” he said bluntly.

  Hunter stared back at him for a moment. “Are you sure?” he asked. This was news to him.

  He began to explain, but Calandrx put up his hand.

  “Later,” he said. “My poor brain already has too much to absorb this night. Let us return to the mystery of this machine.”

  He stuck his head back into the propulsion area.

  “This thing you call the power source,” he yelled out. “Where is it exactly?”

  Hunter crawled into the access door. It took some wiggling and waggling, but he was finally able to point out a line of small black boxes he’d installed about midway down the bladed shaft. All the boxes were connected to each other.

  “This was the only thing I had to improvise,” he explained. “After the machine came together I couldn’t figure out how to supply the power to it. I searched for anything aboard the wreck that might be capable of producing self-generating power. Nothing fit the bill. Then I came upon these boxes — they were deep down in the wreck, meaning they were somewhere near the nose of the ship. There were several dozen of them in all; each one had a connection where they could be coupled together. Something told me if these boxes were connected in the right sequence, they might be able to provide power.

  “The strange thing was, I hooked up the first five boxes I could salvage, and on the first try, I discovered that arrangement provided more than enough of the propulsive force I needed.”

  Calandrx’s frame was small enough that he was able to reach where the boxes were. He examined the alignment with his quadtrol and was startled by what he found.

  “My God,” he said. “This shipwreck on your planet. Do you have any idea what kind of ship it was?”

  Finally a question Hunter could give an easy answer to.

  “Yes, it was a Kaon Bombardment ship,” he stated clearly. “The Jupiterus Five.”

  Calandrx hit his head trying to get out from under the access door.

  “A Kaon ship?”

  “Yes… I think they are a type of—”

  “Oh, I know what type of ship they are,” Calandrx cut him off. Then he started stammering a bit. “But what you’ve done here… with these components…”

  He stood up and wiped his hands. Erx and Berx were still sound asleep, their interdimensional images just faintly visible on two of the garden’s hammocks.

  “Those two…” Calandrx said, indicating the sleeping explorers. “Do they know about these inner workings? About those black boxes?”

  Hunter didn’t think so. “I’ve never gone into much technical detail with them. They do know that the wreck was a Kaon ship, though.”

  Calandrx nodded with new understanding. “I’m sure they do — and after finding that out, they were probably too smart to ask any more questions,” he said. “No wonder that pair has managed to stay out of trouble for so long. They’re experts in knowing when to play dumb.”

  Hunter was having trouble following Calandrx. He could tell the famous pilot’s thoughts were running a million miles a second again.

  “Does this thing have a hover mode?” he asked Hunter.

  Hunter pointed to a set of openings in the craft’s belly.

  “I’m able to direct the propulsive force downward through these. That was something I added on after completing the entire thing.”

  Calandrx examined the movable nozzles and just shook his head.

  “Ingenious,” he said with a laugh. “Strange… but extremely ingenious.”

  He closed the access door and sealed it again. “This thing, do you think you can fly it now?”

  “Now? Like right here and now?”

  “Yes,” Calandrx insisted. “Can you?”

  Hunter shrugged.

  “Sure. Why not?” he replied.

  Ten minutes later Hunter had the machine turned on and hovering.

  Calandrx had to block his ears, the strange power plant was so loud. And while the flying machine looked strange enough sitting on its wheels, seeing it floating somewhat motionless just a foot or so off the ground was very bizarre. Unlike the Empire’s current crop of starfighters, which tended to stay very still in their hover mode, this craft looked like it was raring to go, bouncing up and down, as if the slightest provocation would be enough to make it rocket away.

  He came up close to the hovering craft and had a conversation with Hunter.

  “Have you ever opened this thing up to full throttle?” Calandrx asked.

  Hunter just shook his head. “Never really needed to.”

  “Want to give it a try? Do you think your airframe will hold together?”

  “It should,” Hunter said. “It’s all melded electron steel. But where should I go?”

  “Around the world,” Calandrx yelled back. “Right around the globe itself.”

  “Really? You want me to circumnavigate the entire planet?”

  “Precisely,” Calandrx replied. “It’s a test of a theory as to how your machine works. If this thing is powered the way I think it is, we will all be rich in a matter of days. If we don’t all go to jail, that is. Now just stay low, go as fast as you can for as far as you can — and don’t stop until you get back here.”

  He held up a box of candles and a handful of ancient wooden matches. The candles were about two feet long.

  “I will light this,” Calandrx told him, drawing one candle out. “And watch it burn down. Then I will light another, and another, if need be. We will measure the length of time you are gone by the how many candles we burn.”

  That was fine with Hunter. He was just happy to be sitting inside his old machine again. Already he was drinking it in — the panel lights glowing, the control stick in one hand, throttle in the other. He was becoming part of it again. He jammed his helmet over his ears; luckily it had come through the twenty-and-six transport with no change in size.

  “Okay with me,” he told Calandrx. “Full throttle?”

  “Full throttle,” the elderly pilot confirmed.

  With that, Calandrx stepped away, and Hunter commanded the flying machine to rise about twenty-five feet above the garden. He looked down at Calandrx, who was holding up the candle in one hand and the matches the other. Hunter saluted him, pointed the aircraft’s nose west, pushed his throttle full forward, and was off in a great blast of noise and power.

  He was back, coming from the opposite direction, before Calandrx lit the first match.

  13

  Big Bright City

  The day before the race

  It might have been the cheapest room in the city.

  It certainly was one of the smallest. Located atop a sixty-six-story building hard by the edge of the east canal, the compartment measured a merc twelve feet by twenty. It had a tiny balcony, a small lavatory, a floating cot, one slightly cracked window, and a food tube that had been installed sometime in the previous century.

  Several air bridges went right over the top of the diminutive apartment building. That was one reason for the room’s cheap rent. The fact that one of the ancient triad bridges ran close by further lowered its desirability. While the vast majority of people in the Galaxy were superstitious, Earthlings were the worst of the lot. No one wanted to be anywhere near a sacred span if they could help it. No one…

  Which is why Zap Multx had to pay just six aluminum coins for the use of the small room. He wasn’t here because of the economics, though. Money was hardly a problem for someone in his position. No, he was here because he wanted to lay low for a while. Just him, his thoughts, his blaster pistol, and a few bottles of slow-ship wine. That’s what he thought he needed. So he
’d leased the room a week ago, using an assumed name. And once the tense meeting up in Chesterwest had concluded, he beamed directly here, without even having to pass through the front door. It turned out to be a great place to hide.

  Most people assumed he was on his way back out to the Fringe, to resume his quest of saving the Galaxy for the Empire. Actually the BonoVox was parked in the seventeenth dimension at a spot just outside the Pluto Cloud. The One-Seven was where SF warships needing extensive repairs were sent while waiting their turn before the electron torch. The BonoVox needed no such repairs. But considering what had happened during their last trip Inward, Multx thought this was the best place to stash his vessel, at least for the time being.

  Still, after sitting here for a week now, alone and drunk, how he longed to be back aboard her and flying in space again! Heading out to the frontier, the farther out the better. The Fringe. That’s where everything was happening. That’s what made the blood in his veins flow. If he was an expert on just one thing, it was this: As busy and bustling and exciting as Big Bright City was, especially on the eve of the Earth Race, it still couldn’t compare to the adrenaline rush one could get daily out there, so close to the edge.

  And that’s what Multx knew he would miss the most.

  Despite the air bridges and the sacred span and the thousands of air-chevys darting above, below, and around him, Multx’s little room still had a commendable view.

  It looked out over the east canal and into the real downtown part of downtown Big Bright. For the past six days he had watched the great city prepare for the Earth Race. The skies above, the waters below, the streets and airways — busy, maddeningly so. What happens when they give a party in a city of two billion filthy rich people? Another two billion show up. All-just close friends, mind you, but it made for a very crowded place.

  From his hiding spot, Multx believed he’d seen every last one of those four billion pass by him in the past six days. He was literally surrounded by humanity, everyone having someplace to go and something to do. It was fascinating to watch, but this distraction did little to relieve the dull ache in his chest. Multx did not like this feeling. After more than one hundred years as a military officer, nearly half of that time commanding a huge starship, one would have thought he’d gained an immunity to such lowly things as apprehension and uneasiness. But apparently that was not the case. Not in the past week, anyway.