“But how can any individual be ‘nonessential?’ ” Hunter had asked their holo-images, knowing full well they couldn’t respond. “I thought we were all supposed to be part of the same thing…”
The most spectacular part of the flight was when the BonoVox actually went through a star.
How was this possible? As with just about everything else related to travel in Supertime, no one on board was really sure. The explorers’ holo-message to him included one of the starship’s flight engineers explaining it this way: “Much of what appears to be present in the other known dimensions does not appear to be present in the seventh dimension. Therefore, why would we have a problem going through something that is not there?”
At the incredible speed of Supertime, going through stars that weren’t there was easier than going around them; star-crashing was simply a function of efficient transport. But the event was hardly routine.
Whenever the massive vessel crashed a star, everything and everybody aboard the ship would glow with an intense golden aura. This luminescence lasted for just 0.0002501 second — the amount of time it took the ship to pass through the star’s other-dimensional position in space. Then everything went back to normal again. It was superquick, but there was never any doubt whenever it happened. Even before the golden haze faded away, applause and cheering could be heard throughout the ship anytime the BonoVox made a crash.
It was early in the third day of the voyage when Klaxons began blaring throughout the massive starship.
The noise woke up Hunter immediately. He instinctively went to his compartment’s door. It was still sealed. But on the other side he could hear the unmistakable sound of many people moving at once.
Boots thudding along the passageway. Voices shouting through the pipes. The dark music of weapons and equipment clanging together.
Hunter had heard such sounds before…
He found himself wishing the door would open and allow him to see what was going on outside. An instant later, that’s exactly that happened. One moment the door was there, the next it wasn’t. It hadn’t slid open; rather it had disappeared, and then reappeared in the door slot.
That was strange enough. But in the same brief instant, Hunter thought he saw the very faint image of a person standing right next to him. A hand passed through the space where the door had been. A voice whispered: You must see this…
Then the door just wasn’t there anymore.
And just as he thought, the hallway outside was filled with soldiers. They were members of Multx’s 23rd Special Operations Corps. Each trooper looked enormous. Their complex dark gray battle suits added about a foot to their height and at least a hundred pounds to their bulk. Each soldier was a self-contained war machine. His suit had plug-ins for various weapons. Each carried a large, tubular ray gun slung from his back, as well as a holster carrying two or three small blaster pistols. Life-support tubes ran up from each man’s breastplate into the oversized bubble-top battle helmet. Two tiny dishes on top of this helmet provided for communications.
The soldiers trooped past Hunter, paying him no attention, eyes forward, chins up.
They were real warriors, he thought. Determined. Brave. Smart…
He had served with men like this before…
The line of troopers finally disappeared through a hatch at the end of the passageway. The Klaxons were blaring at full peak now. Hunter could hear the sound of more footsteps moving on the decks above and below him. He had no doubt what was happening here. These soldiers were marching off to war.
He began walking down the empty passageway. The line of troopers had gone through a hatch to the right. Hunter’s instincts told him to keep walking straight. He reached a large doorway, opened the hatch, and stepped through.
He found himself on a glassed-in balcony; it looked out on an immense chamber deep within the ship.
What he saw here was unfathomable at first. There were thousands of troopers floating within this chamber. Each one was dressed in the same elaborate battle gear. There were also hundreds of small spacecraft hovering in rows near the top of the vast hall. These craft were long, glassy, and tube-shaped.
They had six gangling legs hanging off of them, and a huge bubble nose. For some reason, they were known as “bugs.”
Though it seemed very chaotic at first, Hunter soon came to realize the soldiers were floating up to these craft and climbing aboard. They were all moving very fast, yet no one was bumping into each other, or even coming close. As soon as a small troop shuttle was filled with soldiers, it would shoot off through a huge portal in the chamber wall, passing through an invisible membrane that protected those inside from the dangers of outer space. The whole affair was highly choreographed, highly drilled, well executed. The transports seem to hold about a hundred troops each. They were being spit out at a rate of about one every second.
Only after all of the transports had left the chamber did the Klaxons finally calm down. Hunter moved farther down the balcony and came upon a huge observation blister; it looked out onto the vastness of space beyond. From here Hunter could see the planet of Vines 67 below. It looked like a huge green ball dotted in a few places with patches of shimmering blue water.
The BonoVox was in a high orbit above the planet. The troop transports were lined up in columns just below the massive warship, obviously poised to invade this green world. Hunter looked to his left.
Another starship was parked in an orbit nearby. To his right, another ship came into view. Then another.
And another. He counted a dozen of the magnificent ships around the planet, and those were just the ones he could see.
This fleet was made up of Empire units occupying the already liberated planets in the Sileasian System.
The ships were identical in design to the BonoVox, but they were all about a third smaller in size, leaving no doubt which vessel was the flagship here. They were spitting out hundreds of troop transports as well.
Several thousand of the shuttles were lined up in huge phalanxes around the planet. Hunter guessed the invasion force totaled at least half a million men. Just getting them all together and in place was an astonishing feat of complexity and maneuver. They appeared ready to pounce at any moment.
Yet they were obviously waiting for something.
That’s when another ship appeared. It was different from the rest. Though built in the Empire’s standard triangular design, it wasn’t as sleek as the other starships, nor did it bear the multitude of planet-blasting weapons the other vessels carried. This one had a huge red bubble just aft of its forward flight compartment. This odd ship was hanging close to the BonoVox’s starboard side. It was not spewing out troop carriers.
Hunter studied this ship closely. It had a ghostly air about it, yet to his eyes, it was a familiar one as well.
Then it hit him. This starship was similar to the one sticking out of the ground back on Fools 6. What had Erx and Berx called it? A Kaon Bombardment ship?
Not a moment later, the red dome atop the strange ship began to glow. It became very bright very quickly. When it seemed it could get no more intense, a beam exploded from this cupola and traveled to the jungle planet below. It hit a spot just north of the equator, an area of exceptionally thick flora.
Suddenly it seemed as if a quarter of the entire planet were bathed in crimson. The thousands of troop transports took this as their cue and began falling down toward the planet. Hunter could see explosions on the planet’s surface. The glow from the neighboring ship intensified. He stared deep into the red dome and felt a chill go through him.