They hastily climbed inside the KosmoVox. Hunter plunked himself down into the pilot's seat, Annie went to the floor beside him. The cockpit was as stylized as the exterior, yet one glance at the ship's controls told Hunter he could fly the thing. When it came to prop-core rigs, steering and throttles were the most important components a pilot had to pay attention to.
His eye was drawn to one gauge he knew was the vessel's velocity indicator. He was astonished to see it ran up to three light-years a minute — half again as fast as the speed attained by typical prop-core ships. Could this be possible? Could this ancient vessel be capable of outrunning other Empire craft?
"It sure can," came Zoloff's reply. "If it still works as it did, we can outrun anything the SG sends after us — with the right person behind the controls, that is."
Hunter scanned the controls one more time, then said, "I guess I'll have to do."
Hunter started the ship's prop core. It sizzled to life immediately (the mysterious star engines never really shut down). He looked out the cockpit window and saw the two hordes of SG getting even closer.
"Hang on," he said. 'Time to go…"
He hit the throttle, and with a great wash of g-forces, crashed the roof of the warehouse, rocketed up into the Saturn's sky, through its atmosphere, and quickly out beyond its rings.
This all happened in less than two seconds and at less than one-millionth of the little craft's top speed.
"Wow," Hunter breathed, as Annie hugged him and Zoloff did a little jig of glee.
Next to his Flying Machine, he'd never flown anything so fast.
11
SSG Commander Finn-Cool McLyx wished he'd brought a bottle of slow-ship wine with him.
Make that two bottles. Or maybe three.
What had he gotten himself into? He was sitting in a very cramped captain's chair, a seat made of materials unknown, slipping and sliding as he tried his best to stay in place. At the same time, he was holding his nose in an attempt to keep out the rank smell that was all around him. And then there was the lighting. It was flickering so much, his head was beginning to hurt.
He was looking out on a flight deck that faintly resembled one that might be found on an Empire warship. Not as big as the control room on a Starcrasher certainly, but similar in size to something aboard a culverin, as the Empire's smaller, sleeker space cruisers were called. All the essenrial controls for steering, communications, scanning, and propulsion were in the same places. And there was a deck crew of two dozen men watching over everything, just as on a culverin.
But this was no culverin they were riding in.
If only that was so, McLyx had thought more than once.
No one really knew what the smell in here was or where it was coming from, but it was enough to make some of the crew gag. The floor was slippery, too, covered with some unidentifiable slime, making it hard for McLyx's men to move around.
Most troubling, though, the flight deck was not neatly squared off as it would be on a regular SG ship.
Instead, it was round.
McLyx was a tall, heavy, blustery man, easily recognizable by the scar that went from his right ear to center of his neck. Although he had been commanding their starships for nearly 300 years, McLyx was known among the regular Solar Guards as a very dangerous, almost psychotic individual. His last ship, the StratoVox, had been involved in a brutal battle against the Space Forces just after the beginning of the interservice war. Hundreds of Empire ships and millions of crew on both sides had been lost that day. McLyx was relieved of duty by SG Space Command shortly after the clash, charged with disobeying orders and recklessness. But soon after, he joined the SSG, where he was welcomed with open arms. His fanatical hatred for the Space Forces, and anyone else who would dare stand up to the SG, made him a natural for the quasi-secret organization. His undeniable skills as a top starship commander were also a big plus.
When the very top secret and very unauthorized Warehouse 066 mission came about, McLyx was the SSG's one and only choice to fly it.
McLyx didn't know who had built this circular ship exactly, or how. But he had a good idea its creators weren't human beings at all, but rather creatures who'd been floating around the periphery of the Fourth Empire, both in myth and in reality, for centuries. Their saucerlike ships had been spotted near many major battles over the years, and their presence felt or seen during the seamiest nights of the realm. Big heads, big eyes, small bodies. Disgusting to look at, or so McLyx had heard, they were also powerful and superintelligent and frightening. And now, after this, most likely ingrained forever in the workings of the SSG. Like unseen puppet masters dancing their marionettes, they seemed to be pulling the strings these days.
(Technically, it was impossible for such beings to exist. The sacred laws of the Fourth Empire stated that human beings were the only life forms in the Galaxy. These laws also decreed that no life could exist outside the Galaxy. Therefore, no other life forms except humans could exist anywhere. This was a dictate taken very seriously across the realm. In fact, it was against Empire law to even say the word alien.)
Though in denial about their existence, at the same time McLyx knew dark deals had been made by people much higher up than him, and that it was not his place to question his superiors. The only thing important to him was that this craft could fly faster than anything in Supertime, and that it would be able to deliver a massively lethal weapon to the planet of Doomsday 212, a place the SSG was convinced housed an army of anti-Empire rebels, bandits, and criminals who were in league with the hated Space Forces.
What's more, this ship could do so without being detected by the SF, the regular SG, or anyone else in the Imperial armed forces.
For the bold raid to succeed, this was the only way.
The problem was, McLyx and his hand-picked SSG crew were having all kinds of trouble flying the strange circular craft.
They had been told it would be easy. There were no moving parts. They wouldn't have to worry about the craft's power plant, as it wasn't even on board the ship. It was somewhere else, in another time and reality — an idea much too complex for McLyx to understand.
The round ship was supposed to fly in another dimension; that was supposed to be its real magic. And not the seventh dimension, either, which was where Empire ships flew in Supertime. The saucers traveled upon another, completely different plane, in a four-digit dimension, also known as the Lost Dimension. The real saucers had used this fantastic highway for billions of years, or so the rumors said.
But something was wrong with this particular flying saucer. Since leaving Warehouse 066, the circular ship had refused to stay in the Lost Dimension for very long. Instead, it was bouncing back and forth between what McLyx and his crew considered their reality and that of the Lost Dimension. These jumps came with no warning and lasted unpredictable lengths of time, from just a few seconds to several minutes or more. The side effects were highly disturbing. A kind of ultra-motion sickness was the most prevalent. Extreme anxiety and almost near-fatal nausea were two others.
The saucer did, in fact, go very, very fast, but it proved for scary riding whenever it chose to remain inside the Lost Dimension. This place was a complete void: no stars, no planets, no celestial phenomena at all. Just unceasing blackness. With no frame of reference, no feeling of direction or speed or up or down, it was very disorienting to those on board, so much so, it drove two of McLyx's flight crew right over the edge. It happened the fifth time the ship unexpectedly jumped into the Lost Dimension. The pair began vomiting heavily and writhing around on the deck. They recovered temporarily when the ship slipped back to their reality. But when it crossed back over once again, the two crewmen simply went berserk. Alternately retching and convulsing, they screamed so loud and so long, they had to be stunned by McLyx's sergeant at arms, using a low-power setting on his ray gun. The two crewmen finally fell comatose, stiff and bleeding from the ears. Both had swallowed their tongues.