In any case, more blinks followed. The Legion's long range scanners indicated that strange things were indeed happening all over, especially in the sector down near the Star Trench. Weird spaceships seen cruising the star roads, SG spacefighters chasing phantoms. Radio calls from somewhere in the distant past suddenly coming alive again on comm sets within SF Starcrashers.
All of these things — very, very strange.
And now, suddenly, Hunter was back.
But he was fading fast. And everyone around him knew it. They tried to talk to him, but he was unresponsive. His uniform had been partially burned away, but the Legion doctors told them his condition was so serious, they were afraid to even cut it off him. One said that he looked like he'd fallen from a great height, this after riding for a long time in space. Yet another said he thought Hunter hadn't left the planet at all. Both agreed, though, that he was fading fast.
Within thirty minutes of Hunter's arrival at the Legion hospital, what had begun as a sickbed vigil soon became a death watch.
The hours passed.
Hunter's condition stayed the same. Meanwhile, long-range comm receivers being used by both the Star Legion and the United Planets Forces reported hearing hundreds of messages down by the Star Trench telling of massive waves of blinks bedeviling Starcrashers on both sides. Incomprehensible visions, mass hallucinations, weird music being heard, and again, weapons turning to salt. With each hour, the reports got crazier, more bizarre, more unexplain-able. After more than a month of this, many people in the Galaxy were turning religious, believing the blinks were more signs from the Creator than the Big Generator short-circuiting itself. If God is playing with us, people seemed to be saying, then maybe we should start to listen.
At Hunter's bedside, the situation remained grave. Every friend who came to pay their respects knew their colleague had been to the brink before but had always been pulled back at the last instant, as if his time had not yet passed. As if he was still needed to carry on his fight against injustice across the Galaxy. But this time it seemed as if it had gone too far. He'd given too much. Done too much.
Everything changed around dawn the following day. Erikk and his men were watching over Hunter. An honor guard from the UPF was on hand, too. Just before the first rays of light hit the hospital window, there was a bright flash of green light. It came so suddenly, some of the UPF troopers pulled out their side arms. The Star Legion guys thought it was yet another blink.
In fact, it was the Imperial spy, making his first appearance since leaving shortly after Hunter's troubled departure in the DATT.
The UPF guys kept their guns out, though. There was some belief that the spy was actually responsible for all this, providing Hunter with the balky DATT as his means of travel, and having him wind up like this, knocking on death's door.
But Hunter's serious condition actually overwhelmed any bad feelings for the Imperial interloper now. The man in the floppy black hat and long, flowing black cape glided over to the floating bed. He studied Hunter for a moment. Battered body, burn marks on his face and hands, singed hair. He put his hand over Hunter's face, as if he was feeling for something, breathing possibly, but moved his hand almost as quickly.
"This man has things to tell us," he declared, stunning those gathered around the bed. "And important things at that."
His pronouncement didn't seem possible for one reason: shortly after being brought to the intensive care section, Hunter had been given a noninvasive brain scan. It had displayed nearly every action he'd gone through in the past twenty-four hours. Those that had seen the results had been shocked. It had not been a linear, connect-the-dots sort of readout as most NI scans were. Instead, it contained bits and pieces of strange places and people. Castles. Battles. Devastated landscapes. A huge music concert. Beautiful women. Wild rides in space. None of it made any sense. The conclusion of the Legion's medical people: "These are most likely places he thought he went — in his imagination," simply because that was the part of the brain the impulses were coming from.
But now the Imperial spy disagreed.
"Those things were real," he told those assembled now. "Or at least some of them were."
"Are you saying he actually went someplace?" Erikk challenged the spy. "That he hasn't been lying out in the badlands all this time?"
"Yes, I am," was the reply.
With that, the spy raised both his hands over Hunter's body. Those on hand saw a bright white light suddenly envelop the fallen pilot. It lasted but a few seconds. But when it went away, everyone in the room was shocked to see Hunter start to move. They looked at their fallen friend for a few long moments, then up at the spy.
Who the hell is this guy? they all thought.
Incredibly, Hunter's eyes opened. They seemed stung by the lights. He started to say something, but couldn't. Instead, with great effort, he put his lips together, and to the astonishment of all, he started to whistle. One long tone, sweet, but sad at the same time.
"C major diminished," the spy said. "That's the key. That's what we've been looking for."
The Legionnaires didn't understand, neither did the UPF guys. But the spy understood. He whistled it once himself. Then he bowed — and then he vanished.
When those gathered around his bed looked back down at Hunter again, his eyes were closed.
But he was smiling.
13
Things hadn't been the same at the Empire's secret desert base since the Empress damaged the Big Generator.
This sacred place, once guarded by entire armies of elite Earth Guards, was now under complete domination of the Special Solar Guards. Their troops were everywhere. In the mountains, scattered across the desert, and lined three deep along the perimeter, standing as immobile as statues in the climate-controlled but nevertheless uncomfortable desert heat.
Most of the heavy security was concentrated on the facility that housed the Big Generator itself. Located deep inside a nearby mountain, the inside of this chamber closely resembled a church. Candles provided most of the light. Shadows played up and down its black walls. Heavily armed SSG troops, hundreds of them, were hidden in those shadows.
Now that both Commander X and McLyx were officially missing in action, a third commander was running the SSG operations here. His name was Viktorx. In fact, his people were the ones supervising the SSG's "repair" of the Big Generator, which had continued apace.
Viktorx was considered a sudden up-and-comer in the ranks of the SSG. Few people in the organization even knew him; he'd just seemed to arrive on the scene and was in the right place at the right time to take over the SSG's operations within the deep-secret desert compound that in ancient times was known as Area 51. There was even a rumor floating around that he'd been the one who shot the Empress after her attack on the big black slab. But this could never be confirmed, because everyone else who'd been in the BG chamber that day was dead.
All except him.
Viktorx's first official duty this day was to preside over a very unusual award ceremony. Four SSG special operations troops were being given a medal, the First Order of the Fourth Empire. This was a special SSG commendation passed out only to those soldiers who showed outstanding bravery and cunning beyond the call of duty. It was a rare occasion when the SSG even bothered to recognize actions of anyone below the rank of captain. But these four men, lieutenants all, had indeed shown uncommon valor in a top secret mission they'd successfully undertaken several weeks before, one, some would say, that was actually run while other SSG activities were providing a diversion. In any case, all four officers had nearly paid with their lives as a result of this mission. As it turned out, all four might have been better off dying.