The Secretary retrieved a small document by snapping his fingers. "This is from the SG command staff to the Imperial Court, and I quote: 'So that the REF's science ships can better study the aftereffects of the battle against the invaders.' "
Bonz almost burst out laughing. " Science ships? When the hell did the REF get any science ships?"
"That's just it," the Secretary said. "They don't have any— and wouldn't know what to do with them if they did. My sources inside the Imperial Court tell me they know this is all just a cover story, and a bad one at that—"
"A cover story for what, though?"
"Well, then, that's the question, isn't it?" the Secretary said in a hushed voice. "But between you and me, some people up here think the SG is still trying to find those twelve invasion ships. That they didn't destroy them at all."
"So they have been lying then," Bonz said.
The Secretary just shrugged. "If they are, they're playing a very dangerous game. And a desperate one as well. Lying to the Emperor can carry very dire consequences. Plus, it would mean the whereabouts of those twelve ships is still unknown. Thirsty?"
The Secretary snapped his fingers again, and an instant later they were both holding goblets filled with crystal-H water, the slightly intoxicating drink that was considered acceptable for consumption in the early morning.
"There's more, if you want to hear it," the Secretary went on after sipping his drink.
"Absolutely, I do—"
The Secretary took a moment to activate the room's hum beam. With the push of a floating button, the walls of the office began vibrating ever so slightly. This meant the room was now immune to physical intrusion or eavesdropping.
"We intercepted some string comms from the SG two days before anything took place out there," the Secretary told Bonz. "Did you know the kid, Joxx the Younger, was responsible for that battle on Megiddo?"
Bonz shook his head no. Joxx the Younger was an extremely famous, extremely heroic, but extremely arrogant SG space commander. His father, Joxx the Elder, was the Supreme High Commander of the Solar Guards. His mother was sister to the Empress, O'Nay's wife. Therefore, Joxx the Younger was in line to become Emperor some day.
"What the hell was the kid doing out there?" Bonz asked.
"The old man sent him out — alone — when the SG got the first reports of large refugee movements," the Secretary replied. "Frankly, no one had any idea what he was getting himself into. He found the situation very chaotic as soon as he hit mid-Two Arm. By the time he reached Megiddo and Thirty Star Pass, it was out of control. Millions of refugees were on the move, and the invaders were just on the other side of the Pass — and were about to hit Megiddo. Joxx scrabbled together some ships, put prisoners on them, and sent them out to meet the invasion fleet. At the time, he thought the invaders were flying more than a hundred ships… but of course, now we know it was only the original six."
"How could Little Joxxy make a mistake like that?" Bonz laughed. "I thought he was supposed to be smart."
"Well, he is, but he ran into someone who was smarter, or at least smart enough to fool him into thinking they had fifteen times as many ships as they actually did. And somehow those six ships were able to destroy Joxx's cobbled fleet. Then, while Joxx wrapped Megiddo in wall-to-wall blasters, expecting the sky to fall in on him, the invaders hit a place called Trans World 800 instead. It's an SG supply dump about ten light-years from Megiddo. That's how they stole the six cargo 'crashers, which, I don't have to remind you, are unarmed but still have the ability to travel in Supertime."
"No wonder our friends at Black Rock are feeling cranky these days."
"There's even more," the Secretary said, pouring out another round. "Did you know the Emperor's daughter is missing?"
" Xara? Missing? Since when?"
"No one has seen her in more than a month. The Imperial Family has been very low-key about it; they claim she's way the hell out on the Seven Arm, 'visiting relatives.' But we know that's not the case — mostly because they secretly have half the Imperial Guard forces out looking for her. And many of the Earth Guards as well. But what's particularly disturbing is that it adds a whole new twist to this Thirty Star Pass affair."
"You mean they're connected somehow?"
The Secretary nodded. "It's being said around the Palace that Xara vanished at the very moment the invaders' fleet disappeared — or close enough to it. Even stranger, Captain Vanex is missing as well."
"Vanex? The Imperial Janitor? He's seven hundred years old! Certainly no one is thinking Xara ran off with him?"
The Secretary grinned, another rare occasion. "Well, I haven't heard that particular spin on it yet," he said. "But we do know that they both disappeared at just about the same time."
Bonz ran a hand through his hair. "This is getting very strange."
"Well, I'm glad I got your attention," the Secretary said. "Because it gets even stranger."
He snapped his fingers, and an image materialized in front of them. It was a 3-D portrait of a man in his early thirties, wearing the uniform of the Empire's third major service, the Expeditionary and Exploratory Forces, more readily known as the X-Force. The man was strikingly handsome, with a strong jaw and large, intelligent eyes. He also looked, well, a bit different than a typical citizen of the Galaxy, though just what that difference was could not be easily explained.
Bonz recognized the man right away. It was Hawk Hunter.
"He's alive?"
The Secretary's right eyebrow went up. "We have reports that he just might be…"
Everyone in the Empire knew about Hawk Hunter. He was what space legends were made of. He'd been found living alone on a desolate planet at the far edge of the Galaxy about two years earlier. His origins were unknown, even to himself. There was one theory that said Hunter was from a different time period, thousands of years before, when a people known as Americans ruled much of Earth and led the first tentative steps into outer space. If so, Hunter would have been the first person to ever show up from the past — or the future, for that matter. At least the first that anyone knew about.
Whoever he was, and wherever he came from, Hunter was brought to Earth shortly after being found, and with his very bizarre but incredibly fast flying machine, won the illustrious Earth Race — in record time. As a result, he was lavished with riches and praise, given a commission and a ship's command in the Empire's forces.
Hunter went missing soon after his first mission, however, and it turned out, his disappearance was all part of a scheme he and Princess Xara had cooked up to allow him to search for the remnants of the people he called the "Last Americans." But the rumors had it mat shortly after Hunter went AWOL, he'd been tracked down and killed by an SG hit squad, all this taking place about a year before. Bonz was surprised to hear his name mentioned now.
"He found his lost relatives," the Secretary explained soberly. "Or so I was told. These Americans?
They were living on a planet so far off the star roads it isn't even in the Milky Way."
"Is that possible?" Bonz asked.
The Secretary's other eyebrow went up. It was the official line of the Fourth Empire that every inhabitable star system existed within the Milky Way, and that none could exist outside of it.
Furthermore, humans were the only intelligent life-form not just in the Galaxy but in the entire universe.
Therefore, all life had to exist within the confines of the Galaxy.
"I was at a cocktail party in the Imperial Palace not long ago," the Secretary went on. "A friend of mine was a bit into the cups and was more talkative than usual — a real departure for him, I might add. In any case — and remember, I'm telling you this thirdhand — this person claimed that Hunter not only located his Last Americans way out there, he also came across evidence that the Earth was stolen from these Americans and the other original peoples who lived here several thousand years ago. He came to believe that this rather sinister aspect of history was woven into the fabric of all four Empires, or at least the Second and the present one."