Though the Great Flash — as it would come to be known— lasted just a billionth of a second, at the same time, it seemed to last forever. In fact, it was one of those things that did not even happen within the illusion of ordinary time. It had happened on a different plane entirely.
At the same moment it hit, Hunter saw an REF ship directly in front of him falter and slide off to the side. It was as if its prop core had suddenly gone off-line. Yet he had not fired on it. It was going down on its own.
This wasn't so strange, he thought for an instant. After all, Starcrashers broke down, too. But then he saw the REF ship right beside it slide away as well. Its lights went out, its exhaust nozzles went black.
Then the ship in front of these two shut down. Then the one in front of that. And the one in front of that…
In the next instant it became very clear: all the REF ships were faltering. They weren't blowing up.
Their prop cores weren't going south and taking the entire ships with them. They were just running out of power. And there was only one way that could happen. Somehow, the Big Generator had just shut down.
And with no juice from the Big Generator, Hunter knew the REF ships could not fly. And that they were defenseless.
But so was he.
This was getting serious now.
The mob of huge but powerless REF ships was falling through the thin atmosphere of Doomsday 212, and Hunter was falling right behind them.
The surface was rushing up to meet him very quickly, and a few of the fifteen enormous Starcrashers in front of him were beginning to tumble out of control. They all hit the top of the planet's atmosphere at about the same time, causing a gigantic sonic boom. Seconds later, the bottom of his ship started to smolder; he was beginning to bum up on reentry. With all his strength, Hunter yanked back on his ship's controls and tried to flatten it out. But he was moving a dead stick.
He had only one option here.
He had to eject.
Below him, the REF ships were going down much quicker than he. Gravity and the movement of mass had taken over. But then the ships began purging themselves of the tons of superhydraulics that were the lifeblood of any Starcrasher. In doing so, at just the right time, it slowed their descent just enough that they were able to stabilize slightly before slamming into the surface below. So, instead of crashing, they came down extremely hard but in one piece. And as luck would have it, the first few to hit landed very close to a long stream of refugees that were making their way toward one of the evacuation sites. Even more incredibly, Hunter could see REF soldiers jumping out of their wrecked ships just seconds after they'd hit and starting to move toward the helpless and terrified refugees.
Hunter couldn't believe it. It seemed that no matter what happened, the bad side always came up with the advantage. At that moment a very disturbing thought went through his mind. Why not plow right into one of these ships? Aim his useless craft at one of the REF vessels and at least go out in a blaze of glory and take at least a few more of these bastards with him. If the bad side was fated to win all the time anyway — despite everything he and his friends sought to do— what was the point of it all? There was always going to be evil, and he and his friends were fools to think — to actually believe! — that they could ever change that.
So why not auger in? Then he could close his eyes and see the light and feel the warmth, and wake up on the beach again, and find Xara waiting for him.
He pondered all this for several long, painful seconds.
Then he thought, Too dramatic.
He yanked the ejection handle an instant later.
The canopy blew away in pieces; it shattered as opposed to coming off whole. Hunter was suddenly going facedown in a roaring wind. His airspeed had to be three hundred knots or more, especially in this thin upper atmosphere. His seat blew out next. He felt like someone had hit him in the ass with a hammer.
The violence associated with ejecting was incredible. He was tumbling now, just him, no warm ship to wrap around him anymore. Free-falling through the puny atmosphere of this long-lost, depleted planet.
What a strange place to be!
He heard a ruffling sound and then was jerked in a motion almost as violent as the ejection. Suddenly it seemed like he was flying in the opposite direction. He looked up and saw his chute starting to blossom. But again, this atmosphere was so weak he wondered if there was really enough air, way up here, to fill the chute completely. If not, he might have that glorious last crash yet. But eventually the chute did billow out — and just like that, he was floating again.
He looked down now and saw his aircraft spiraling away from him. His eyes watered up. It was as if someone had reached into his chest and tore his heart out. His machine had been with him a very long time. He had traveled billions of miles in it, across thousands of years. To part with it on this craphole of a planet was especially painful. He soon lost sight of it in a cloud of smoke coining up from below. He never heard the impact, never saw the flash.
And that was good. Maybe the only good thing that would happen to him this very long day.
He started falling very slowly now, and things took on a sort of dreamy quality — but not in a good way. He could see the refugees below him scatter as the REF ships banged in, all fifteen of them, on the same vast plain, a very unglamorous arrival.
The REF soldiers were flowing out of all the crumpled ships now. Even from this height, he could tell that the blood-suited soldiers would be especially rabid in what they were about to do. As far as Hunter could tell, these were the last of the SG's renegade special ops outfit, and yet he could almost predict their dark future. He had no doubts that they would get off this planet somehow, after their bloodlust was finally sated. Then they would get more ships and go to other places and continue to spread their brand of evil throughout the Galaxy. They would win… and keep winning, because that's just the way it was.
He'd given up trying to believe anything else.
But just then, there was another tremendous explosion high above him. He looked up and nearly relieved himself, so astonishing was the sight he saw. Right over his head, the sky was literally opening up. Not in spewing fire this time but with an onrush of gloriously white clouds. Behind them was an incredibly bright light. Impossibly bright. Yet it did not hurt his eyes.
Hunter blinked once, twice. But still the vision was there. It seemed real yet so unreal at the same time.
Coming through this hole in the sky now he saw eleven streaks of light. Behind them the most brilliant sun was shining. And that's when he realized what was happening here. He was looking at Paradise. He knew that sky, that sun, so well. And when the eleven streaks of light suddenly turned solid, he nearly wet himself again. It was the UPF fleet.
They were finally crossing over!
The REF soldiers below saw all this, too… and that's when things got a little weird.
Hunter thought that maybe he'd hit his head somewhere during the ejection, because suddenly the horde of REF soldiers on the ground started flying up to meet the UPF ships. Flying… with wings.
Then he looked up and saw UPF soldiers pouring out of the ships, which were right above him now.
They, too, had wings and were flying down from space to meet the ascending devils.