No, the only way to properly right the wrong was to take it all back. Earth. The original Solar System. The entire Milky Way. Everything. Piece by piece if necessary. And it couldn't be just a war against the Solar Guards. They were just the flunkies here. The whole imperial structure would probably have to go. Top to bottom.
Did this mean then that the United Planets were destined to fight the Fourth Empire? To bring it down by force? Hunter almost laughed out loud. The Fourth Empire was quite possibly the largest enterprise in human history. They owned the secrets to Supertime, the Big Generator and the Holy Blood. How could their little band of planets, with no real army or weapons or spacecraft, ever hope to take down something so huge? It would be an impossible campaign, even with their horde of fierce combat robots. But in Hunter's mind, there was no other choice. They had to do it.
And that meant a final dealing with Emperor O'Nay, God Himself or the closest thing to it. Leader of trillions of troops, with the support of billions of planets.
The father of Xara…
Another complication.
Hunter gazed deeper into the massive ring of swirling stars now, his hand going to the pocket where he kept his American flag wrapped around the faded photograph of the pretty blonde whose name he did not know. At least now he realized why he'd been drawn here, to this time, to this place in the universe. He was an American. And someone, somehow, somewhere, had bent the rules of Nature to get him here just so he could participate in the great crusade ahead.
But who brought him here? Who had the power to do so? That was another mystery for another time. He tapped his pocket three times, thought of the woman in the photograph, and then, strangely, of Ashley. Where was she right now? At this very moment?
He drained his flask then looked down at his hands. Even though it felt like they were shaking slightly, they were actually very calm. He looked back up at the great wash of stars and squinted and searched like always but then… suddenly, there it was. Shining like a bright blue jewel amongst the clutter of the One-Arm. The magical place.
The new goal.
Home…
The real one.
Hunter smiled…
Yes, this time, he really could see Earth.
On a very simple, pastoral planet, hidden yet not hidden, in a very ordinary star system, there was a small cottage built on a hill, which looked out on grassy fields and a river beyond.
Inside the cottage, in the bedroom, an ancient form lay on a Sears Roebuck four-poster bed, sagging with a Sealy mattress, a tiny RCA radio emitting nothing but static on the bed stand nearby.
The man on the bed was dressed in a spacesuit nearly five thousand years old. The suit was remarkably intact; indeed just like its owner, it was enjoying an unprecedented long life, now approaching its sixth millennia.
The helmet was still firmly in place around the man's head; his hands were still covered by Velcro-sealed gloves, his feet shod with the bulky, self-heating magnetic boots. On his left shoulder was a patch bearing the letters NASA. On the right, a flag consisting of red and white stripes with a blue field of stars.
The man was an astronaut — literally, an ancient astronaut. He was more than five thousand years old. No one knew how he had managed to reach such an advanced age, least of all himself.
Two female attendants cared for his needs day and night. These were few. He needed no food, no water, just air, apparently. He was alert, though mostly sleepy, and he would talk, but only from behind the thick faceplate on his helmet.
Now, one of the female attendants — a nurse was the ancient term — entered the bright, sunny room, lifted the window, and let the warm breeze blow in from the meadow below.
"What is new?" the astronaut asked in his slightly mechanical voice.
The nurse leaned over him and whispered, "You received a message from an old friend of yours today. A very old friend… Pater Tomm."
A slight ripple went through the astronaut's body. He'd been waiting a long time to hear those words.
"And what did my very old friend have to say?" he asked the attendant.
The woman came even closer to his earpiece.
"He said to tell you, 'Something is coming… ' "