So perhaps there had been stops along the way. Maybe dozens, maybe just a few. Maybe just one. But if this was the case, then common sense dictated that one of these way stations would be located somewhere on the edge of the Galaxy closest to the far-off Home Planets system.
Then there was the other important clue: the Moon 39 prison guards themselves, the ones the Americans defeated on Planet America. They weren't just a ragtag army of dopey mercs. In fact, they'd been a long-lost contingent of none other than the Bad Moon Knights, the same people who were sitting on Xronis Trey. Just like the inhabitants of the Home Planets, they, too, had been unwittingly caught inside a time bubble, which gave everyone within the mistaken illusion that time was moving at a crawl.
Putting two and two together, Hunter and his allies came to this conclusion: that for the BMK prison guard contingent to have reached the Home Planets some 900 years before — indeed for anyone to reach the far-flung system— there must have been an advance base of some kind on the outer fringes of the Galaxy closest the Home Planets' position in the sky, a place from which to springboard for the very long voyage out. Xronis Trey was the last planet in the last star system on the end of the very isolated tip of the Two Arm. The Two Arm was the closest part of the Galaxy to the Home Planets, though still an enormous distance away. Therefore, any advance base was most likely located on Xronis Trey.
And if there was a BMK base here, then there might be more information to be found as well, including more mind rings that could assist Hunter in the ultimate goal of uncovering who was responsible for the mass deportation of Earth in the first place.
That's why Xronis Trey was chosen as their target.
Hunter passed through the formation of blue and chrome spaceships now hanging in low orbit just over the horizon. That was another reason he was up here. He had to make sure all was right with them. too. He did quick fly-arounds of all six and found no external problems. No errant Z-beam flashes had reached them; all of their troop shuttles had departed without incident. Another breath of relief.
The war to free the Home Planets had ended about half a year before. Shortly after that, an army had been raised from the populations of the thirty-six formerly captive planets. These troops had trained on Planet America nonstop for two months, learning everything from heavy Z weapons operation to small-unit tactics. Eventually, the soldiers came together in a 40,000-man army crowned the UPF, for United Planets Forces. In reality, though, it was an American-led coalition. Their flag was the American flag.
The six UPF spaceships were corvettes, small cruisers— or at least that had been their designation when they'd been built at least a thousand years before. The wedge-shaped ships looked so old because the BMK garrison from which they'd been taken had been first installed on Moon 39 sometime around the year 6350 A.D., nearly a millennia before. The corvettes didn't have any of the bells and whistles featured on contemporary ion-powered ships, and certainly none of the luxuries carried by Starcrashers, the top-of-the-line, two-mile-long, flying battleships flown by the Fourth Empire's space legions.
It was almost as if someone had locked away six ships in a space hangar somewhere and left them alone for 1,000 years, which was not that far from the truth. They had been reconfigured a bit to make room for the 6500-man UPF space division that rode aboard each one. Their color schemes had been changed, too, so as not to look too much like BMK ships. No surprise that the Bad Moon Knights on Xronis Trey never realized the vessels attacking them were actually ships of their own. The new paint jobs had worked their magic perfectly.
The journey to Xronis Trey had taken the small UPF fleet nearly four months. That was moving at top cruising speed and flying through an ocean of starless void. For the most part, the six ships performed well, though there had been a few hairy moments en route.
But now they were here, and the first step had been taken.
It was time to get on with the plan.
Hunter waited for the tiny planet to turn beneath him again. Spotting the burning base once more, he put his nose down and dove back through the atmosphere.
He reached the base a few seconds later, setting down next to one of the smoldering Z-gun platforms. Nearby, some BMK mercs were being marched across the tarmac by a squad of UPF troops. A holding bubble had been set up next to the base's command cluster. Each captured soldier was frisked, disarmed, and then incarcerated inside the bubble. Piles of confiscated weapons were growing all around the invisible jail.
Hunter climbed out of his machine and made his way over to the smoking command cluster. Two men met him at the front door. They were Erx and Berx, the space pilots who'd rescued him from the isolated planet Fools 6 a year before. Built low.to the ground, with Berx being just slightly taller, they were two very powerful individuals sporting shaved heads and extremely long mustaches, in keeping with the style of the day. Like Hunter, both were officers in the X-Forces. But more recently, they had been sent by Princess Xara to search for Hunter after he went missing following the Battle of Zazu-Zazu, the location of the near-mythical Lighthouse. It was pure luck that Erx and Berx found Hunter when they did, as they arrived just in time to prevent him for being whacked by a hit squad sent out by his enemies back on Earth.
In other words, Hunter owed his life to Erx and Berx— twice.
He greeted them warmly. They were among the first UPF soldiers to land on the battered little planet. He was glad to see they were both still in one piece.
"What were our casualties?" was the first thing Hunter asked them.
"Only a few wounded," Erx reported. "None serious."
Hunter indicated the holding cell full of BMK troops nearby. "And them?"
"Eighteen killed," Berx said. "Eighteen souls the Galaxy is better off without."
"How about their officers?" Hunter asked. "Did we find any?"
"Four captured intact," Erx reported. "Including the base commander. He's being interrogated as we speak."
Hunter clenched his fist in small triumph. This was good news. Securing the commander of this isolated outpost had been an important part of the master plan.
"And how about the search?" Hunter asked them. "Have we found any 'jewels'?"
Both Erx and Berx frowned, their long mustaches nearly dipping to the ground.
"The news there is not so good," Erx finally replied.
The BMK command cluster was a collection of geodesic domes arranged in a triangular fashion with each supporting the other by means of passageways and flying bridges. It was a very ancient design, which would turn out to be an important clue later on. Hunter had been careful not to hit the structure during his one-man air raid, but the brief fire-fight that followed the landing of the UPF troops had resulted in some damage, most of it from punctured superglass.
Erx and Berx led him into the building and down one particularly debris-filled hallway. Passing by squads of UPF soldiers searching each system dome in the cluster, they soon arrived at a large amphitheater located in the center of the structure. This place looked even older than the exterior of the building. It contained dozens of consoles and control boards and viz-screens, yet none appeared to have been activated in hundreds of years.