The Space Hunt
By Eugene Baldovino
Floating silently in an ignored portion of the cosmos is a heavily armed spacefighter. Manning the controls is Gasper Woods, a bitter, middle aged, war veteran who is now a bounty hunter. Even though the Great Universal War ended five years ago, he still wears a military uniform. His precious suit, enhanced with military technology and decorated with war medals serves as confirmation that there once was a time when Gasper had purpose.
The instrument console in his cockpit illuminates the worn look on Gasper’s face. He has been drifting for six days in hopes of being able to exercise his combat training. This ronin warrior is on the hunt for a space phoenix, a creature the size of skyscraper building, whose flesh could nourish the overpopulated inhabitants of Earth for 10 years.
But Gasper is not on a quest to save his planet. He’s not exchanging his services for money. And he’s not even pursuing something as fleeting as fame. He’s simply a consequence of Darwin’s theory of evolution: survival of the fittest.
Gasper Woods is surveying the forgotten pockets of outer space to satisfy his desire for the hunt.
“I can scream at the top of my lungs and the sound waves won’t go anywhere … this is the worst part of being a soldier -- the patience. Endlessly searching for a target can drive a man crazy with thoughts. So, why am I here? For a space phoenix -- a creature that may just be an alien myth. You know, it’s funny how talking to oneself is a human way to maintain sanity because if some intelligent life out there, in this ass end of the galaxy, saw me chatting to no one, they’d think I was primitive.”
Gasper chuckles to himself and then, “Anybody out there? Agggggggghhhhhhhhhh!” In exhaustion, he sucks the stale air into his lungs, “Screaming isn’t as enlivening as it used to be.”
A bleeping sound emits from his instrument panel. Gasper props upright and analyzes the signal. There’s an enormous amount of carbon dioxide and methane several million miles, starboard side, beyond a crowded asteroid belt. Those gases could mean animal life, but the signal drifts off his radar.
“Oh, hell no. I haven’t been sitting here for six days to have alone time. You’re mine, whatever you are.” A forest of asteroids litter Gasper’s path. “The quickest way from point A to B is a straight line.” He checks his instrument panels to view the energy level of his spacefighter and concludes that he has enough power for a small skirmish before his next recharge.
Gasper fires his particle beam cannons at the asteroids in his path and boosts his spacefighter’s thrusters to full power. Like a metal shark, his ship charges through the ocean of space to go in for the kill.
Fragments of space rock explode into dust as Gasper blasts himself a tunnel through the floating rocks. Then the signal on his radar appears again. A smile cracks on his withered cheeks. Adrenaline rushes through his body. Finally, Gasper stops firing and relaxes his trigger fingers. He realizes that he’s out of the asteroid belt and before him is a galactic graveyard of spacecraft. There are ships of all shapes and sizes. Some look like saucers and others look like boats, but all of them are dead. The signal on his radar fades.
Something smacks the window of his cockpit. Gasper looks out and nonchalantly observes a skull float away. Maybe he was chasing a ghost.
“All this wreckage makes me feel more alone than when I was at that void a moment ago.”
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. His radar hollers at him in rapid succession. Gasper senses a glow from above that overcomes the adrenaline rush in his body. Strangely, it calms his soul. Gasper leans his head back and looks up to see a beautiful cosmic bird that radiates a warm amber light.
“My god, you remind me of sunset in San Francisco.” Gaspers points his particle beam cannons at the space phoenix and confirms the energy level of his ship. He’s running low and has to make this one count. “Too bad it’s a dog eat dog universe.” Gasper focuses and then the intense wrinkles at the corners of his eyes relax. He blasts the innocent space phoenix with his particle cannons. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud! The creature’s alien body absorbs the attack and flies outward in pain.
“Huh, you’re still alive. Good, I was looking for a challenge.” But now Gasper is extremely low on energy from blasting through the asteroid belt at full power. He double-checks his energy level one more time as he chases the space phoenix through the debris of destroyed ships. Gasper’s spacefighter has only enough energy to fire one
planet-breaking trilithium rocket that would leave him with just barely enough power for the journey home.
Gasper shuts down his thrusters to steady his aim and increase the probability of a direct hit. He has the wild beast in his sites and sweat down his forehead. In the background he hears the pulsing sound of his radar. Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. Within moments, its sounds come into sync with his heart. Bleep. Bleep. Thump. Bleep. Thump. Gasper brings his muscles to rest and deliberately blinks forcefully to moisturize his eyes. Then he launches a lethal trilithium rocket that pierces through space like a hypodermic needle. The erratically flying space phoenix skillfully swerves to the side and dodges the rocket, which explodes onto the side of a wrecked space cruiser in the distance.
“Nooooooooo,” Gasper yelps out to himself. He drops his head into his chest and trembles in fury. “I wish I was dead.” Then his devilish eyes dart to his instrument panel. The energy levels indicate that he can launch another trilithium rocket, but that would be the end of his energy supply. A ship without power in the middle of the cosmos would end up like the ghostly wreckage before him.
The space phoenix has disappeared from his view, but bleeping from his radar indicates activity from all directions. Gasper mutters, “Sometimes these damn computers crash when you push them too far. I got to do this old school.” Fuming in anger he looks out the cockpit and sees carcasses of metal. There is no proof of life. Gasper’s mind starts to lose it as his eyes wander across the wreckage. He begins to hallucinate with visions of failed missions, violent deaths, shattered dreams, and loneliness.
“I am stronger than you!”
Then rising from beneath Gasper’s ship, the space phoenix soars and peers its curious face in front of the cockpit. The pupils of the bird’s enormous eyes appear to house the souls of ancient gods.
Gasper knows it would be suicide to use his last reserves of energy to take his prey. He fixes a gaze at the bird and wonders if the space phoenix feels alone too. Then Gasper’s eyes widen in like manner of a mighty beast and with a clenched fist he pounds the projectile button and launches a trilithium rocket into the face of his adversary.
The rocket sinks into the space phoenix’s forehead. Within a split second it creates an explosion that envelops the magnificent creature in dark matter causing the animal to go limp. After a holy moment of silence, Gasper drops back into his seat and relaxes to the unusual rhythmic beeping of his radar. Bleep. Bleep. Blee. Blee. Bee. The power in his spacefighter shuts down.
Gasper calmly scans the devastation before him. In the final moments before his spacefighter went to rest his radar detected life, but sometimes technology has a way of misinterpreting reality. Before him is an irrefutable graveyard caused by the simple biological concept of natural selection.
Then the space wreckage before him animates with life. Dilapidated ships tremble and dance like the devil’s puppets. Then an amber glow floods the galaxy. Gasper squints as he peers into the distance to discover a horde of space phoenixes violently rushing toward him knocking wreckage out of their paths. Gasper whispers silently to the war medals emblazoned on his chest, “I feel alive again.” He’s comforted by understanding from this ordeal that a difference exists between the loneliness of humanity and aloneness with higher powers.
