StarHawk by Mack Maloney

O’Nay decreed that Calandrx could never again travel in space—this on the off-chance that he might be killed in flight and thus put a tragic ending on a career that burned brighter than the stars in the Ball.
    That was almost a century ago, and here was Calandrx, an intelligent hermit and still a prisoner of his own celebrity. Not many things made him happy. But at this moment, he was beside himself with joy.
    These three people had crashed so many stars lately, they seemed to be glowing brighter than his candles.
    The three of them trooped in, Hunter first, Erx and Berx right behind him. Of course, Erx and Berx had known Calandrx for more than eighty years.
    He brought them immediately to his library and beheld them in the candlelight for a few moments. Sure enough, combined, the three of them were glowing brighter than twelve of his best wick and wax. At this, Calandrx could barely contain his delight.
    “My God, is that all you three have been doing? Crashing stars?”
    “Sometimes it feels that way, old friend,” Erx said, shedding his disguise, if in fact a hood and tunic was a disguise. Anyone up to mischief these days always seemed to pick this combination of garb, as a way of blending in. Yet to say so was almost a cliché .
    “Crashing isn’t what it used to be,” Berx said with false disinterest. “In fact, I’ve been finding it rather boring lately…”
    Calandrx shook his fist in Berx’s face.
    “If I hear one more word like that from you,” Calandrx scolded him, “I’ll knock you so hard into the fifth dimension, you’ll have to wait till next Tuesday for your ass to arrive. Crashing stars is an honor not shared by the vast majority of our galactic brothers and sisters. It’s a gift to be able do it. It must be appreciated as such.”
    Berx laughed in his face. So did Erx. Only really old friends could treat each other this way.
    “Do you have any slow-ship, Petz?” Erx asked him, walking to the blazing fireplace to warm his hands.
    “Or have you graduated to that crap they sell on Neptune?”
    Calandrx shuffled off to his liquor cabinet. It took up one entire wall of his reading room. Several rows were filled with slow-ship wine; others held some “Neptune crap.”
    “Come, sit,” Calandrx bid them as he reached for his oldest bottle of slow. “Imagine my pleasure when I heard from Brother Multx and accepted his offer of intrigue.”
    “Imagine our surprise when we found out you were his contact with the race committee,” Erx said. “I would have thought you were above such things, Petz. Gambling, subterfuge, and such?”
    Calandrx was in the middle of filling their goblets with wine. He intentionally poured Erx but half a cup.
    “Someday you’ll be planetbound, Erx,” Calandrx told him. “And then you’ll know the curse of getting no closer to the stars than looking up at them at night. When that day comes, I want to know how you’ll be amusing yourself.”
    Erx thought about this for a moment. “I think ‘abusing’ myself is the more likely consequence.”
    Berx nodded. “Bingo, that.”
    Calandrx waved them off and turned to Hunter.
    “They could probably behead him for it,” he began. “But Multx told me a bit about your skill in saving the BonoVox . You must have extraordinary pluck to face down a Blackship with a shuttlecraft. I’ve never heard of anything so deliciously mad.”
    “If you mean ‘mad’ as being insane, I’m beginning to agree,” Hunter said, tasting his slow-ship wine.
    “Do you want to hear about our crash on Fools 6?” Berx asked Calandrx with a straight face. The old pilot simply waved him off again. He was intent on asking Hunter all the questions.
    “They say your flying ability was rather mind-boggling,” Calandrx said to him. “With a swiftness of maneuver not seen before. What are you hiding, my son? Were you trained by some anonymous master pilot? Someone who is no longer with us? Or perhaps you found a brain ring left over from