Death Star

In Short

James McKimmey’s short science fiction story follows Hurtz, a weary veteran of twenty years in the exploratory service who dreams of retiring to a quiet estate on Mars. Against his better judgment, he accompanies a cocky young pilot named Jones on his maiden voyage to ensure the boy succeeds. When Jones crashes their rocket on an unknown planet, both men are severely injured. Stranded and facing certain death, their mutual resentment boils over into a final, devastating act of sabotage that leaves Hurtz marooned on a strange, isolated world with only his illusions to sustain him.

The Story

Hurtz prepares for landing on an unnamed planet, frustrated that he must let Jones, an arrogant and tight-lipped rookie, pilot the ship. Despite his premonitions of disaster, Hurtz volunteered for this final run simply to give the boy a better chance than he himself ever received. As the rocket descends, Hurtz dwells on his twenty-year dream of owning a peaceful section of Martian land with rolling hills and a singing brook, bought and paid for after decades of hardship. Suddenly, the crash comes, plunging Hurtz into darkness.

When he regains consciousness, Hurtz finds himself bruised with a thin cut, while Jones is brutally battered with a broken arm, leg, and severe head injury. Working with the rough skill of experience, Hurtz administers first aid, sets the bones, injects a pain-relieving drug, and turns his attention to the damaged radio so he can call for help. Stepping outside onto the strange, flower-strewn planet, he curses his fate, vowing that nothing will keep him from his hard-earned Martian estate.

Inside the cabin, Jones regains consciousness only to unleash a torrent of bitter hostility. Convinced he is bleeding to death internally, the boy blames Hurtz entirely for the crash, arguing that Hurtz's constant, overbearing supervision caused him to tighten up and fail. Hurtz tries to soothe him, explaining the sacrifice he made out of empathy, but Jones remains venomous, wishing a medal could be shoved down Hurtz's throat. When Hurtz turns back to the radio, Jones rolls off the bunk, seizes Hurtz's dropped pistol, and holds him at gunpoint.

The drug-addled and dying boy reveals his final act of vengeance. Instead of shooting Hurtz, Jones turns the weapon on the radio and replacement parts, methodically shattering the communication system into useless scrap. Pointing out that no one will ever find them on a planet half the size of Venus, Jones mocks Hurtz's single-track obsession with his Martian land before laughing, choking, and dying on the cabin floor.

Left entirely alone with a dead boy and a broken radio, Hurtz walks outside in a daze, accepting that his obsession blinded him for a lifetime and that his own overbearing interference caused the tragedy. Yet as he walks through the trees, the landscape abruptly shifts before his eyes, revealing the exact hills, valleys, clearing, and singing brook of his long-held dream. Whether through a dying hallucination, shock, or the sudden grace of an unselfish act, Hurtz steps forward into his reward, smiling blindly.

How It Unfolds

• The final run begins: Hurtz nervously watches a cocky young rookie pilot named Jones fumble through the descent toward an unnamed planet, regretting his decision to accompany the boy on his maiden voyage.
• The catastrophic crash: The rocket slams violently into the surface, leaving Hurtz with minor bruises and Jones critically injured with broken bones and a severe head wound.
• First aid and bitter recrimination: Hurtz patches the boy up and attempts to fix the radio, but Jones wakes up and accuses Hurtz's overbearing presence of causing the crash.
• The destruction of the radio: In a final, desperate act of vengeance before his death, Jones uses Hurtz's dropped pistol to smash the communication equipment, trapping them permanently.
• The final illusion: After Jones dies on the cabin floor, Hurtz wanders outside into the alien landscape, where he suddenly finds the exact idealized Martian estate he spent twenty years working to own.

The People

• Hurtz is a rugged, aging pilot with blue eyes and thick gray eyebrows who has spent twenty unholy years flying from globe to globe. He wants nothing more than peace and retirement on a piece of land he purchased on Mars. Standing in his way are his own sentimentality, which leads him to meddle in a rookie's flight, and the catastrophic crash that strands him. He ends up stripped of his ship and partner, walking blindly into an apparent miracle.
• Jones is a thin-mouthed, short-clipped rookie pilot determined to prove his own competence without interference. He wants to fly on his own terms, but stands hindered by his intense pride, pain, and the suffocating presence of an older mentor. He ends up dying a bitter, broken death on the cabin floor after successfully destroying any chance of rescue.

In Its Own Voice

Hurtz went through the automatic motions of preparing himself for their landing on the small unnamed planet, but each thing he did was a wasted motion because it was really the boy, Jones, who was going to put the rocket down.

This opening establishes the generational friction and loss of control that dictate the story's tragic trajectory.

If I had a medal, the boy said hoarsely, I'd shove it down your rotten throat.

Jones hurls this savage rejection at Hurtz, laying bare the deep resentment beneath his exterior.

All at once he stopped, his eyes widening.

This abrupt perceptual shift marks the surreal, ambiguous threshold where Hurtz's long-sought dream finally materializes before him.

What It's Really About

The story explores the dangerous trap of single-track obsession and the heavy cost of unasked-for mentorship. Hurtz spends twenty years reducing his entire existence to a single future reward—a piece of land on Mars—while missing the reality right in front of him. When he tries to pass his hard-earned wisdom onto Jones, his well-intentioned interference becomes a form of psychological suffocation that directly provokes the disaster. The narrative questions whether human beings spend their lives fighting toward empty goals, only to find redemption or illusion in the final, inescapable moments of isolation. It also examines the fragile pride of youth versus the weary blindness of age, showing how two men trapped in mutual misunderstanding can destroy one another's futures.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate classic, character-driven mid-century science fiction that prioritizes psychological claustrophobia over grand space opera will find much to admire here. Reading James McKimmey's work feels like stepping into a tense, twilight chamber drama where the vastness of the universe serves only to frame a bitter interpersonal duel. The prose is lean and muscular, capturing the raw physical pain of a crash and the stinging friction between a stubborn veteran and a proud, dying boy.

Modern readers should be prepared for the mid-century pulp style, which leans heavily into stark archetypes, blunt dialogue, and unvarnished melodrama. There are no high-tech marvels or sprawling galactic empires; instead, the focus remains entirely on the suffocating interior of a wrecked cabin and the harsh psychology of regret. What stays with you long after the final page is the haunting ambiguity of Hurtz's final walk—the unsettling question of whether he has found genuine peace, or simply succumbed to a dying man's desperate hallucination.

What aspect of Hurtz and Jones's doomed dynamic interests you the most?