Battle at Zero Point (21 page)

That his captors were hard-core Bad Moon Knights was without dispute now. He'd had many close calls with the bloodthirsty meres over the years and escaped a number of assassination attempts by them.

If anything, he knew them
too
well. Their black uniforms and perpetual scowls were hard to mistake.

And he was sure this particular crew was in for a huge reward, now that it appeared they had him for good.

But then all this changed, for somewhere along the way, the BMK ship was attacked by the Solar Guards. Not ordinary SG, either. These raiders were outfitted in bright red uniforms and armed with bizarre weaponry. Zarex watched from the relative safety of his force field as the SG troopers—enormous every one of them—flooded aboard the BMK ship and ruthlessly mowed down the black-suited meres. It wasn't a battle as much as a slaughter, strange because the SG and the BMK

had shared many shady alliances in the past. Zarex actually felt sorry for the helpless BMK soldiers as the SG's strange weapons carved them into two or three pieces before each slice slowly dissolved away.

Their screams were so loud, Zarex could hear them clearly, even through the force field.

The Solar Guards were here for him, of course, and no sooner had the firing died down when they moved Zarex to yet another ship. He knew by its interior that this was an SG Starcrasher; odd, too, as everywhere he looked, he saw the color red. Walls, floors, ceilings, men, weapons, wires, bubblers, tubes—all red. Back in Paradise, the SF3 man, Bonz, had described his executioners as strange SG troops dressed in crimson battle suits. That description matched these characters exactly.

They were acting strangely too. Zarex was again placed right up in the control room of the ship, but this time his captors all but ignored him. The SG crewmen running the ship seemed particularly robotic, with little interaction and zero conversation. It was almost as if they were under a spell or maybe a very strong hypnotic suggestion. How they'd known that the BMK had captured him, this after VonRexx had tipped off the BMK, Zarex had no idea. His proselytizing for help in the battle to come had carried him to many of his old haunts on the Five Arm, and he knew going to VonRexx's fire party was like walking into the belly of the beast. But that's exactly what he was supposed to be doing in these days since his return, transformed, from Paradise.

Now, all he could do was wait and see what his new tormentors had in store for him.

After a wild ride at Supertime speed to a destination impossible for him to determine, the SG ship made rendezvous with another vessel, the shape of which Zarex could not see. He could tell there was a meeting only because the SG ship came to a dead stop in space, and dark figures began beaming aboard just out of the corner of his eye.

Then he was moved again. This time under a blackout, meaning the force field was increased to the point where he could not see anything. He relied on his memories of friends and good times to get him through this very dark period. When he was able to see again, he realized he'd been released from the force field and was being dragged down a passageway by two huge SG soldiers. He'd been stripped of everything, including the Twenty 'n Six containing his faithful robot, 33418.

The guards remained mute as they pulled him along the corridor. This was definitely not a Starcrasher he was on now; the passageway was curved, a design element not found on any Empire starship. They eventually arrived at a doorway that was covered with strange hieroglyphics. Suddenly the door opened, and Zarex found himself staring into a dark and very strange control room. It was cramped, oval-shaped, and stuffed with odd, almost unrecognizable metallic gizmos, some of which appeared to be alive. They were full of tubes and glands and pumping and spurting weird liquids. Sections of the control room floor were covered with vomit. The smell was overwhelming. Zarex felt his stomach do a flip. He couldn't imagine a place as disturbing as this.

One of the guards pushed him through the open door. The moment he crossed the threshold, he was hit by a bright yellow beam. It struck him with the force of a Z-gun blast. He dropped to the deck—hard.

His body began trembling uncontrollably. He went blind. The screeching in his ears became deafening. It felt like he was being ripped in two.

He was dragged to his feet and thrown into a hovering chair. It was covered with a sticky red substance Zarex could only guess was blood. He heard a crack and felt something tear across his face.

The pain was unbearable. Another crack, this one ripping through the skin on his shoulder. Incredible pain, blood spurting everywhere. A third crack; this time it felt as if a slice had been taken out of his torso. Excruciating pain— but then he was able to open his eyes.

He was looking at about a dozen individuals. Crowded around his chair, under a single bright light, they were looking right back at him. Half were wearing red SG uniforms. They were huge, with strange weapons hanging from their belts, and skin that was also the color of blood. One of them was holding an atomic whip. A well-known favorite of torturers across the Galaxy, Zarex had already tasted the weapon three times—and was about to have a fourth. The other six figures were standing back in the murk. Zarex could barely see them. They were very short, half the size of the huge SG soldiers, and appeared to be wearing gray uniforms. It was impossible to see their faces, impossible to see anything more than shadows. But Zarex was sure at least a few of them were standing in the pools of vomit.

He was hit again with the atomic whip. This time across his throat. Then it came again. And again.

And again. Blood flowed into his eyes; he was half-blinded once more. His chair suddenly went horizontal. Now he was on his back, facing straight up. The light was shining directly above. A gaggle of probes dropped from the ceiling and began violating him in every orifice. Even while this was happening, he was hit by the atomic whip again. And again. And again.

He finally passed out; the pain was that intense. But even then, there was no relief. In his unconscious state he saw horrible little beings with large heads, huge eyes, and no mouths poking him, pinching him, sticking awful things into him. He tried to scream but couldn't. He tried to fight, but his arms would not move. The little beings were swarming all over him. The horror seemed like it would go on forever.

He woke from this nightmare somehow, only to find he'd been beaten with the whip even while unconscious. Judging by the burns and welts on his body, the flogging had gone on for several hours, even though in his experience lately, seconds seemed like eternities and an eternity could pass by in a second.

He was back sitting upright in the blood-sticky chair. He could not move now; he could barely see.

The room was darker but at the same time seemed to be glowing an even deeper bloodred. And twice as many figures were standing around him, most of them Solar Guards, again all dressed in red, with sickly crimson skin. They looked as demonic as he did angelic. The probes were gone, but now he seemed to be held in place not by bonds but by the force of will of his tormentors. In a strange way, Zarex understood this.

One of these characters drew close to him now. This man stank; his body odor was overwhelming, his breath like a bilge trap. He was dirty and sweating and had an aura of disgust surrounding him.

"What do you want of me?" Zarex finally wailed, not out of pain but out of frustration.

"We want nothing from you except the pleasure of torture," the man hissed back at him. "There is no need to beat any information out of you. We already know what your cohorts are up to. We know their plans."

Zarex laughed in his smelly face. "That's a lie…"

"Is it?" the man asked back. "How so?"

Zarex didn't mince words. "Because only a handful of people within your reach know what is to take place, and they are all beyond reproach."

The man let out a horrible laugh. "You assume we have a spy in your midst? We are above such things. Look at us. Don't you think we can just look in on your friends anytime we want?"

"We are as powerful as you," Zarex shot back. "What protects us from you is that we are the exact opposite of you."

The smelly man laughed again; Zarex heard some gurgling noises coming from behind him.

"You are new at this game, as we once were," the man hissed at him again. 'Too bad for you."

Another crack of the atomic whip lashed Zarex across his face; it hurt tremendously. He decided to play their game.

"If you know what our plans are, then tell them to me," he said to the smelly one. "Prove you're not lying."

"You really doubt that we know?" his torturer asked.

"You
cannot
know," Zarex taunted him, "because you cannot read my mind. And you have not successfully captured any of my friends and made them talk. If you had, you wouldn't be bothering so much with me. So I dare you, then; tell me of our plans."

The smelly one laughed again, but this time it sounded like a shriek. He came up very close to Zarex's face.

"There is a point in space," he began in an ominous whisper. "It is inside the Two Arm, inside the Moraz Star Cloud, inside the No-Fly Zone. You simpletons have termed it
Zero Point
. You are very familiar with this place because it is where you so cleverly disappeared just before we were to drive the stake into you the first time. It is also where you reemerged when you foolishly decided to return to this side of things."

The smelly man got even closer.

"Your plan is this: you sent ahead one ship of the twelve you were using to hide in… in…" It was clear he could not speak the word, but it didn't matter. "This one ship comes out—lays the land, so to speak—for the others to follow exactly seven days later. How do you know on the other side that seven days have passed? Because you have people back there counting, wasting their time and energy, but ticking off the seconds one by one. Then they, too, will break through to the other side. And when they do, we will be waiting for them—and we will destroy them. And then the clash of pure good against pure evil that must take place every million years or so will happen again—and our side will win. And we will rule until the next battle in another million years."

Zarex was stunned. He was sure that it showed on his battered face. The man hadn't been bluffing.

He knew their plans exactly.

"But how?" was all he could say.

The man laughed again; others in the background did, too.

"How?" he asked. 'Take a look around you. Does this appear to be an Empire ship to you? Do we appear to be simple Solar Guards?"

Zarex was hit by the whip again.

"Foolish questions asked by a fool!" the smelly man said. "But at least now you know our purposes for keeping you here. It is simply to make you feel more pain, more distress. And to know that all history aside, we will finish the job on your friends that we should have done the first time. When they emerge at Zero Point, we will destroy them so completely, they will not be able to go to either place, up or down. They will be fated to stay in the middle, the worst place of all."

Zarex was speechless. Evil wanting nothing more than more evil? There was so much sickness in that it was hard to fathom. Whatever happened to these SG soldiers, whatever turned them red, it was clear that depravity only made them stronger. And Zarex had no doubts that they would follow through on their boast to destroy the UPF fleet.

Worst of all, there was no way anyone could warn his friends in Paradise that disaster would be waiting for them as soon as they emerged from the other side of the Vanex Door.

Unless…

Zarex suddenly conjured up the strength to break through his invisible bonds. He reached out and grabbed the smelly SG man by the neck and crushed his throat. The man went down to the deck, bleeding tremendously. Zarex then lashed out with his mighty left hand and hit another SG soldier so hard, he fractured the man's skull. He, too, dropped to the floor. Zarex was quickly off the chair, grabbing a third soldier and throwing him across the room—he hit with a
splat
!—but not before Zarex was able to take his blaster pistol from his belt.

The rest of the torture squad drew their weapons now, and a massive firefight broke out. Zarex was blasting away at anything that moved, though it seemed as if there were three times as many individuals in the dark room as before. He was hitting targets; he could hear bones breaking and skin sizzling, typical results of being pummeled by full-power blaster beams.

He, too, was being hit. In fact, it looked like a storm of green and red bolts coming his way. Instinct alone had him ducking this way and that, but many of the discharges found their marks and even the glancing blows were very painful.

This isn't working
, he thought.

So he stopped firing, stood straight up, ready to take the barrage of full-power blasts head-on. But his tormentors stopped firing, too. Suddenly everything in the room was quiet again. Then something
very
disturbing happened.

The first man he had attacked, the smelly man with the horribly crushed throat, slowly got to his feet.

He was still bleeding profusely, and his larynx was now just a knot of bones and gristle, but he was still very much alive. No sooner had he risen, when the man who'd suffered the fractured skull from Zarex's fist also got up off the floor. His wound was much more grisly; in fact, he should have been killed instantly. But he was grinning madly at Zarex, even as the gore slid down his cracked skull. Now the blasted and bloody bodies began rising all over the dark control room. Laughs and shrieks suddenly filled Zarex's ears.

He was horrified. The madness was more overwhelming now than the smell of this place. The message was clear, though: these characters couldn't be killed, and they certainly didn't want to kill him.

They really did want nothing more than to torture him endlessly
What to do…

Zarex suddenly began speaking. About Paradise. About all the beautiful things he'd seen there. About the people and the emerald grass and the blue sky and the golden sun and the spectacular twilights.