Battle at Zero Point (7 page)

In this running barrage, mountains were disappearing, dry riverbeds were being blown to dust, buttes and mesas reduced to piles of subatomic glass crystals. And it went on like this for what seemed like a very long time, even though the chase became more desperate for the
Kongo
with each passing second.

There was only so long the scout could keep zigzagging before the gunners on the big ship would find their mark or, more likely, collapse an entire mountain on top of them.

The heat of battle is a funny thing, a different mind-set takes over, whether the combatants are throwing stones at each other or trading blasts of vaporizing Z beams. The politics of the person shooting at you takes second preference over the desire of saving your own skin. Still, it was not lost on anyone aboard the tiny SF scout ship, as it careened its way through miles-deep river valleys and over titanic mountain ranges, that the people shooting at them—the same people who had just destroyed one of their capital ships—were not supposed to be their enemies. In fact, technically at least, they were supposed to be brothers. They all belonged to the same military, the Imperial Forces, and were sworn to the common goal of fighting against the enemies of the Empire and bringing the words and vision of the Emperor to every corner of the Galaxy.

But this, this was both alarming and unprecedented. The two services had been barking at each other for nearly three centuries—but there was no turning back from this. More than 8,000 were already dead in the internecine battle, and still it was less than a half hour old. So even as they were racing along at top speeds, knowing their lives could be lost at any moment, the crew of the SF scout ship knew that after this, no matter how it turned out, nothing in the Empire would ever be the same again.

Luck began running out for the
KongoVox
as the small scout ship approached an obscure mountain pass named, in the ancient language of the Galaxy,
Mons d Sighs
.

It was essentially a natural stone bridge that connected two forbidding mountain peaks. The strange formation came up fast on the
Kongo's
pilots. In a split second they had to decide whether to go over this thing—and risk providing a clear shot by the fast-pursuing SG warship—or turn sideways and go under it. Their flight computer told them their clearance from fuselage to either wall could be measured in inches. Still, going low was a risk they had to take.

The pilots punched in these desires, and the scout ship suddenly flipped over onto its side. At that same moment, the forward gunners on the SG ship let loose a barrage of Z beams from their nose-weapon array. These shots were fired too high. However, they hit the peak on one side of the stone bridge, instantly creating a rain of debris onto
Mons d'Sighs
. One huge boulder smashed into the ancient stone bridge, causing it to collapse onto the tail end of the fleeing
KongoVox
.

The impact of tons of burning rock was catastrophic. Suddenly the scout ship was missing about 100 feet off its left-side aft quarter. It streaked out from under the collapsing stone bridge trailing a long tail of black smoke and flaming debris. The control ddck was in chaos: blinking lights, Klaxons blaring. The ship's prop core had been mortally wounded. Any disruption in power flowing through this mysterious drive device could only have disastrous consequences. As with the SG ship shot down just minutes before, whenever a prop core went dry, it tended to blow up with the force of several nuclear bombs and then collapse in on itself as it devolved into a self-made singularity. It was simply impossible for anyone on board to survive such a conflagration.

But the crews of Space Forces scout ships were traditionally tough and resourceful. Their flight bubble was telling them their vessel would be airborne for just twenty-two seconds more, and then it would crash, with the prop core blowing up just eleven seconds later. Not a lot of time to think about anything but survival.

So the crew began bailing out. At battle stations each person on board was strapped into a boost seat that would be ejected in times just like this. Panels on top of the ship began blowing off now, and these individual survival capsules commenced bursting through the openings. Each capsule was equipped with an escape rocket that could cany its occupant as far as five miles away. These rockets left a vivid yellow wake, so the display now coming from the crippled
KongoVox
was
mucho
spectacular when the huge flames pouring out of the back combined with the cascade of escape capsules firing off from the front and midsection.

None of this stopped the SG gunners, though. They continued firing away, and some of their shots were hitting the escape capsules, vaporizing them instantly. The scout ship was losing speed as the prop core began dying in earnest, and thus the SG ship was gaining on it by the second. The two ships passed out of the vast
Mons d'Sighs
region and onto a flat, open terrain that stretched almost all the way to the dark section of the planet.

As predicted, the scout ship began tumbling about seventeen seconds after being hit, and it crashed five seconds later. All but the captain and the two main pilots made it out alive; they had decided to go down with the ship, insuring that the rest of the crew at least had the chance to eject. The scout ship impacted on the long, straight, flat valley floor and went end over end for a mile before the prop core blew up. There was an enormous explosion accompanied by a nightmarish mushroom cloud, which then began falling in on itself, as if it were an explosion in reverse motion. It sucked everything within a few hundred feet into a black hole that was created and then disappeared again, all in less than a heartbeat.

The entire planet shook once; the impact of the crash was that terrific.

The scout ship's survivors were now scattered along the route of its death plunge, many separated by a mile or more. The SG warship had pulled up violently so as not to get caught in the small holocaust resulting from the
Kongo's
crash.

The big ship did not boot into Supertime and leave the scene, though. In another devilish, seemingly inexplicable act, the ship turned around and slowed down to the lowest crank power, just a few knots of forward motion. Its gunners began searching the valley floor for survivors who had ejected from the dying SF scout ship. On spotting any member of the
Kongo
crew, the SG gunners opened up without mercy.

Unprotected and many of them injured from their quick ejection and violent landing, these hapless soldiers made easy pickings for the SG trigger men. Within a minute, two dozen had been blasted to bits.

Now scan lights were beamed out of the bottom of the slow-moving SG warship, further helping the gunners target the Space Forces soldiers who had no means of escape and few places to hide. A total massacre seemed to be inevitable. That's when the SF Starcrasher
VogelVox
finally arrived on the scene.

The SF warship had been following the outlandish, confusing, disturbing battle via its long-range viz scanners.

The commanders of the two-mile-long aerial battleship didn't believe at first that those responsible for shooting down the
JunoVox
were in fact Solar Guards. It didn't make sense. Sure, the blistering conflict had flared up deep within the SG's unilateral forbidden zone, and indications were that the
JunoVox
had violated the SG's order and had dashed into the
verboten
area for reasons that seemed even stranger, the summary execution of an SF intell officer. But now, open conflict between the two services? It didn't seem real somehow.

The No-Fly Zone was the talk of the Empire's military, of course. For the most part, it was viewed by the Space Forces as an example of butt covering by the SG after they had been bested by the mysterious invaders on the planet Megiddo and then apparently lied about destroying the enemy fleet. Perhaps the murdered intell officer had uncovered just that, and for whatever reason, the SG decided he had to die, never thinking that word of the outrageous execution would get out so fast. (In many ways then, a robot, not a human, was responsible for the fratricide that had already taken so many lives and was about to turn the Empire on its head.)

What was clear was that SF troops were under attack, and the particularly vicious manner in which the SG warship had pursued the smaller scout ship and was gunning to death its helpless crew members on the ground only made the dangerous situation even worse.

So it was both emotions and duty that propelled the commanders of the
VogelVox
into action.

Again, it was a case of the people aboard the SG ship not considering themselves in a combat position. Its warship was still moving very slowly about 250 feet above the ground, picking off the survivors from the scout ship crash. It was not running its 360 scans—or if it was, no one was paying any attention to the scanning suite screens.

Moving slowly, close to the ground, looking down and concentrating on small targets—there was no better way to set yourself up as a big, fat target.

Had the
JunoVox
not been shot down so violently, there was a chance the commanders of the
Vogel
might have simply disabled the SG warship below them. But again, emotions were running high, and confusion was reigning now on several levels. In all this time, none of the SF ships had contacted SF headquarters on Earth to report what was going on; no one was quite sure what they would say. So the
VogelVox's
commanders descended to a height about 1,000 feet above the unsuspecting SG ship and launched a broadside of Z beams at it.

The fusillade walked its way right down the huge SG ship. There was a series of explosions, four, five, six… seven. And finally, the prop core was hit. The frightening mushroom cloud instantly appeared, then disappeared just as quickly, taking about half of the hapless ship with it. What remained slammed into the ground seconds later, again sending a shudder around the planet. More explosions came, followed by great balls of fire rising from the barren, haunted surface. In seconds there was nothing but burning debris, scattered over a half-dozen miles, just like the
JunoVox
.

Then all was silent again.

After just a few minutes, the toll in this strange little war stood at two major warships, a cargo 'crasher, and a small scout ship.

More man 15,000 souls—good and bad—had been lost.

The Vanex Door

The first good thing Gym Bonz noticed about being dead was the warm, bright light.

It didn't appear right away. After the excruciating pain of being shot through the chest finally faded, he'd found himself floating above the forbidding terrain of Doomsday 212, looking down on his own bleeding body, crumpled among the rocks. Two of his executioners had kicked his limp form, then shot him again through the head, but Bonz never felt a thing.

The next series of events played out like a viz-screen movie. He knew—
just knew
—that word of his death had been flashed to SF ships riding outside the No-Fly Zone. He saw the first SF ship, the cargo vessel
JunoVox
, appear on the scene, saw its meager weaponry engage two of the remaining SG Star-crashers, only to get itself blasted out of the sky seconds later. He saw the scout ship
Kongo Vox
arrive and destroy one of the strangely crimson SG ships just minutes before it, too, was destroyed. The madness ended with the huge
VogelVox
blasting the second SG ship to atomic dust. Through it all, Bonz hovered above the grisly scene, feeling trapped and helpless, unable to do anything but watch. The fires, the destruction, the death. He couldn't believe that his demise had triggered the ferocious battle between the two Empire services.

But then Bonz found himself being drawn into a tunnel that had formed above him. Its sides were moving in a corkscrew motion, and some part of his consciousness told him this tunnel was made of swirling clouds. He began moving upward, growing cold, a strange feeling of loneliness overcoming him.

But then he saw the light…

And the light was warm, and it was revitalizing, and it felt good.
Damn good
. It filled the tunnel, and it filled him up as well. Bonz was floating, but at the same time he knew he was moving faster than any Starcrasher ever carried him. At the other end of the tunnel, a person, surrounded by this warm light, was beckoning him forward. And there was no doubt in Bonz's mind that's where he wanted to go.

So he let himself be swept up by the clouds and the warmth and the light and…

The next thing he knew, he was standing on a beach. A calm cobalt sea was in front of him.

Jewel-like sand was beneath his feet. The sky was deep blue and streaked with rays of bright, golden light. This beach stretched beyond sight in both directions. It seemed to go on forever.

This was a
very
beautiful place. A friendly yellow sun was shining above; its rays felt warm and perfect. Behind him was a hill filled with rows of multicolored trees, swaying in the breeze. Bonz reached down and took a handful of sand; it was made up of trillions of tiny gemstones. He knelt to cup some water and brought it to his lips. It tasted of a nectar more divine than the best batch of slow-ship ever made. He took a deep breath, and felt as if life itself had reentered his lungs.

He'd never felt this good, ever.

"Where the hell am I?" he whispered.

He heard voices. He spun around and looked to the top of the hill behind him. Three figures were up there, waving and calling down to him.

A woman and two young girls.

My God…

He started running, off the beach, past a row of brightly colored flowers, up a path that led to the top of the hill. He'd never moved so fast, alive or otherwise. He felt like he was running on air, that his feet weren't really touching the ground. He reached the top of the hill in no time… and that's when he saw them up close.

They were smiling at him, arms raised, absolutely glowing.

It was his wife and daughters.

"Is it really you?" he asked. "
Really
?"

His wife laughed sweetly. "Yes it is."

But Bonz just couldn't believe it.

She took a step closer to him. "Here, touch my face, see for yourself."

Trembling, he reached out and felt his wife's cheek. His fingers did not go through it as they had so many times with the holo-cube. Her skin felt warm and smooth, just like it did so many years ago.

"But… how?" he stammered. "How can this be?"

"You're in Heaven, Gym," she told him simply. "You've reached Paradise."

Suddenly his chest felt like it was about to burst. His eyes misted over. Tears of joy rolled down his cheeks. It was beginning to make sense.

"So I really must be…" He couldn't quite say the word.

His wife nodded gently. "Passed on? Yes, you are… and now you're here, with us. Forever."

In the next instant he was in their arms, hugging them as they hugged him, kissing them as they kissed him. Smothered with kisses—on the cheeks from his kids, long passionate ones on the mouth from his wife. They were all laughing and crying at the same time. They collapsed to the soft ground in a great heap of arms and legs and laughter and tears. His kids were yelling joyously. His wife was saying, over and over, "/
love you… I love you so much… We're together again
!"

Bonz's joy was indescribable. He was free. No more earthly worries, no more earthly pain. The nightmare that had haunted him for fifty years was gone. Suddenly washed away. He was in Paradise. He could feel it, inside and all around him. Total beauty. No hate. Just peace. Peace and harmony, forever.

They all lay back, arms around each other, neither wife nor daughters wanting to let him go. The warm sun fell on his face. The wind sounded like music. He breathed in deeply and again it felt like he would burst, there was so much happiness going through him.

"Thank you, God," he whispered. "Thank you."

They stayed like this for what seemed a very long while— hours even—it was hard to tell. He was kissing his wife, hugging his kids. He asked his wife what had happened in all the time they'd been apart.

She told him that it didn't seem like any time had passed at all. That they had found themselves here, and that all their deceased family and friends were here, too, and that everything was perfect and good and eternal.

There were other individuals walking past them, some climbing up or down the hill, some suddenly appearing from nowhere. They were all wearing long white gowns and had a certain glow about them.

They were all smiles and laughing, and they shared a bit of his joy as they passed by. The top of the hill was covered with emerald grass and many flowers, and below them were miles of fields and blossoming trees and trickling streams. It
looked
like Paradise, just as Bonz had always imagined it.

In between more hugs and kisses, Bonz noticed an elderly man climbing up the hill. He was not wearing a white gown; rather his was colored deep gold. He walked past their spot, nodding and smiling, but then stopped and turned around.

"Excuse me, isn't that a Space Forces uniform?" he asked Bonz.

Bonz looked down at his clothes and realized he was still wearing his SF one-piece, the inside liner for his combat suit. He suddenly felt foolish in it. Everyone but him was dressed in more heavenly clothes.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is," he replied.

"Interesting," the old man said.

Bonz shaded his eyes to see the old man better. He had long white hair, a long white beard, and a slightly bemused look to his wrinkled features. He seemed almost
too
old to be here in Heaven; for a split second, Bonz thought he was the Almighty Himself.

But then, incredibly, he recognized this man.

It wasn't God. It was Vanex, the Imperial Custodian, the man who had disappeared without a trace along with Princess Xara about a month ago.

Bonz couldn't believe it. He scrambled to his feet.

"Captain Vanex? Is it really you?"

The old man looked him up and down and then nodded. "Yes, it is I," he said. "And you are?"

"Captain Gym Bonz, SF3—"

"Oh, so you're a spy, then?"

"I was," Bonz replied slowly. "And it is strange that I should meet you. Very strange…"

"How so, my son?"

Bonz just shook his head. "Because
you're
one of the people I was sent to look for on my last mission. In fact, the entire Galaxy is looking for you. You, and Princess Xara."

Vanex stared at him for a long moment. He didn't seem too surprised by this news.

"How is it you died?" he asked Bonz

"At the hands of the Solar Guards," Bonz replied simply.

Vanex's jaw dropped. It was as if he'd suddenly woke up from a stupor. "The Solar Guards…
killed
you
?" he asked, astonished.

"Yes."

"But how? And
why
?"

Bonz told him the whole story, starting with his mission to the No-Fly Zone to look for the missing invading ships, and for Xara and Vanex himself, then his finding the forbidden area virtually empty, his landing on Doomsday 212, and his subsequent execution by the SG. He concluded with his account of the battle between the SF and SG that his murder had brought about.

By the end of it, Vanex was shaking his head in disbelief. "The Space Forces and the Solar Guards are actually
fighting
each other?"

"Yes, they are," Bonz replied, wanting more than anything else to get back to his family. "And I would guess that they will go on fighting each other. That's how bad the situation was before I… well, left the scene."

"This is very disturbing," Vanex was saying now, dithering as if he wasn't sure what to do next. "I just went out for a walk, that's all—and I suddenly find you here. And the fact that you arrived at this very spot, after all this time, carrying this news… it must mean something."

Bonz was a bit confused, but then he just shrugged. "Well, it doesn't mean anything to me," he said blithely. "Not anymore—"

Suddenly Vanex began pulling him back down the hill with him. "You must come with me. That's an order."

Bonz was dumbfounded; he resisted the old man.

"Come with you?" he said. "Why? For what?"

"Just do what I say," Vanex demanded. "It's important."

"More important than being reunited with my family?" Bonz demanded to know.

Vanex replied very sternly, "At the moment, yes. I have to say it is."

Bonz finally relented. With his family patiently in tow, he followed Vanex down the hill and up another, much higher one.

On the other side of this rise was a deep valley. It made for a magnificent view. Miles of emerald grass. Brightly colored flowers were in bloom everywhere. Rivers and streams and ponds. A soft wind was blowing above it all. And beyond this valley, over a line of gently rolling hills, was another valley just like it. And beyond that, still another valley—and another, and another. And then came a range of small mountains, and undoubtedly, over them,
more
beautiful places. The scene was so peaceful and serene, it reminded Bonz of the holographic religious cards priests sometimes distributed at space-church services.

Directly below, Bonz could see thousands of men and women, in groups big and small, stretched out in the warm sun, along the banks of a long, winding, gently flowing river. These people appeared totally at peace; they seemed to be radiating happiness.

There was just one thing odd about them. They were all wearing combat uniforms, specifically camouflaged tan with red and black blotches on them.

"
Those
are the people you were really looking for," Vanex told Bonz simply. "The people who invaded the Two Arm."

Bonz needed a moment for this to sink in. Then he just laughed.

"So the SG
was
telling the truth all along," he concluded. "Everyone in the invasion fleet
was
killed—"

But Vanex was shaking his head. "No, my friend, just the opposite, in fact."

"Just the opposite?" Bonz asked. "What do you mean?"

"I must tell you a very deep secret," Vanex replied. "The SG's story
was
a lie.
No one
on the other side has any idea what happened to these people. The Solar Guards saw their ships on their sensor screens one moment, and in the next, they were gone.
That's
what happened. They weren't killed. They are just simply here, like you and me."

"In Heaven?"

"Yes."

"But how?" Bonz asked him. "How can they be here if they aren't dead? As dead as you and I?"

Vanex put his hand on Bonz's shoulder. "My friend, this will be the biggest shock of all," he said slowly. "And I don't expect you to believe it right away… but I'm not dead. Neither are the people you see below."

Bonz just stared back at him. "You're not dead? How can that be? If this really is Heaven, and you're here, then…"

Vanex replied carefully, "I guess you can say I came in through the back door. As did they."

Bonz just laughed again, even though the old guy was beginning to give him the creeps.

"Are you saying the Two Arm invaders are alive and
hiding out here
?"

Vanex nodded.

"Here
…in Heaven
?"

Vanex nodded again.

Bonz was speechless. If he was to believe the Imperial Janitor, then he was dead—and in Paradise.

And the invaders were here also, but they and Vanex were still alive.

It didn't make any sense.

"I know it sounds strange," Vanex went on. "And it is a very long story, but everyone you were looking for is here. These people. Hawk Hunter. Princess Xara. Myself. We simply found a way to get to this place without losing our lives."

"But that's ridiculous!" Bonz erupted. "What you're saying goes against everything in nature… It's impossible to believe you, and I
don't
believe you.
I'm
dead.
You're
dead.
They're
dead. Goodbye!"

He began walking back to his family; they were still all smiles, and lingering nearby.

But Vanex grabbed him by the arm again.

"Let me show you one more thing, then," he told Bonz.

Before waiting for a reply, he tugged Bonz around to the other side of the hill, leaving his family behind. Now they were looking into a different part of the valley. And that's when Bonz got the second shock of his afterlife: hanging about 250 feet above the ground were twelve enormous spaceships. Six antique, chrome-plated cruisers and six Empire cargo 'crashers floating next to a huge assembly of girders and wires. Bonz couldn't believe his eyes. It was the invasion fleet that had disappeared—the mysterious vessels he'd been sent out to the Two Arm to find!