Battle at Zero Point s-4

by Mack Maloney

  All this served to shut a lot of mouths — but still, the question remained.

  What really happened out there?

  Bonz reached the huge SF headquarters and was immediately cleared to go inside.

  The building was lit up as always, each of its many levels glowing brightly. A full shift was on duty within, more than 50,000 people, most of them lording over millions of superfast communications bubbles from which the reports of the nonstop comings and goings of the vast space service gurgled up.

  He rode the air tube up to the ninety-ninth floor, stepping out into a long hallway with very subdued lighting. There was only one doorway here. It was marked Advanced Logistics, but this was just a cover.

  Behind the door lay the main offices of the Space Forces Special Intelligence Service, the unit better known as SF3. It was the Empire's most secret spy agency.

  While SF3 had millions of branches throughout the Empire, this low-key place was the office of the Boss, the man who had summoned Bonz here, the Secretary-in-Charge of all Space Forces military intelligence.

  Bonz cleared the last security beam and went through the door. The office beyond was made entirely of bright super-glass. The view from here was spectacular, despite the dreary weather. He was greeted by a pretty SF aide. She was young and blonde and wearing a tight SF uniform. Nice shape, nice eyes.

  She asked Bonz how his trip up from Earth was; it was a customary question for all those visiting the floating city. He replied it had been fine. She led him down the hallway to an enormous glass room.

  Inside, the Secretary was sitting behind a huge hovering desk, looking blankly out at the gray clouds of the morning.

  "With all the resources those damn weather engineers get," he was mumbling, "you'd think they'd be able to produce a nice day every once in a while."

  The aide announced that Bonz had arrived and then disappeared with a smile. The Secretary spun around and gave Bonz a quick salute. Bonz returned the formality, then stepped forward and they shook hands. The Secretary was nearly fifth century — he was 488 years old, and had spent a huge amount of that time in the service of the Space Forces. He was still a tall man for his age, ruddy face, long white hair, which was the custom of the Space Forces' Old Guard, and wearing a long blue gown. He was highly respected both inside and out of the SF and was one of the few people on Earth who could have the Emperor's ear within a few days' notice.

  He rarely smiled, though. And on this dark day, he seemed particularly glum.

  He motioned for Bonz to sit down and then got right to the point.

  "You've been following this Thirty Star Pass thing, I assume?" he asked.

  "As much as I can," Bonz replied.

  "Well, what are your thoughts on it? Do you believe a battle took place out there?"

  Bonz shrugged. "I hate to take the SG's side — ever. But obviously something must have gone on."

  "Maybe so," the Secretary grumbled. "But you know how they are. If it had been the all-out victory that they've claimed, the SG Central Command would have run its own victory parade up and down these streets for a week. Hell, the Imperial Guards wouldn't have been able to step off the curb without running into them. Yet no such festivity ever took place."

  "A good point, sir—"

  "Glad you think so. Here's another one. No signs of a battle were ever picked up on our superstring net; no disruptions in any of the ultra-radio frequencies near the alleged battle area. No spikes at all on any of our subspace scanner systems. A battle like that would have made a lot of noise. Yet I've seen the readouts myself. They are still top secret, but I can tell you they look like just another normal day on the Two Arm."

  "But as long as the SG sticks to its official version of events, most people have no choice but to believe them," Bonz said.

  "Precisely," the Secretary agreed.

  Bonz leaned forward in his seat. "Has anyone done a sub-atomic particle sweep of the area? If this battle happened as the SG claims, at the very least there should be clouds of stuff floating around out there. Infinitesimally small stuff, certainly, but enough to register on a SAP string. With the right gear in the right place, just about anyone could collect a starton of data."

  "That's a good idea — but there's a problem," the Secretary told him. "Late last night the SG issued another decree. They declared the entire sector off-limits to all space vessels, including many of its own.

  They're calling it a 'No-Fly Zone.' "

  "You've got to be kidding…"

  The Secretary just shook his head. "They drew a box one hundred light-years around the alleged battle zone and are not allowing anyone inside — except for the Rapid Engagement Fleet. We've got reports this morning that the REF is evacuating all inhabited planets inside this zone, moving the people out, sometimes with less than an hour's notice. Now, they've been drastically restricting traffic into the area since whatever the hell happened out there took place. But last night they made it official. No one but them can get in or out."

  "A No-Fly Zone?" Bonz said. "I've never heard of such a thing."

  "Neither had we," the Secretary replied. "I think they just made it up."

  "Well, what's the official reason they are giving for this?"

  The Secretary retrieved a small document by snapping his fingers. "This is from the SG command staff to the Imperial Court, and I quote: 'So that the REF's science ships can better study the aftereffects of the battle against the invaders.' "

  Bonz almost burst out laughing. " Science ships? When the hell did the REF get any science ships?"

  "That's just it," the Secretary said. "They don't have any— and wouldn't know what to do with them if they did. My sources inside the Imperial Court tell me they know this is all just a cover story, and a bad one at that—"

  "A cover story for what, though?"

  "Well, then, that's the question, isn't it?" the Secretary said in a hushed voice. "But between you and me, some people up here think the SG is still trying to find those twelve invasion ships. That they didn't destroy them at all."

  "So they have been lying then," Bonz said.

  The Secretary just shrugged. "If they are, they're playing a very dangerous game. And a desperate one as well. Lying to the Emperor can carry very dire consequences. Plus, it would mean the whereabouts of those twelve ships is still unknown. Thirsty?"

  The Secretary snapped his fingers again, and an instant later they were both holding goblets filled with crystal-H water, the slightly intoxicating drink that was considered acceptable for consumption in the early morning.

  "There's more, if you want to hear it," the Secretary went on after sipping his drink.

  "Absolutely, I do—"

  The Secretary took a moment to activate the room's hum beam. With the push of a floating button, the walls of the office began vibrating ever so slightly. This meant the room was now immune to physical intrusion or eavesdropping.

  "We intercepted some string comms from the SG two days before anything took place out there," the Secretary told Bonz. "Did you know the kid, Joxx the Younger, was responsible for that battle on Megiddo?"

  Bonz shook his head no. Joxx the Younger was an extremely famous, extremely heroic, but extremely arrogant SG space commander. His father, Joxx the Elder, was the Supreme High Commander of the Solar Guards. His mother was sister to the Empress, O'Nay's wife. Therefore, Joxx the Younger was in line to become Emperor some day.

  "What the hell was the kid doing out there?" Bonz asked.

  "The old man sent him out — alone — when the SG got the first reports of large refugee movements," the Secretary replied. "Frankly, no one had any idea what he was getting himself into. He found the situation very chaotic as soon as he hit mid-Two Arm. By the time he reached Megiddo and Thirty Star Pass, it was out of control. Millions of refugees were on the move, and the invaders were just on the other side of the Pass — and were about to hit Megiddo. Joxx scrabbled together some ships, put prisoners on them, and sent them out to meet
the invasion fleet. At the time, he thought the invaders were flying more than a hundred ships… but of course, now we know it was only the original six."

  "How could Little Joxxy make a mistake like that?" Bonz laughed. "I thought he was supposed to be smart."

  "Well, he is, but he ran into someone who was smarter, or at least smart enough to fool him into thinking they had fifteen times as many ships as they actually did. And somehow those six ships were able to destroy Joxx's cobbled fleet. Then, while Joxx wrapped Megiddo in wall-to-wall blasters, expecting the sky to fall in on him, the invaders hit a place called Trans World 800 instead. It's an SG supply dump about ten light-years from Megiddo. That's how they stole the six cargo 'crashers, which, I don't have to remind you, are unarmed but still have the ability to travel in Supertime."

  "No wonder our friends at Black Rock are feeling cranky these days."

  "There's even more," the Secretary said, pouring out another round. "Did you know the Emperor's daughter is missing?"

  " Xara? Missing? Since when?"

  "No one has seen her in more than a month. The Imperial Family has been very low-key about it; they claim she's way the hell out on the Seven Arm, 'visiting relatives.' But we know that's not the case — mostly because they secretly have half the Imperial Guard forces out looking for her. And many of the Earth Guards as well. But what's particularly disturbing is that it adds a whole new twist to this Thirty Star Pass affair."

  "You mean they're connected somehow?"

  The Secretary nodded. "It's being said around the Palace that Xara vanished at the very moment the invaders' fleet disappeared — or close enough to it. Even stranger, Captain Vanex is missing as well."

  "Vanex? The Imperial Janitor? He's seven hundred years old! Certainly no one is thinking Xara ran off with him?"

  The Secretary grinned, another rare occasion. "Well, I haven't heard that particular spin on it yet," he said. "But we do know that they both disappeared at just about the same time."

  Bonz ran a hand through his hair. "This is getting very strange."

  "Well, I'm glad I got your attention," the Secretary said. "Because it gets even stranger."

  He snapped his fingers, and an image materialized in front of them. It was a 3-D portrait of a man in his early thirties, wearing the uniform of the Empire's third major service, the Expeditionary and Exploratory Forces, more readily known as the X-Force. The man was strikingly handsome, with a strong jaw and large, intelligent eyes. He also looked, well, a bit different than a typical citizen of the Galaxy, though just what that difference was could not be easily explained.

  Bonz recognized the man right away. It was Hawk Hunter.

  "He's alive?"

  The Secretary's right eyebrow went up. "We have reports that he just might be…"

  Everyone in the Empire knew about Hawk Hunter. He was what space legends were made of. He'd been found living alone on a desolate planet at the far edge of the Galaxy about two years earlier. His origins were unknown, even to himself. There was one theory that said Hunter was from a different time period, thousands of years before, when a people known as Americans ruled much of Earth and led the first tentative steps into outer space. If so, Hunter would have been the first person to ever show up from the past — or the future, for that matter. At least the first that anyone knew about.

  Whoever he was, and wherever he came from, Hunter was brought to Earth shortly after being found, and with his very bizarre but incredibly fast flying machine, won the illustrious Earth Race — in record time. As a result, he was lavished with riches and praise, given a commission and a ship's command in the Empire's forces.

  Hunter went missing soon after his first mission, however, and it turned out, his disappearance was all part of a scheme he and Princess Xara had cooked up to allow him to search for the remnants of the people he called the "Last Americans." But the rumors had it mat shortly after Hunter went AWOL, he'd been tracked down and killed by an SG hit squad, all this taking place about a year before. Bonz was surprised to hear his name mentioned now.

  "He found his lost relatives," the Secretary explained soberly. "Or so I was told. These Americans?

  They were living on a planet so far off the star roads it isn't even in the Milky Way."

  "Is that possible?" Bonz asked.

  The Secretary's other eyebrow went up. It was the official line of the Fourth Empire that every inhabitable star system existed within the Milky Way, and that none could exist outside of it.

  Furthermore, humans were the only intelligent life-form not just in the Galaxy but in the entire universe.

  Therefore, all life had to exist within the confines of the Galaxy.

  "I was at a cocktail party in the Imperial Palace not long ago," the Secretary went on. "A friend of mine was a bit into the cups and was more talkative than usual — a real departure for him, I might add. In any case — and remember, I'm telling you this thirdhand — this person claimed that Hunter not only located his Last Americans way out there, he also came across evidence that the Earth was stolen from these Americans and the other original peoples who lived here several thousand years ago. He came to believe that this rather sinister aspect of history was woven into the fabric of all four Empires, or at least the Second and the present one."

  Bonz was thankful the hum beam was securely in place. Very little of the history of the empires had survived the handful of Dark Ages that separated the realms. In fact, very little was known about the Galaxy prior to the rise of the Fourth Empire. But still, such talk as this — even in idle conversation — was pure sedition and probably punishable by death.

  The Secretary continued anyway: "And so, the story goes, it was from this knowledge that Hunter and some of his confederates — a pack of old-timers, so I'm told — somehow raised an army, launched the invasion of the Two Arm, defeated Joxx on Megiddo, and then stole the six cargo 'crashers from Trans World 800. It was only that they ran up against the REF and their antistarship weapons that they didn't march right up to the One Arm itself. Had that happened, who knows what could have come next…"

  "Are you telling me the buzz around the Imperial Court is that Hawk Hunter was the leader of the invasion fleet?" Bonz asked incredulously.

  His boss nodded.

  "And that somehow Xara was involved with him?"

  The Secretary nodded again. "We know they've had a liaison in the past. If it's still true today, then the Princess Herself is in league with these invaders. Not something we would normally expect from the daughter of the Emperor."

  Bonz sat back in his chair. "Well, at least the story has a romantic spin to it," he said. "Who told you all this, if you don't mind me asking?"

  The Secretary sat back in his chair as well. "An Imperial Court spy."

  Bonz rolled his eyes. By strict definition, he was a military intelligence officer; he garnered information that might affect the Space Forces in time of war or peace. He was, in fact, a soldier first, a spy second.

  The Imperial Court spies were different. They were civilians, strictly cloak-and-dagger types who were more interested in Palace intrigues than seeking out intelligence that might help the Empire. There was an unknown number of them, but certainly more than a hundred just here on Earth. They could usually be seen in their long capes and floppy black hats, skulking around the floating city's old section, entering or leaving the rambunctious Imperial Court by hidden doors, or deep in hushed conversations with the high court officers in the back rooms of the immense palace.

  "Those guys spin more tales than witches these days," Bonz said.

  The Secretary nodded. "But that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't true."

  They both sipped their drinks in silence.

  "What does Kid Joxx say about all this?" Bonz asked. "After all, he's supposedly in the middle of it."

  The Secretary frowned, the most natural expression for him. "Young Joxx is not talking. In fact, we have information indicating he's been acting rather irrationally sinc
e all this occurred."

  "Irrationally? How?"

  "My source claimed he's been spotted carrying a silver dagger in his belt…"

  Bonz gasped. A silver dagger was supposed to be the traditional weapon for would-be imperial assassins. Why would Joxx be carrying one of those?

  "What's more," the Secretary went on quietly, "my source claims Hunter had actually been captured by the SG at one point in all this. But he went missing again, somehow managing to disappear from his jail cell at the bottom of an SG warship even as it was speeding to an isolated planet where he was due to be executed and buried in an unmarked grave."

  "And Kid Joxx was involved in that?"

  The Secretary drained the last of his drink. "It's a deep secret, but some people think the kid helped Hunter escape just hours before his execution. Just how Joxx aided him, we don't know, though we have one report that the jail cell Hunter was sitting in was at the bottom of Joxx's own ship, the ShadoVox. In any case, Kid Joxx has refused all orders and has dropped completely out of sight."

  Another silence; the rain began beating against the windows again.

  "Well, we are certainly living in interesting times," Bonz finally said. "Though I understand that was meant as a curse, thousands of years ago."

  "You know how superstitious people are across the Empire," the Secretary told him. "Rumors are already rife that things are not right here on Earth, and especially within the Palace. As word travels around about these invaders and Hawk Hunter and the disappearance of Xara, people are going to start asking what it all means. And you know to at least a few hundred billion of our citizens, it will mean nothing less than the first step in the fall of the Empire."

  "Ask anyone down on the street of any planet," Bonz replied soberly. "Chances are they will say that the cracks have been showing for some time now."