by Mack Maloney
Several tense minutes went by as they tossed everything from the engine compartment on forward.
Finally they returned, carrying only a few bottles of slow-ship wine with them. They'd found them in the galley; it was Bonz's personal supply.
The officer took one bottle, popped its top, and took a sniff. He smiled, displaying a set of gold teeth.
"You have a remarkably good nose for vintage," he told Bonz. "For a space bum, that is—"
"In our best days, we deliver the finest wine around," Bonz replied, seeing an opening for a bribe.
"So, please, consider those a gift."
The officer looked around the dilapidated cabin and shook his head uncertainly. He, too, was dirty and disheveled as were his men. They all seemed as lost as Bonz was pretending to be. Finally the officer nodded to the boarding party. They be-gan blinking out, one by one, Bonz's booze supply going with them.
The officer was the last to go, but before he'd faded out, he halted his transfer for a last question.
"By the way, space bum," he said to Bonz. "Have you en-countered any more of our ships out here?
Vessels belonging to the regular Solar Guards?"
Bonz shook his head. It was an odd question to ask.
"No, we haven't," he replied truthfully. "Not a one."
He might have added that there were plenty outside the star cloud but none so far within it. But of course, he said no more.
A funny look came over the officer's face. "Neither have we," he said, almost to himself.
Now came another awkward silence, as the partially dis-solved officer looked at Bonz, and Bonz looked back at him.
"Very well then," the officer finally said, as he slowly faded away for good. "You must be gone from this area immediately. And take my advice: for your own good, go as fast as that claptrap engine will take you."
3
The planet was called Doomsday 212.
It couldn't have had a better name. It was located about four-fifths of the way up the Moraz Star Cloud, sixty light-years over from Megiddo and Thirty Star Pass, and just ten light-years from the wrecked cargo facility at TW800.
Its sun, Love Field 888, was 175 million miles away and failing, making the planet's days long, and dim. But this was the least of its problems. During the initial expansion to the stars by the First Empire, the so-called Ancient Engineers terra-formed just about every planet in the Milky Way. By puffing even the most despondent rocks floating about, they gave life to the Galaxy. They made billions of gas giants livable, too, usually by draining off the harmful vapors and then terra-forming the solid core beneath.
Many of these old gas-bags were still habitable, despite enduring centuries of neglect as three subsequent empires rose and fell. But then, many were not so hospitable. Doomsday 212 fell into that category.
The millennia had not been kind to the planet, which was about ten times the size of Earth. Most of the breathable atmosphere was gone except for a thin layer very close to the surface. Below this air pocket were the remains of the craggy, disturbing core, a ball whose landscape was pockmarked with millions of meteor-impact craters, weirdly twisting dead river-beds, grotesquely shaped mountains, buttes, and mesas all carved out between miles of bottomless pits and valleys.
It got worse. At one time the planet had boasted a triple set of yellow, red, and green rings. They had been the rage of the star cloud many centuries before. But the only things orbiting the planet now were the angry swarms of rock fragments left over from these rings. Most were about the size of a boulder, but others were much larger. They made life on this bleak world extremely dangerous as they tended to fall through the planet's ultrathin atmosphere with great regularity, coming in at the speed of a small bomb and with enough kinetic force to ruin anyone's day. And those fire rocks remaining in orbit made navigating around the big planet a very dicey operation.
So why did SF3 want Bonz and his robots to come here? Simple. Doomsday 212 was the closest planet to that point in space where both the mysterious battle was supposedly fought and the mysterious invasion fleet supposedly disappeared.
For this spy mission to be a success, this was the only place to be.
It took more than four hours for Bonz and the clankers to maneuver the ship through the storm of orbiting fire rocks in order to get close enough to hand-scan the planet below. Their first priority was to find a safe place to set down.
A sanctuary of sorts was finally located under the face of a large mushroom-shaped butte about ten degrees above the dying planet's equator and on the side approaching morning. They could hide the ship here and hope to avoid any further encounters such as the one with the SG support ship just hours before. It was a wild ride down to the surface, but the ZeroVox landed smoothly enough, considering the terrain was so jagged and rocky. Now they got their first look at the planet from ground level. Bonz had never seen to a place like this. The landscape, so bare and barren. The sky, just brightening in the long dawn, was a palette of many odd colors — from the dim sun, to the leaks of bizarre leftover gases, to the never-ending meteor-like showers. It all combined for a kind of strange beauty, but forbidding as well.
In addition to all of Doomsday 212's bad points, it was also a graveyard planet, a place where old spaceships were crashed, on purpose, at the end of their useful lives. This was a custom throughout the Galaxy. Crashed ships could yield treasures big and small for salvage teams, and this was now the new disguise for the SF3 intelligence crew. It didn't take long for the robots to gather some nearby wreckage and scatter it around the ship and thus turn the spy ship's interior from space truck to typical-looking junker's scow. The dented, greasy controls, the busted seats, the busted windows — it was just another kind of mess, and not that much different from the space-truck mask. Thanks to the holographic barriers, the prop core became disguised again, this time to look, feel, and smell like a burned-out ion-ballast bolt bucket that seemed older than some stars. To make the ruse even more believable, Bonz tweaked the ion drive unit so it would appear to be horribly broken, as if it had been stuck in dead-drive for weeks.
The deception then was complete. Not only were they dirty dregs of the star roads now working salvage on a graveyard planet, they were stranded here as well.
Bonz locked in the ship's new holo-projections and then told the robots to set up the subatomic particle array, which was hidden in the cargo compartment. Nicknamed the Star Sweeper, the device was about six feet across and made of ion-gold. It looked like a huge musical instrument, which in ancient days was called a trumpeta. It was surrounded by a trio of small geodesic domes; they seemed to hover around it but were actually tied together by a network of extremely thin atomic strings.
The Star Sweeper had one very important function: it could detect a wide range of subatomic particles within a radius of one hundred light-years. These quicks, quarks, and snarks could tell many tales. First, because Empire ship propulsion units left subatomics in their wake, the sweeper could monitor the comings and goings of all SG ships inside the No-Fly Zone. Second, because the SG used communications string bubblers, which produced a subatomic particle known as a quick during operation, the Sweeper could eavesdrop on SG messages, too. But for this mission, it had a third most crucial capability: on its most advanced setting, the device could track the last flickers of subatomic decay, from Z-beam weapons residue, to quicks, to Starcrasher wakes, even if the leftover particles had already disappeared into other dimensions. By calculating backward to determine where this residue originated, the sweeper could detect activity from the past, as far back as two or three months under some conditions. In other words, if there had been a fierce battle fought out here between the Rapid Deployment Fleet and the mysterious invaders as the SG claimed, the Sweeper could look back in time and still find evidence of it.
It took about an hour to assemble the device, then the clankers commenced its deployment. A spot had been selected about 250 feet west of the ZeroVox's hiding place. The sweeper
was light enough for two robots to carry. A third danker acted as a guide for the installation, while the fourth stayed on the lookout for any incoming fire rocks. Once the device was in place, Bonz flipped a switch in the control room, and an energy-scrambler bubble encompassed the unit. Essentially, this made the Sweeper invisible, unless someone was standing right next to it. This would also protect it from the ram of fire rocks coming down all over. This done, he switched the device on and ordered it to begin sweeping the No-Fly Zone. All of the relevant information would be dumped into the ZeroVox's tiny onboard bubbler for analysis later.
The installation complete, the clankers quickly returned to the ship, dodging fire rocks as they bounced along. Bonz was still wearing his torn and dirty flight suit. The robots took on their own greasy disguises as well. Then, with little else to do but wait, they set up a diceo board in the crew quarters. A fast and furious game started soon afterward.
Bonz watched the action for a little while but then returned to the control room and stretched out as best he could on his grubby little control seat.
It had been a hectic week.
But so far, so good.
* * *
Three days went by.
The clankers stayed in their quarters and played diceo, going outside to check on the Sweeper unit twice a day. Bonz remained in the control room most of the time, door usually closed, sometimes locked, monitoring the readouts from the surveillance unit and making sure his holographic projections stayed in place.
Time passed slowly. The diceo game proceeded unabated, with huge piles of aluminum coins moving back and forth across the table. Occasionally, the robots would hear voices coming from the control room; voices that did not belong to Bonz. Female voices. Sweet, haunting, and like the clankers themselves, slightly mechanical.
The robots were smart; they knew what was going on when they heard these things. Bonz had activated his family album holo-cube, and they were with him again, in there, moving about, talking, joking, laughing. Re-creating some long-lost time sequence they'd unintentionally acted out nearly a half century before, never realizing that they would be fated to re-create it over and over and over again.
At times like this, the clankers knew enough to leave the boss alone.
On the fourth day, the faraway sun had finally climbed above the horizon. Its pale light made this part of Doomsday 212 look even bleaker, yet more oddly beautiful, too. With the new light though, came a wind that swept across the barren terrain. It was strong enough to make some of the fire rocks fall sideways. A weird, haunting whistle also began to blow through the crags of the overhanging butte.
In the time they'd been here, the Sweeper had picked up absolutely nothing of interest. It had found no indications of subatomic battle debris. It had found no storm of communications chatter associated with huge battles. In fact, the detection monitors hadn't emitted so much as a burp on anything critical.
The numbers didn't lie: no great space battle had been fought anywhere near this part of the star cloud.
At least not the kind of battle the SG claimed.
But the Sweeper had found something even stranger — or, more accurately, didn't find something. In its three days of operation, it had not detected any vessels moving through the forbidden zone. No Empire ships, no ion-ballast vessels. In fact, there was no evidence of SG warships anywhere inside the No-Fly Zone, nor had any been in here recently.
This made no sense. Why would the SG go through the outrageous exercise of declaring the No-Fly Zone so they could study the aftereffects of this supposed great battle, and then not even fly in it themselves? And whereas the SF's information indicated that only the Solar Guards' Rapid Deployment Fleet would be allowed to operate in the forbidden zone, where were they, if they weren't here?
Bonz was baffled by all this, even though the odd remarks by both the SG sentry officer at the Pluto Cloud and the support troops on the culverin now made a little more sense. But it was not up to Bonz to solve the mystery. He was just a spy. His job was to deliver the information safely to someone who could figure out what it all meant. And that's what he was about to do.
The mission was only supposed to last for ninety hours. They finally reached that time mark. The clankers left the ship and began the retrieval of the spy array. Meanwhile, Bonz had begun preliminary procedures for takeoff. He was about to deactivate the Sweeper unit when suddenly, the array lit up like a small sun. Right before his eyes, it began picking up indications on all three sensors.
The sudden burst of activity was startling, to say the least. Bonz shut down the ship's flight systems and began studying the readouts. What he saw first was a huge spike in temperature coming from a point in space just about in the center of the No-Fly Zone. In fact, this spike registered nearly a billion degrees — but only for a fraction of a microsecond. Then came a deluge of subatomic activity. Quarks, quicks, quirks, and about a dozen others, all signatures associated with SG Star-crashers, as many as thirty or more. But these were not the ghostly songs of some phantom battle — they were too acute, too close for that. Nor were they from weapons discharges. The indications were coming from prop-core activity, and they were growing in volume and intensity by the second.
In other words, no less than an entire SG fleet was coming their way.
Not a minute later, thirty-six Solar Guards warships appeared in orbit above Doomsday 212. Ten seconds after that, two of them were hovering right over the crying butte. Bonz found himself staring up at the pair of flying monsters through the bubble-top canopy. They were Starcrashers, unmistakable in size and shape. And they were, no doubt, part of the SG's Rapid Engagement Fleet. Their hull numbers identified them as being attached to the special operations force which had been involved in the battle that never was.
But there was something very odd about these ships. Unlike most other SG war vessels, which were usually bright white, these ships were fiery red in color.
They were down to the surface before the clankers could completely disassemble the Sweeper, so the robots used then-heads and destroyed the spy array instead. But even before the resulting dust was blowing away, the SG ships were dispensing troops in armed shuttlecraft. These soldiers were wearing red uniforms as well… very peculiar. In seconds, a small army of SG troops was charging toward the butte and the small spy ship hidden beneath.
Bonz stayed cool. This was a problem, but not an unfamiliar situation for him. Deep down, even in the worst-case scenario, he knew it would be OK for one simple reason. He was a member of the Empire's military; these troops so madly rushing toward him were as well. In effect, they were his own. blood.
Brothers in arms. Rivals, yes. Antagonists, certainly.
But not deadly enemies.
Bonz came out of the control room, still in the greasiest, most worn, most disgusting uniform imaginable. The interior of the ship was just as shabby now, and smelled the same. The clankers hustled back to the engine room to begin their parody of trying to fix the ion drive. Smoke was filtered through the environmental systems, further stinking up the joint. By the time the SG soldiers began pounding on the main hatch, the ship looked like it had been banging around the Galaxy for a half-dozen centuries.
Bonz opened the hatch. A squad of Solar Guards stormed in. They were gigantic, much larger in height and girth than any SG trooper Bonz had come across. They were heavily armed and were wearing shiny combat uniforms and helmets with visors that covered their faces — and again, not the usual color of black, but bright red. A chill went through the hold.
"Who is in command here?" one of the soldiers barked. His voice sounded very strange, mechanical but also gurgling.
Bonz responded, "I am — and I want to thank you for rescuing us—"
The words were barely out of his mouth when one soldier grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and literally threw him out the open hatch. Bonz hit the ground hard, scraping his hands and face. He was instantly furious but remained calm. He tried to get to his feet onl
y to have a boot land on his neck. He went down again, this time on his face. The ground felt like glass, cutting into his body right through his dirty uniform.
He heard four more bodies hit the ground with one massive clank. His robot crew had been forced facedown, just as he was.
It was time to start complaining.
"We are a salvage crew!" Bonz yelled through the gravel in his teeth. "We've been stuck here for six weeks! Why are our rescuers treating us like this? We are citizens of the Empire. We have our rights!"
There came no reply. Just the cry of wind screaming across the butte. Bonz could see more troops barging their way onto his ship. He prayed that the holo-disguises would hold. As before, he was certain the SG would not start probing too deeply. Everything within the ship had been made to look so gross, he couldn't imagine elite troops like the REF wanting to get their hands dirty for no good reason.
"You are in a forbidden zone," a voice above him suddenly growled. "The punishment for this be death."
"But we were stranded here," Bonz said again. "We didn't know anything about a forbidden zone."
"Words can only hurt you now!" the man with the boot on his back screamed at him. The voice was pure evil.
Bonz raised his intensity level. "Look at us!" he cried.
"What trouble could we cause you? We're just trying to squeeze a few coins out of the wreckage here. It is our honor to be rescued by the likes of you—"
Bonz thought he detected a whiff of relenting in the air.
"We just need a boost in our power pack," he went on. "Just a boost, and we will clear out of the Two Arm and never come back forever!"
Suddenly another voice was in his ear. "You are a grub crew?" This voice asked in a curious, angry whisper.
"Yes, true…" Bonz stuttered in reply.
"And you had no idea that you are within a forbidden zone?"
"No, none at all."
"And you swear you are not military — that you were not sent out here to spy on us?"