Mack Maloney
Battle at Zero Point
For those souls lost aboard the shuttle Columbia
Part One
The Battle That Never Was
1
The big air-chevy began its climb up to the floating city, shortly before dawn.
It was a cold, dreary morning. Fog had enshrouded the mile-high aeropolis known as Special Number One, and the rain had started up again. Bad weather was supposed to be a rarity on Earth these days. Its atmospherics were controlled by the Imperial Engineers, and usually they produced only warm and sunny days. Lately, though, it had been little else but dark clouds and heavy showers all around the planet.
The guards at the front gate of Special Number One spotted the air car shortly after it launched. Its dark blue color identified it as belonging to the Space Forces; its muted gold trim indicated it might be attached to one of the SF's intelligence services, though there was no way to know for sure. In any case, the guards had been told it was coming and that whoever was inside had already been cleared to enter the aerial city.
When the air-chevy arrived at the front gate, the guards simply waved it on through. It slowed down, folded in its wings, and began creeping along the winding streets of the enormous sky castle. Special Number One was home for nearly a million people. Ten square miles around, it contained thousands of ornate buildings, both old and new. Multiple spires rose from the clutter of structures at its center; long, sloping passageways crisscrossed these spires like latticework. At night, each of the towers glowed with a different iridescent color. Some of the tallest held zaser beams on their pointed tops. When illuminated, these zasers were so bright, they could be seen out beyond the Solar System.
A labyrinth of very narrow streets surrounded the middle of the city, and it was through these alleys the air car now traveled. Some of the pavements in this, the old section of the aeropolis, were so dated, they were made of cobblestones. Many of these stones had long since worn away, though, and as no one was quite sure just how to make cobblestones anymore, me streets remained cratered and pockmarked.
The air-chevy soon reached a main thoroughfare, and here the roadways became wider and glistening and new. Between each of the soaring buildings along these avenues were small forests of perfectly manicured trees and multicolored tropical gardens, sometimes surrounding shimmering reflecting pools.
Columns of Imperial Guards, wearing vividly colorful uniforms, could always be found marching up and down these middle-city streets, and this morning was no different. Weapons on shoulders, prerecorded martial music blaring, their formations followed each other so closely, they formed one long, endless parade. For many of these soldiers, this spectacle would consume their entire day. The pageantry never stopped up on Special Number One. It got tired, but it never stopped.
The air car passed several small armies of promenading soldiers and soon came in sight of the Imperial Palace itself. It was for the person who lived here that all the pomp and circumstance was about. The palace was the home of the Emperor O'Nay, Supreme Ruler of the Fourth Galactic Empire and the deified head of The Specials, the near-immortal upper class that had ruled the Milky Way for more than 500 years. Aloof to the point of nonexistence, O'Nay was rarely seen, even by members of his immediate family, and almost never heard to speak. Atop the palace was an immense tower, soaring 500 feet above everything else on die floating city, so high, clouds perpetually gathered near its peak. This is where
O'Nay could usually be found, in a small room at the top, gazing out on empty space, apparently thinking his great thoughts as the Galaxy spun around him and his pretty soldiers marched below.
The air-chevy turned right, moving away from the palace and finally settling on the edge of the city's main square. The rain had let up momentarily, and the passenger decided he would walk from here. He stepped out and straightened his uniform; the air car floated away. But then the cold rain began falling again. Bad timing, he thought. He pulled up his collar and started walking.
He was Captain Gym Bonz, Space Forces Intelligence. Six foot even and just 120 years old, he was raggedly built, with a handsome, friendly face broken only by a pair of black, steely eyes and a slightly misshapen nose. No hideously long sideburns or ground-scraping mustaches for him, though these were the fashion of the day. Bonz kept his hair cut cool and his ray-gun juice dry. He moved with the assurance of a veteran military officer. A light greenish aura surrounding him told of many trips taken in space.
Bonz was considered among the best intelligence officers in the Empire; indeed, doing intelligence work had been in his family for thousands of years. But he hadn't always been a spy. He'd started his career as a skyfighter pilot for the Space Navy, seeing his first combat during the Ninth Fringe War back in 7109. After performing well in that conflict — fought against an alliance of space pirates known as the Blackships— he'd moved on to driving Starcrashers, the gigantic aerial battleships flown by the Empire's military forces. In countless actions, mostly out on the Four and Five Arms, his ships were used for both landing troops on enemy-held planets or massive orbital bombardments of the same.
Bonz quickly distinguished himself as a commander of great skill. It took talent wielding a two-mile-long spaceship around in the heat of battle, but Bonz was able to do so with ease. He also became known as a great leader of men. His piloting crew alone numbered more than 1,000, and during a combat invasion, he was responsible for up to 20,000 starship troopers riding back in his holds. He'd received so many citations and combat medals in his time at the helm, he couldn't fit them all on one uniform. In the yearly review of starship officers before the Emperor, Bonz always appeared near the front of the line.
About forty years before, he'd caught the eye of Space Forces Intelligence, and most especially, an ultrasecret unit known as SF3. These deep-space superspies were the elite of the Empire's secret agents.
They were in charge of identifying potential trouble spots out on the Fringe, the catchall name for the wild and chaotic outer-galactic territory that served as the frontier for the realm. SF3 was always on the lookout for high-caliber officers who could think quickly and didn't rattle easily. Bonz fit their bill. They received permission from the Space Navy to recruit him.
Bonz turned them down, though, at least at first. He'd never seen himself as a spook. He preferred direct action against a problem; creeping around the edges just didn't appeal to him. Plus he knew intelligence work would take him away from his family for even longer periods of time than flying monstrous Starcrashers did. It took the most tragic event of his life to change his mind.
He'd moved his family from their home on Saturn's Titan to a military settlement closer to the Fringe called Boomtown 52. Also known as B-52, the three-star system was located at the bottom of the Four Arm, the fourth major spiral of the Milky Way. It was considered a secure place against the hordes of space pirates who were perpetually causing havoc further up the Arm, and Bonz had uprooted his family only so he could be closer to them between missions. It turned out to be a horrible mistake. While on an operation several hundred light-years away, an army of pirates raided B-52, immolating one planet and pillaging the other two. Bonz's beautiful wife and his two young daughters were killed.
That had been thirty-eight years ago. It took him almost ten years to get past the grief. The Space Navy sent him to a desk job close in to The Ball, that being the very peaceful center of the Galaxy. When he emerged from his dark place a decade later, he contacted SF3 to see if they were still interested in him. They were.