Point Zero?
God damn, where the hell am I?
He raised himself up on one elbow and tried to get his bearings. He was atop a very steep plateau. It rose above a high, cratered plain that, in turn, topped off the flattened peak of a dark, hideously twisted mountain. Volcano-type ash was falling all around him. Streams of smoke and fire were rising up from below. The crying got louder. All this craziness — hearing it, smelling it, tasting it! He wiped his eyes and thought, This isn't where I went to sleep…
Point Zero..
Zero Point…
He collapsed back down to the hard ground and tried to shut his eyes again. But they refused to close. There was something else he had to see. Even though it was daybreak, billions of stars in grand formations were passing overhead. He could almost reach out and touch them, they seemed so near.
This might be the closest I'll ever get to the stars again, he thought.
Zero Point…
Point Zero…
Why these two words… and not two others?
He couldn't remember the exact moment he went mad. Maybe it was during the battle against the ghostly ships of the Solar Guards' REF, blasting mem as they flew out of a rip in space that led directly to Hell. The real Hell. Or when he found himself tumbling out of control and falling among those same SG Starcrashers, like them, his Flying
Machine's power systems failing because of the Great Flash. Or maybe he cracked his head when he ejected from his stricken vessel, opening his brains and allowing the insanity to seep in. Or maybe it was when he saw his beloved craft going down in flames, lost in the smoke and fog of battle.
Or maybe… maybe it was after he hit the ground that fateful day, nearly smothering in his parachute, when he lay dazed and injured, and of all the things running through his mind, realizing just one thing: that he would never see Xara again, the love of this, his very crazy life. How beautiful was she? Well, how does one describe the indescribable? What words can possibly be used? As soft as the glow from a neutron star? As warm as the colors of a rainbow nebula? As light as the kiss of Venusian rain upon the face? Or the touch of a hand on a dark night? Sweet. Gentle. Erotic. Intelligent. Big eyes, big smile. She was cosmically gorgeous. At least that's how Hunter remembered her now.
He'd played in the fields of Heaven with her no less. The real Heaven, for it existed as surely as Hell did. It was the place where nothing ever went wrong. Where departed souls were happy for eternity. Where love, and peace, and harmony and all that good stuff ruled, and the sky shimmered like jewels. It was also the place Hunter had managed to escape to — only to leave to take on the evil empire once again. And Xara? She had no choice but to stay behind, stranded forever in Paradise, while he went off to fight his impossible war and be the only thing he really knew how to be: a hero. And while he did that almost too well, life for him, without her, had become insanely lonely.
If madness had set in then at that dark moment, knowing he could never be with her in this life again, his condition was surely not helped when he realized all his brave and loyal friends had been so suddenly lost as well. Erx and Berx, the two spacemen who'd first brought him to Earth. Calandrx, the famous warrior-poet. Steve Gordon, courageous CIA agent from Planet America. The Great Klaaz, a man renowned by nearly a quarter of the Galaxy for his heroism. Zarex Red, celestial explorer and freedom fighter. All gone… fallen in battle.
And Pater Tomm, the monk who was as fierce in battle as he was in prayer. He was gone, too. Along with Erx and Berx, Hunter probably missed the holy man most. Tomm had guided Hunter on his journey to the Home Planets, the prison camp in the sky inhabited by the long-lost descendants of Earth. It was for these people — the Last Americans — that Hunter had vowed to topple the Fourth Empire and return the Galaxy to its rightful owners. Indeed, a fleet of ships from the Home Planets had fought in the initial assault on the Empire. Then a second fleet from this lost star system magically appeared during the Battle at Zero Point just in time to help defeat the rampaging REF.
But even this great victory could not replace losing both his love and all his friends.
Point Zero?
Zero Point?
Lolita Island? Is that a clue?
When he looked down at his hands these days, he saw the hands of a madman, bloody and gnarled. His clothes were tattered, his flight boots creased and dirty. The X-Forces cape, once worn so proudly, was now ripped and full of holes after being dragged behind him for so long. His hair, nearly down to his shoulders, was spiked from neglect and abuse; his face was bearded and burned. No longer was he the deep-space hero with the star-idol looks. Just the opposite. Were there any string mirrors around, he would have probably scared himself.
Zero Point?
Point Zero?
Oh God, what do they mean?
Since finding himself stuck in the seventy-third century, he'd acquired a habit of obsessing on whatever strange item bubbled up from his past life. Now it was these two words, spoken two different ways. As inconsequential as they might have seemed, he believed any memory, any reminiscence, any flash of recognition might provide him another clue to his past. And if he was able to figure them out, another little piece of his memory might come back.
But this? This was tough…
Point Zero… Zero Point…
Target Point Zero?
Wait! Maybe it was trying to decipher these two words that had driven him insane. Maybe it was that simple.
But insane he was…
There was no doubt about that.
This planet, Doomsday 212, was once a little bit of Hell itself.
A former ringed gas giant, it had been first terra-formed thousands of years before by the original Ancient Engineers. Made ailing by centuries of neglect and royally cursed by all the terrible things that had happened here, it had been Hunter's mysterious allies from the Seven Arm who'd puffed it again right after the Battle at Zero Point.
The problem was, large parts of the planet did not take to this new terra-forming. Vast stretches of land north of the equator had resisted the fantastic technology that could make a dead planet come alive again. Why? No one knew. Sometimes the presence of an ancient pyramid could affect the terra-forming process. The mysterious, billion-year-old monuments could be found all over the Galaxy, and they were fanatically avoided by just about everyone, so steeped in bad luck they were supposed to be. Perhaps one was buried on the planet somewhere. Or maybe something even stranger was at work here.
Whatever the reason, while two-thirds of Doomsday 212 now flowed with grass and trees and streams and held fresh, clean air above the surface, the remaining third was still haunted ground. Grotesque rock formations, perilous ledges and cliffs, bottomless ravines, mile-high mountains shooting off at nearly impossible angles. Any rivers that ran here now were thick with bloodred hydraulic fluids or even real blood.
And Hunter had been adrift in this nightmarish landscape for what seemed to be an eternity. Not talking to anyone, not seeing another human being. Not knowing what else was happening in the Galaxy.
He was beginning to feel at home.
Lost as he might have seemed, though, this was no idle wandering, this trek he'd undertaken through these forbidding lands. This was a search mission he was on. He'd lost Xara. He'd lost his friends. He'd lost his mind. He only had one thing left that he hadn't lost completely: his Flying Machine.