Battle at Zero Point (35 page)

This one went down under a ten-second barrage of his Z guns. Explosion, nuclear cloud, violent singularity, and then a cloud of subatomic dust. But in those precious ten seconds, the convoy and its three remaining antagonists were nearly a light-year away.

It took just an eyeblink for Hunter to catch up with them, but that's when he came upon a truly incredible sight on this long day of incredible sights.

As he came up on the convoy again, the REF ships were repositioning themselves for their one-sided attack. Suddenly, twenty-four distinct Z-beam bolts went right by the convoy and impacted squarely on the trio of REF ships. Three more explosions, three inverted mushroom clouds, three singularities. Three more clouds of dust. The convoy just kept on going; they'd had enough of this sick game.

An instant later, twenty-four streaks of light, traveling at incredible speed, went by Hunter like some kind of titanic solar storm.

But then they slowed down, and Hunter met them seconds later. He clenched his fist in a small triumph. The forces of good needed all the help they could get. And here was more help.

The second wave of United Planets ships, those "aliens" from outside the Galaxy, given a great push by the Great Klaaz, had flown right by the Omega Force and had arrived to join the battle.

Hunter escorted the two dozen gleaming spaceships down through the atmosphere of
Doomsday 212.

He spoke to the fleet's commanders on the way and tried his best to explain the confusing situation below. There were still hundreds of thousands of innocents on the planet unaware that they had a chance to be rescued. At the moment, their safety had to be a top priority. With this knowledge, the Home Planets ships plunged right into the fray. They quickly added their substantial weaponry to protecting the six evacuation zones, helping the Sky Chiefs ward off the slippery REF ships, as well as attacking those REF troops on the ground trying to overrun the rescue sites.

Once the blue and chrome ships were in position, Hunter began climbing back toward orbit. He checked his timepiece. Thirty minutes to go.

Where was Zero Point?

It wasn't a coordinate exactly, so it couldn't be found on any star map. It had no aura. No identifying nebula to mark its location. It was simply a point, floating in space, with absolutely nothing special around it. The only reason the sad world of
Doomsday 212
was even connected to it was that it happened to be the closest planet of any size near the place.

But where was that place now?

The REF knew where it was, of course; not only had they been using it regularly since the start of their galactic wave of terror, they had had a hand in creating it a month before, during the battle that never was. But Hunter and his friends were never too sure of its location. Why? Because everything in space moved. The stars moved around the center of the Galaxy. The Galaxy was speeding through space. The question was, had the location of this portal moved as well?

It was an important thing to know. If the UPF fleet's cross-over was to be successful, the anti-REF forces would have to defend this invisible yet magical place. That meant that Hunter had to do some detective work and find it.

"Quickly…"

Once in orbit, he activated his wide-screen scanner again. It told him that at the moment there were nine REF ships somewhere within a light-year of
Doomsday 212
. Of course, he blinked, and the number bumped up to a dozen, and then just as quickly, it fell back to nine.

That was the trouble with the wide-screen scan. It was good technology, but it was not perfect. While it was able read a wide area and locate subatomic wakes, the telltale sign of Star-crashing space vessels, tüese ships moved so fast, as soon as a blip was found, its owner could be a light-year or more away, in any direction, thirty seconds later. In other words, the wide-screen scan couldn't tell you where an enemy ship was exactly, only where it had been.

But Hunter believed the device could still help him determine where Zero Point was.

He did a smaller scan and saw that two REF ships had been at a location above the planet's north pole just a few minutes before. Their wakes were somewhat stagnant, indicating they were lingering there, possibly coming up with an attack strategy. Hunter plunged through the atmosphere once more, leveling off 1,000 feet directly above the pole. He did another narrow scan and was just able to pick up two subatomic wakes heading in the direction of the original evacuation site several hundred miles away.

These were the same two REF ships he'd detected from orbit. He began following them.

One of the scanner's other talents was its ability to pick up sonic vibrations. Hunter pushed his flight panel to call up this function, and seconds later he heard the noise. It was earsplitting, gut wrenching, and he recognized it immediately. It was the racket made by a Starcrasher at crank, the speed a prop-core ship could fly within the gravitational pull of a planet. It was quick but nowhere near Supertime quick. And these two were making a lot of noise, meaning they were going very, very slow.

Hunter caught up to the Starcrashers just as they reached the edge of the original evacuation site.

They were flying just 500 feet off the ground and moving disturbingly slow, not even 100 miles per hour.

Hunter kept his cool, fighting off the temptation to put a couple Z-beam blasts into them and be done with it. At the moment, though, he was concerned about something other than greasing two more flying devils. Besides, he was hoping his friends on the ground were on their toes.

The first Starcrasher went over the chaotic rescue site and opened up with a fusillade of X-beam fire aimed at the soldiers and robots defending the site perimeter. A pang of horror caught in Hunter's throat.

Again, Starcrashers were designed to fight at very long distances in space, thus their incredibly powerful weapons. To fly so low over a target and use those same weapons on ground targets, at such close range, was almost incomprehensible.

But then something else happened. Not a split second after the Starcrasher had started its incredible gunship run, a storm of blue beams rose to meet it. There was a series of huge explosions, and in the next instant, the Starcrasher was gone.

But those on the ground beneath it were not immolated as they should have been.

Hunter breathed a sigh of relief. The Third Empire soldiers at the rescue site had set up a negative-energy weapon and, like the battle he'd just witnessed in space, they had countered what would have been a devastating pass by the first Star-crasher. By their actions, the Star Legionnaires had saved of thousands of lives on the ground—at least temporarily.

The second Starcrasher roared in, its weapons also blasting away. Again they were countered by the negative-energy weapons on the ground. The second REF streaked off, as unsuccessful as its dastardly comrade. But then the first Star-crasher showed up again, cranking in from another direction, its weapons in full roar. The first attack had been a feint. But somehow the counterweapons crews on the ground were able to wheel around in time to meet this new fusillade head-on. Again, whether it was an adjustment in power or a vagary of the wind, the red Starcrasher's broadside was hit by the counterpunch and turned back on itself, crashing into the nose of the attacking ship. The Starcrasher made a vain attempt to gain altitude, but it was too late. It came down, hard and violently, five miles away, disappearing in a huge nuclear cloud.

The remaining REF ship came back around but obviously, after seeing all this, wanted no further part of the attack. It turned first north, then west, avoiding the evacuation site altogether. Hunter twisted and turned and in seconds was just ten miles behind it. This was just what he wanted. He finally pushed his weapons panel and sent a very long stream of Z beams right into the REF ship's aft section—just nicking it, but on purpose.

Predictably, the REF ship went nose up and began climbing out of the atmosphere.

Hunter stayed right on its tail.

He followed the ship right up through orbit and beyond. The Starcrasher was damaged but not terribly, which had been his intention all along. Where would a damaged REF ship go if not back to its point of origin? He was hoping the wounded vessel would lead him to the spot in space where Zero Point existed.

He'd expected to trail the ship for at least a dozen light-years after leaving
Doomsday 212
, but then came his first surprise. The Starcrasher started slowing down not more than 10,000 miles out from the planet. Sure enough, his wide-screen scanner indicated a lot of subatomic activity in this area of space just in the past hour. Some of these telltale wakes even stopped right in midspace, and now the damaged Starcrasher was moving forward but at a crawl.

What more proof did he need?

He'd found Zero Point.

He checked his timepiece. It was now twenty-two minutes before the UPF crossover. He had to make contact with all his allies back on
Doomsday 212
. His guess was that many REF ships would start congregating in this area very soon. He and his friends had to be ready to do battle with these ships and defeat them before the unsuspecting fleet from Heaven tried to break through. Many refugees had been lifted off the planet below. Many more would eventually be rescued. But as horrible as it was,
Doomsday 212
was just a sideshow now. The
real
battle would have to be fought here.

He closed in on the wounded REF ship. His plan was to shoot it up before it was actually able to escape. That would bring the number of REF ships down to just two dozen or so, manageable as his forces were now almost three times that number. He let go with a Z-beam barrage and…

Flash!

Suddenly Hunter was blinded. His craft was thrown backward at an incredible rate of speed, spinning wildly out of control. He tried reaching out for his control panel, but the
g-
forces were too intense. He couldn't move his hands. He couldn't move his feet. He could barely breathe. He began punching his side panels, those controls closest to him. Auxiliary levers, power boosters, inertia dampeners—but nothing was responding. His craft sounded like it was about to come apart at the seams.

Somehow, he summoned up enough strength to lunge for the power bar. He found it and was just barely able to wrap two fingers around it. He was spinning even faster now and was close to blacking out—for good. He pushed the accelerator forward and clamped his foot on the right rudder, an old pilot's trick. He felt massive resistance, which meant he was nearing a point of gravity. He was finally able to jerk his helmet's visor down, and slowly his vision began to return. The first thing he saw was the scarred hulk of
Doomsday 212
rushing up to meet him.

This was not good. He yanked back on his controller, boosted power even further, and slammed the right rudder down. Three eternally long seconds later, he somehow recovered flight. His ship skipped off the top of the planet's thin atmosphere and soared back into space. He caught his breath and checked his position. The controls said he'd been thrown nearly 10,000 miles in a matter of seconds. That seemed impossible. With shaking hands, he turned back toward Zero Point.

He pushed his accelerator up to ultraoverdrive, but no sooner did the power kick in when…

Flash!

Another massive explosion sent his craft reeling again. This time he began tumbling ass over end. With his visor down, he'd avoided the blindness from the first blast, but it also allowed him to see every light on his control panel blink off— and stay off. Extremely not good. He punched the flight board with his fist, and everything suddenly blinked back on. He pulled back on his power and managed to stop tumbling. Everything started working again a second later.

He breathed a sigh of relief and checked his boards. This time he'd been bounced 5,000 miles backward, again in a matter of seconds. Again, seemingly impossible. It was almost as if something was trying to keep him away from this piece of space—and maybe for good reason.

He turned back toward Zero Point once more, and that's when he saw the most disturbing sight of his life. The fabric of space and time was tearing itself in two, creating a huge, almost bloody gash, exactly where he had determined Zero Point to be. Though it was thousands of miles away, it seemed to be happening not 500 feet off the nose of his craft. Within the schism he saw the deepest red fire imaginable.

Deeper than the color of blood. This was a gush of flames, almost liquid fire, spewing out into space all around it. It was disturbing beyond words. He could feel the heat on his face. It felt as if it was burning right through to his bones. Even worse, he could smell it, impossible as mat might have been. It was in his oxygen system, in his hose, in his mask. The odor was sickening: dead flesh, vomit, putrid smoke, all mixed together. He suddenly felt like he was sucking all these things into his lungs. He began choking, losing his breath. Losing control of his spacecraft again.

He pulled back on his power, but his ship did not respond. He tried to will the illusion of suffocating away, but he couldn't. He was heading right for the schism at very high speed; it was sucking him in. The stench was becoming worse. He nearly ripped the mask from his face—sheer foolishness. But it felt as if Evil itself was entering his body through his lungs.

He closed his eyes, gripped the flight controller, and tried to go first left, then right. But again, the controls would not respond. He started to breathe deeply.
Fight it
. It was too painful.
Don't be fooled
by it
. Several long seconds went by. He pushed the controls again, but once more, nothing happened.

Fight it
. But how? Then it hit him. He thought of Paradise. He thought of the rivers and the lakes and the City of Smiles. He thought of the stars, and the beach, and the clear blue sky. He thought of Xara. It seemed to work. He pushed all the images of what he had just seen out of his head, and he began breathing again, deeply. The stink faded away. His heart settled down. His stomach stopped turning. He pushed his controls to starboard, and this time they went the way he wanted to go.