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PROLOGUE

Zero Platform One, Earth orbit

Zero Platform One moved on its slow orbit against a background of star-dappled darkness, silent and seemingly dead. The exterior was composed of aluminum and titanium steel, the burnished surface dotted with antennae, signal and scanning dishes, targeting probes. Rings of sensors crisscrossed the platform.

The upper section had a row of observational windows that ran the circumference of the dome. The lower, much larger dome could rotate on an internal rail system and held long-range missiles in multiple banks that jutted from the surface like so many metal blisters. Directly above the missile clusters were laser and particle-beam weapons. On the central ring of the platform sat a series of smaller missile pods. These were for the protection of the platform itself. The pods were linked to some of the sensor arrays, which in turn incorporated long distance radar scanners. Picking up the approach of any object, the platform’s own defense system would analyze and determine any possible threat. Once confirmed, a series of both verbal and electronic warning signals would be transmitted, giving the object ample time to identify itself. If the object ignored the warnings, it would be destroyed without further delay. A correctly received reply would generate an order to retreat. If that was acknowledged and the appropriate action taken the matter would be concluded. If Zero didn’t receive the expected response, it was programmed to take full punitive action. In essence nothing was allowed to get within one-quarter mile of Zero without being challenged.

Although Zero appeared dormant to the casual observer, that was far from reality.

Zero Platform was in a state of hibernation. Within the outer shell the electronic heart of Zero lay in standby mode. Its main functions were in electronic slumber, waiting. But in its half-life Zero carried out useful functions. Its information gathering probes scanned Earth activity. It was locked into a ring of roving satellites, code-named Slingshot, that had a defense capability, but that also fed intelligence data into Zero’s data banks. Sound and vision were picked up on a global scale. Zero assessed, collated and fed the information back to Zero’s collecting station. That was a minor part of Zero’s function, but until the platform was placed on full operational status it was a useful adjunct.

Zero’s potential lay in wait. In the ice-cold emptiness of space, endlessly orbiting Earth, Zero had more to offer than simple eavesdropping. It had the capability to become the U.S.A.’s most potent defensive-offensive weapon. That power would remain dormant until Zero was activated by the one man who would have the platform under his control. Until that time came, Zero would stay silent. Waiting patiently as only a machine could…waiting for its partner…

New Mexico

HE WAS ALONE, hurt, running for his life from an unseen enemy.

Major Doug Buchanan, United States Air Force, was in his early forties, a physically impressive figure in or out of uniform. He wasn’t a man to back away from confrontations, violent or otherwise. He’d flown combat missions in the Gulf War, and had six confirmed kills to his credit. He was a quiet man, proud of his service career and dedicated to his country’s defense.

On this particular night he was running for his life, unsure who the enemy was but knowing full well that if he stayed near the base he was going to die. He had already seen many of his friends and colleagues shot down without hesitation by the strike team that had breached the base perimeter. Whatever their identity, the intruders were well versed in the activities of the project. They had moved swiftly, efficiently, seeking out the main defense points and taking out the armed U.S. Air Force security detachment before moving into the base proper, where they had used autofire and grenades to deal with the base personnel, both civilian and military.

The normally peaceful area had become an inferno of gunfire, detonations and the screams and cries of hurt and dying people. The intruders moved with trained precision from section to section, firing as they went, then set off explosive packs that reduced the base to rubble. Powerful incendiary devices were also used, sending intense fire in among the shattered buildings, where it devoured equipment and any of the people trapped there.

Buchanan had escaped by a simple fluke, physically blown out a window by the force of one of the explosions. He landed in shadow at the base of a wall, stunned but unhurt. He remained on the ground for long seconds, hearing the sound of mayhem all around, and realized that he had a chance to escape if he took it immediately.

He crawled along the dusty ground, moving beneath parked vehicles until he reached the perimeter fence. He dragged himself under the wire, following the natural contours of the ground until he was two hundred yards from the fence, and rolled down the slope of a dry wash, where he lay in the tangled scrub until the sounds of destruction quieted.

When he peered over the lip of the slope, he saw that the base was engulfed by raging fires, minor explosions occasionally sending showers of sparks into the soft dark of the New Mexican night. He could still see the intruders, dark shapes silhouetted against the brighter glare of the flames as they moved back and forth, checking and rechecking, weapons firing when they discovered a survivor.

As Buchanan watched, he heard the sounds of helicopter rotors beating the air. Flame and smoke swirled in the rotor wash as three dark choppers rode the night sky over the base, then settled. They were on the ground only long enough to pick up the attack force, then they lifted off and rose into the darkness, the sound of their engines fading quickly as they angled off across the empty desert terrain.

Buchanan stayed where he was for a while longer, checking in case anyone had been left behind to make a final sweep for survivors. He crouched in the dust, studying the base, his mind trying to make sense of it all. Nothing made any sense. He thought about going to see if any of the base personnel had survived, but he knew the answer. No one could have lived through that attack. It had been too thorough. Too professional. His own survival had been due to pure good luck. His duty now was to inform his superiors back in Washington about what had happened at the base. The only way he could do that was by reaching the nearest highway, flagging down a ride and getting to a secure telephone.

He checked his position by the stars, pushed to his feet and headed cross-country in the direction of the main highway. It lay some ten miles west, and it would take some time to reach it.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was way past the time for his medication, which meant that he was going to start feeling uncomfortable in a while. His exertions would only aggravate the situation, but there was nothing he could do about that. He had to inform Washington. It didn’t matter that he would be in pain. It wouldn’t be the first time. All he knew was that since he had undergone the final implant surgery, he needed his medication to stave off the discomfort and the pain of those damned things inside his body. The implant team back at the base had explained that it would take time for his system to accept the implants, and as long as he continued with his medication it wouldn’t be a problem. Now those people were gone. Dead, and his medication was lost. So he was going to have to keep going under his own steam.

The first real twinges started to make themselves known after the first hour. Deep-seated discomfort that became nagging aches radiated throughout his body. Buchanan kept moving, trying to ignore the sensations that were alien and scary. This was the first time he had really felt the implants. Up until this night the medication had kept the discomfort under control, deadening the feel of implants. It began to feel as if he had living things inside him and they were waking from a long slumber. They made the skin of his arms and hands itch where some of the implants lay just below the surface. It was almost like experiencing tiny electric shocks, and he imagined the implants bursting through his skin and exposing themselves. The thought unsettled him. It was only now, in his current position, that he gave thought to what he had allowed to be done to him. And he had allowed it, volunteered to be the first to undergo the radical surgery that was vital to the project. He had been chosen as much for his service skills as for the inescapable fact that he had advanced cancer. The Air Force doctors had given him no more than eighteen months before the disease took him. They had then given him an option—the Zero Option—a way that he might live longer while still being a useful member of the Air Force. Buchanan had been intrigued, and had asked to know more.

When it had all been explained, they gave him time to digest it all. It meant time alone, sitting in his lounger, staring out the window at the spread of the country beyond his house and letting the information seep slowly into his mind. He went over it again and again, at first finding it almost impossible to believe what he had been told.

Reason had made its plea and Buchanan, never one to deny what was staring him in the face, took the decision that would—if everything worked out according to his briefing—alter his life in a number of ways. Acceptance of the program would deny the cancer its victory, but Buchanan’s existence would take on a new form. True, he would be alive, but he would be bound, both physically and mentally, to the machines that gave him that life. Buchanan chose his path because he wanted to stay alive per se, and he was also curious to experience this radical technology. He was, if nothing else, a romantic in that he viewed the future with open eyes and a willing heart. The thought of space travel and the machines that would take man there fascinated him. And this opportunity he had been presented with would allow him to be one of the first to taste this innovative technology. If it worked for him, it could later be adapted for deep-space exploration. A way of overcoming long-distance travel for future generations.

If it worked.

Buchanan had been given the downside of the project. It wasn’t guaranteed to be one hundred percent infallible. His participation was as a guinea pig. He would be monitored on a 24/7 basis. Every breath, every movement would be recorded, discussed, analyzed, until there was a definitive answer one way or the other. His private life would be near nonexistent, and even when he slept his vital signs would still be monitored. There would be nothing he would say or do that would go unrecorded in some way. There would also be discomfort during the initial stages. It would take time for him to become used to the implants as they slowly integrated with his own system, remaining dormant until the time he took up his position within the project itself and became as one with the machine that would assimilate him.

The concept scared the hell out of Buchanan at first, and he had some sleepless nights. But he was man full of curiosity and he threw himself into the Zero program. As well as his innate need to know more, his being part of the project meant he had little time to dwell on his developing cancer. The mass of information he needed to absorb took over his waking hours. The project medical team also had him on a course of drugs designed to hold back the pain of his disease, so the weeks following his acceptance of the offer were extremely busy ones, allowing no time out for self-pity or periods of reflection on what might have been.

The weeks passed in a blur, leaving Buchanan little time to think about anything else. Much of his waking time was spent with Dr. Saul Kaplan, the man who had both created and helped direct the entire project. Kaplan was a man of many talents, one of them being his ability to be able to both sympathize and to stimulate Buchanan when the strictures of his disease and the effects of the Zero treatment became overwhelming. The two men had become good friends. Buchanan had looked on Kaplan as his mentor, his adviser, and he was both shocked and dismayed when he was informed that Kaplan had withdrawn from the project. Something had made the creator of Zero step back and analyze what he was doing. For whatever personal reasons Kaplan had gone, leaving no indication of where he had gone, or why, or whether he would be back.

Buchanan had felt betrayed. Lost. His only contact with reality had deserted him. He spent a few days in contemplation of his future before his natural optimism returned and he had, for want of no other avenue, thrown himself back into the project. Gradually things had returned to normal, or whatever passed for normal in Doug Buchanan’s new world. With his implant surgery behind him, Buchanan allowed himself to be immersed in the next stage of the project, spending hours connected to the computer database as it filled his head with information and instructions, the neural net inside his body drawing in the streams of data and filing them away for when they would be needed.

And then the attack had come. One quiet night, when even Buchanan was relaxing.

As with most surprise attacks it came suddenly, shockingly, the New Mexico night ripped apart by explosions and autofire. The crackle of guns and the blast of explosions. Now he hoped he could stay alive long enough to alert his superiors.

The temperature had dropped considerably, the desert air chilling him. He tried to keep on the move, knowing that if he stopped too often, for too long, he might not be able to resume his walk. With his medication long overdue, Buchanan’s pain had become extreme. It was, he assumed, like drug withdrawal. His body cried out for relief and he was alternately hot, then cold, his joints aching where the implants were blending with his own living tissue, the neural network beginning its slow, agonizing transformation.

When he checked his watch he saw he had been on the move for three hours. He wasn’t sure just where he was, but after a position check he knew he was walking in the right direction. The highway was dead ahead. It had to be. Doug Buchanan was no beginner when it came to search-and-locate procedures. It was something the Air Force drilled into its pilots from the start of their training. How to walk out of enemy territory with the minimum, or total lack, of any guidance equipment. They learned the location of stars in the night sky, the way to insure they were on course without the aid of a map or compass. So no matter how hurt he might be, as long as Buchanan could use his eyes and determine his position, he would locate the highway.

If he had been in prime physical and mental condition, Buchanan would have heard and seen the old red Dodge truck coming. He had just come across a dusty, tire-marked dirt road, when his dulled senses warned him of danger.

It was a shade too late.

The instincts that had walked him across trackless miles of empty desert failed him at the last moment. Maybe he was tired. Weary from fighting off the effects of the change taking place inside his aching body, he didn’t see the pickup truck. It came barreling out of a dip in the trail, tires throwing up clouds of dust as it crested the rise only yards from him.

The unexpected glare of the headlights engulfed Buchanan, pinning him against the desert backdrop like a butterfly to a collector’s board. He half turned, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes from the light. All he saw was the wall of light, then he picked up the roar of the engine as the driver stood on the brakes. The pickup dipped and rose like a bucking mustang. The rear slid from side to side, then it was on him. Buchanan put out his hands to ward it off, making a desperate lunge to get out of the way. He didn’t make it. The front of the truck caught him a glancing blow, not hard enough to kill him, but forceful enough to lift him off his feet and throw him in the air. He came down on the side of the track, hitting hard, coming to rest against a jutting outcrop.

Stunned, his body in agony, Buchanan picked up the sound of the truck coming to a stop. Doors banged. It seemed a long way off, and then he heard voices. They were faint, and spoke in a language he couldn’t understand. The voices closed in on him. He felt hands touch him. He tried to resist.

And that was all he remembered…