by Mack Maloney
The crew of the bum runner was no pack of angels. It was the nature of their business that they'd all done some dirty dealings in the past.
The majority of them were actually reformed space pirates — well, partially reformed anyway. Much of what they saw among the debris field posed fat targets for plunder. Any prop spikes found still intact aboard the devastated ships would be worth a small fortune alone; there might be other valuable items floating among the flotsam as well.
But the crew would not engage in any looting this time. By a unanimous vote they decided there would be no picking over the disintegrated bones of the weirdly dead. The scene was just too strange.
This time, the vibes told them to just keep on going.
12
Megiddo
The cell door swung open, letting a dim shaft of light invade the tiny jail.
The prisoner was stretched out on his bunk, studying something very intently on the dingy ceiling.
He lowered his eyes to see Joxx standing over him. He was dressed in his most regal white uniform, complete with white cape, ornate battle helmet, and the double lightning bolt symbol of the Solar Guards across his chest. Yet his face was slightly ashen. Two guards were standing right behind him.
"Do you have the right cell, sire?" the prisoner asked. "This place is so dank, perhaps you might try another."
Joxx smiled wanly and took off his hat. With a wave of his hand, the two guards disappeared. He pulled a broken-down hover chair close to the prisoner's bunk and sat down. One snap of his fingers, and a flask of slow-ship wine materialized in his left hand. Another snap, two small goblets were in his right.
He began to fill one for the prisoner, but the man shook his head no.
"An ion mover, refusing a drink?" Joxx asked him. "Is this a historical moment?" oner replied. "If so, that nectar will dull my tongue and make me act like a fool. You might not want to believe anything I have to say."
Joxx just shrugged and handed him the full goblet anyway.
"This is not an interrogation," he said. "Let's just call it a friendly conversation."
The prisoner stared into the mug uncertainly.
"These strange invaders," Joxx began, sounding a bit uncertain as well. "Can you tell me any more about them— about their leadership, for instance?"
The prisoner shrugged. "Well, they are extremely bold— and determined. What more can I say?"
"You were right in one respect," Joxx told him. "They are not the horde everyone was led to expect. They are organized to the point of ritual."
"That they are," the prisoner said. Then he added after a pause, "You've already had an encounter with them?"
Joxx sipped his cup.
"We sent a fleet of reclaimed ships to head them off at Thirty Star Pass," he said, watching carefully for any reaction in the prisoner's face.
"And?"
"We are still waiting for their report."
The prisoner's brow became furrowed. "And you'd like my thoughts on this?"
Joxx began to say something but stopped. He couldn't keep up the facade any longer. Why bother in front of someone who could see things as the ion mover could?
"Actually, the invaders destroyed this fleet we'd cobbled together," he confessed gloomily. "It was a disaster. Ten dozen warships gone…"
The prisoner's mouth fell open. "Ten dozen?"
"The crews were made up entirely of convicted space trash," Joxx confirmed. "Dead men anyway. But still, I expected more of a fight from them."
"My guess is they fought for their lives," the prisoner finally managed to say. "But why are you so surprised? The people who rescued me didn't believe me at first, ei-ther. But in your infinite wisdom, sire, you can see now that I was not exaggerating."
Joxx drank some more wine.
"What do these invaders want?" he asked the prisoner directly. "Can you tell?"
The prisoner leaned back on his bunk. "They want you to come out and fight them," he said. "Not your seconds, not your conscripts. Not your parolees. They want you. Your ship. Your crew. The Empire itself."
He studied his wine mug again.
"Sending out those prisoners was a brilliant concept," he went on. "But, in the end, it actually played right into their hands. At the moment sire, you are the Empire, and now it appears the Empire was afraid to challenge them. They are very resourceful, in all their crudeness. They have probably even landed spies right here in our midst already. If so, they now know that it is the Great Joxx they are facing."
He paused again, but just for a moment.
"They might even start to spread word, based on this latest action, that you, sir, are a… Well, how shall I say it?"
Joxx's face went as white as his cape.
"A coward?" he gasped.
"Your word, sire, not mine," the prisoner replied quickly. "But you know how fast rumors can travel out here."
Joxx was furious. "It was a perfectly acceptable strategy to send that force out and hold my best ship in reserve," he began sputtering in his own defense. "If the irregulars had squashed the invaders as I had hoped, I'd be labeled a genius by now!"
He downed his drink angrily. "But if it is battle that they want with me," he said through gritted teeth, "then I will sail out to them. I will meet their challenge and—!"
"And make war with them on their terms?" the prisoner interrupted him. "On their timetable?"
Joxx stopped his tantrum in a heartbeat.
"Is that what you see, ion mover?"
The prisoner tasted his drink for the first time. 'Truthfully, I see many things, sire…."
"And not just one ending?" Joxx asked hopefully.
The man just sipped his drink again, and said nothing.
"What are you suggesting then?" Joxx asked him.
The prisoner now leaned forward on his bunk.
"It doesn't take a seer now to know these invaders have a great ability to do battle in space. The results from Thirty Star Pass speak for themselves. True?"
Joxx nodded.
"Well," the prisoner went on, "perhaps they aren't as well versed in battle within an atmosphere. In close quarters, without the benefit of their warships flying freely in space. Sure, they've taken over many planets up the Arm. But how many actually had coordinated defenses? How many actually had competent armies? How many actually knew the hammer blow was coming? I will tell you right now: none of them. I saw the battle footage myself. It was impressive by its sheer audacity. But sire, some of those places had no defenders at all!"
Joxx thought a moment. "Are you suggesting we go at it with them near the surface somewhere?"
The prisoner sipped the drink again. "Every adversary has a weakness. If you don't go out to meet them, then they must come here to meet you. At the very least, you can make that a painful experience for them."
"Are you saying that I lure them into an invasion?"
The prisoner just shrugged. "It's been done before," he said.
Joxx thought about this for a long time.
"Through either fate or design, these brilliant misfits have managed to isolate me out here," he finally began again, though he was talking more to himself than to the prisoner. "I have the most powerful warship in the Galaxy, yet we know this is one of their goals. And they are crafty. To capture an Empire Starcrasher, no doubt with the dream of carrying their insurgency through Supertime; I shudder at the repercussions of that! So it is my duty to conjure up another way that protects both my ship and the Empire— at least until help arrives."
"Is this a historical opportunity then?" the prisoner said with a weak grin.
Joxx just nodded, still in his own world. "So it may be," he whispered.
Silence fell again for a very long time. Finally, Joxx turned back to the prisoner.
"Is it true, ion mover?" he asked him softly. "Can you really see into the future?"
The prisoner stared back at Joxx for a moment.
Then he said, "This time, sire, I don't have to."
13
Earth, Atop Special Number One
The message bubbled up at Black Rock just after midnight.
As usual, there were very few people on duty at the massively imposing headquarters of the Solar Guards. Unlike their rivals the Space Forces, whose equally huge but more stylish headquarters (aka "Blue Rock"), could be found at the exact opposite end of the imperial floating city, SG officers out in space were not so fanatical about reporting every little tick and tock back to Earth. Considering the number of shadowy operations the SG was involved in at any given time, the unspoken rule throughout its corps was simple: always, the less said the better.
But this message, sent on a very high priority superstring matrix, was indeed an urgent one. It was from Joxx. He was finally reporting all that had happened to him since reaching the mid-Two Arm. The tidal wave of refugees, the panic on the planets he'd visited, the situation on Me-giddo, the fate of the mercenary fleet he'd conscripted. He also explained why he'd delayed in sending the report, which concluded that intelligence learned from a freelance operative indicated the mysterious raiders — Joxx still avoided using the word invaders—would most likely attack Megiddo within the next forty-eight hours.
The message further reported two actions Joxx was taking. First, he'd begun fortifying Megiddo in depth, requisitioning the needed materials from the local populace (what was left of them) as well as all other sources in the area, meager though they may be.
His second action was to request help be sent immediately. He was asking that the SG dispatch the Rapid Engagement Fleet to relieve his position. He said that with the fortifications he was putting in place, he was confident he would still be in command of the situation "when our glorious relief forces arrive."
He ended with a postscript stating that he would be slightly delayed in entering his wagers for the Earth Race.
It was only by fortune that an SG communication team was awake when the late-night message came in. Recognizing its importance right away, the team immediately deflected the bubble down to the Earth, where it traveled at Super-time speed to a villa located high on an artificial hill overlooking a beach that in very ancient times, was known as Day-toe-nee. This is where Joxx's mother and father lived.
The elder Joxx was awakened when the message interfered with a dream he was having about a strange type of creature that once prowled the waters near his home, eating everything in sight. Joxx Senior woke slowly; he had to twice revisit the message in his head before realizing its implications. His only son was in an unexpectedly dangerous predicament — a disastrous one, perhaps. And though he could see obvious attempts to understate his precarious position, calling for the Rapid Engagement Fleet was not something his son would do lightly.
Joxx Senior sat up in bed, trying not to wake his wife. He felt like a blaster bolt had hit him in the chest. What had started out as something of a whim, little more than an excuse for his son to go skylarking in space, had suddenly turned very serious. He closed his eyes and could hear the waves nosily crashing against the rocky, artificial coastline below.
Not a good omen.
He will miss the Earth Race again this year, the old man thought.
14
As the stars would have it, the Solar Guards' Rapid Engagement Fleet had just crossed over from the Ball to the One Arm when it received the startling message from SG headquarters on Earth.
The communique was terse: The Empire was being invaded by a horde rushing down the Two Arm. Only Joxx the Younger and his starship stood in the way of these invaders and the heavily populated middle of the second swirl. Help was needed on a planet called Megiddo immediately.
Dire though it was, from the Solar Guards' point of view, the timing of this emergency was actually fortuitous. While the REF's main base was located just outside the orbit of Pluto, the thirty-six-ship contingent was rarely moored at its station. They were more likely to be off on secret missions or engaged in deep-space exercises somewhere in the darkest recesses of the Galaxy. In this case, the fleet was just returning from maneuvers on the Six Arm, its ships heading toward Earth, like everyone else, to get nearer to the home planet for the big race.
The top secret message had bubbled into their command vessel, the venerable ThunderVox, just as the fleet had reached the outer edge of the One Arm. Without hesita-tion, the ships turned long to starboard, an enormous maneuver that took all of six seconds to complete, and just like that, they were heading into the Two Arm. Their navigation masters plotted a new course: a tiny system sitting at the far end of the Moraz Star Cloud. Had the fleet left from its base closer to Earth, the trip would have taken nearly four days.
But now, at full cruising power, the three dozen ships could reach Megiddo in less than forty-eight hours.
The fleet's reason for being was evident by its name. If an SG unit got in trouble unexpectedly, the REF was rushed to the scene as a high-speed relief column. Their ships were among the fastest in the Galaxy; their soldiers quite possibly the best in the entire Empire military. They specialized in extracting friendly forces from the most difficult situations. Calling on the REF was the seventy-third-century equivalent to sending in the cavalry.
Each REF ship was a Starcrasher, of course. Two miles long, shaped as a gigantic wedge, and almost always flying in full battle dress, meaning each vessel was ready for deep space and ship-to-ship combat at a moment's notice. They carried hundreds of turrets along their great lengths, each one containing a massive three-tube Z gun. Hundreds of such turrets meant thousands of weapons on each ship. Added together, the three dozen ships packed an enormous punch.
In fleet-to-fleet engagements like the one anticipated now near Megiddo, the REF vessels would employ a darkly simple tactic: They would first spot the slower-moving ion-powered enemy ships from the invisible vantage point of Supertime. Then they would blink into real time, their ships arrayed in line abreast, quickly fire all their available guns, and then blink out again. The fusillade delivered by such a maneuver was so quick and so massive, it was bright enough to be seen millions of miles away. No enemy could escape unscathed from such an unexpected broadside, no matter how many ships they employed. After that, it was just a question of numbers; the SG vessels would repeat the tactic over and over again until the adversary was destroyed.
Each REF vessel also carried on board a division of Star Rangers, the SG's term for special operations troops. These soldiers were the most highly trained, highly motivated special operations troops in the Empire, a place overflowing with special units of all shapes and sizes. Even the rival Space Forces conceded the Star Rangers were better than any group they fielded. In fact, on several embarrassing occasions, the Star Rangers had even been called to aid SF troops who found themselves in trouble.
Strangely, though, the REF did not include a Kaon Bombardment ship in its makeup. The huge time-shifting vessels were usually too slow, too lumbering, and frankly, too complex to add to a rapid-action force. Besides, it was almost a sign of elan among the Star Rangers that they could take care of these brushfires without the advantage of having the battlefield literally frozen in time, allowing them to beam down to the planet in question and slay their enemies at their leisure.
No, the REF Star Rangers preferred to do battle with their enemies in real time.
The second message concerning the surprise invasion arrived aboard the ThunderVox about eight hours after the REF turned toward the Two Arm.
It came from Joxx directly. It was lengthier and went into greater depth about his predicament, especially the failed attempt to stop the enemy with his fleet of conscripted ion-ballast warships. The message also documented specific steps the star hero had taken in the past solar day to fortify his position and blunt the invasion. Clearly, he'd been busy while waiting for help to arrive.
Joxx's first order was to declare martial law over Me-giddo, little more than a formality as 90 percent of the population was already gone. Next, he'd sent his starship troopers out to sei
ze every combat weapon they could find on the tiny planet. Because of the surfeit of pirate groups, outlaws, and criminal families once residing on Megiddo, there was a substantial amount of weaponry to be found, most of it left behind in the huge planetwide bug out.
According to the communique, Joxx's troops had managed to collect a staggering 25,000 weapons, including more than 16,000 half-tube blasters, nearly 8,000 single-tube blasters, and an incredible 252 gigantic Master Blasters. This added up to a formidable arsenal on any battlefield. The half-tube blasters were handheld, one-man weapons; in the ancient days, they were called mortax. They could project a destructo-beam a distance of about twenty miles. A single-tube blaster, sometimes known as a Faster Blaster, could deliver a similar beam up to eighty miles in any direction. They needed at least a two-man crew to operate. Master Blasters were large arrays of Faster Blasters. While their range also topped out at around eighty miles, they could deliver tremendously wide fields of fire, especially at ranges below 40,000 feet.
What Joxx had done with all these weapons was turn the planet Megiddo into a fortress. Yet he'd arranged the blasters in such an ingenious way that he was essentially beckoning the enemy to attack him. A strange tactic, true, but no one questioned its inspiration. For while Joxx was preparing to go toe to toe with the invaders on the ground, with the brilliant defense plan he'd conjured up, there was a chance most of the enemy wouldn't even make it that far.
When this second message arrived aboard the ThunderVox, the rescue fleet was about thirty-nine hours away from Megiddo. But after digesting the report, the REF commander issued an order to his fleet: "Run all vessels at 110 percent power. If this results in a few power-string ruptures, then so be it. Our brother Joxx has marshaled a valiant defense of the Empire. We can't let a hero like that wait any longer than necessary."
Megiddo
Joxx knew about the Siege of Syracuse, the Battle for the Acre, and the encirclement at Bastogne.
