by Mack Maloney
He shook off a chill himself.
"But which scenario is true? The angel? The top secret aircraft? The flying disk?" He took a long look around the hollow. "I just don't know," he said.
Joxx suddenly scrambled to his feet.
"I'm hardly a humble person," he told Hunter, "but you've done both a terrible and a wonderful service to me here. My eyes have been opened like never before. Like I never believed they could be. And whatever happens from this point onwards, I guess I owe at least that to you… brother."
Then, very unexpectedly, he shook Hunter's hand. Hunter looked him right in the eye. He seemed sincere.
"Well then, now you know everything I know," Hunter told him. "Except for one last thing."
Flash!
They went forward about an hour.
Suddenly they were in the middle of the stream, standing over the second body. Just like the others, this person seemed quite dead and was wearing a cloth mask over his face. But now, there was a slight glow around him.
The lieutenants were nearby; they had already ordered Hunter and Joxx to dispose of the bodies, and indeed the ring travelers had already deposited the brother who they came to know as Michael into the deep, smelly bog.
They picked up the second rigid body now and, as before, lugged it up the steep rise and out toward the clearing where the great bog lay. But this time, Hunter told Joxx to stop for a moment. Making sure they were out of sight of the lieutenants, they lay the body down on a bed of leaves.
Then Hunter turned to Joxx.
"Your first and last question was this: How can I hold the people of the current Empire responsible for the sins of the past?"
Joxx nodded.
"And you agree that this person here is the youngest brother of the three as we have seen them, the same one who betrayed the 36 Coalition and all the peoples of Earth as well?
Again, Joxx agreed.
Hunter pointed to the man's mask. "Then take that off him, and your question will be answered."
Joxx hesitated a moment. His facial expression seemed to say: Do I really want to know? But finally he did as told. He pulled the mask from the body's face — and let out a cry that was heard all the way back to Kelly's Hollow.
The face was as rigid as the body — a look of uncertainty and fear etched on its features. And he appeared younger and more earthy looking.
But there was no mistaking who this was.
It was O'Nay Himself.
20
Flash!
They were back in the control room of the ShadoVox.
It seemed smoky and wet for some reason. A mist had filled it, too.
When Hunter came to, he was sitting in one of the command chairs, fingers grasping the armrests, eyes facing the access door. The first thing he looked for was the bulb next to the door panel. It was solid yellow and not blinking. This meant the door was still locked and had remained locked in the time he and Joxx had been on the mind ring trip.
Joxx was sitting in the seat opposite him. He looked as if he'd just crawled out of a high-speed space wreck. His uniform, torn and battered before, was now down to the atomic threads and sopping with sweat. He was slumped over in his seat, hands shaking, haircut ruined, his face buried in his chest. He was taking in deep gulps of air and letting them out slowly. Finally, he lifted his head.
"How long," he began gasping. "How long were we gone from this time frame?"
Hunter wasn't sure. That was one thing about mind rings, one could be gone a second, a minute, an hour, a month. Hunter managed to rub his hand across his grimy face. His beard, already coarse and erupting when he started this adventure, seemed just a bit more grown out now. His guess, they'd been gone just a few hours.
But what had happened in that time, back here in the real world?
"At the very least I feel compelled to call a truce," Joxx was beginning to say.
But at that moment, Hunter wasn't listening to him.
Something is wrong here….
He looked back at the access door just a second before the banging began. It grew louder by the instant. Someone on the other side was trying desperately to get in.
The last Hunter had seen of his colleagues, Erx and Berx, Calandrx, Zarex, Klaaz, and Gordon, they'd retreated into the next compartment over in the huge command bubble; this afer Hunter had put the mind ring around Joxx's head. Their job was to watch the door while Hunter brought the SG commander back through the ages. Was this them now? Trying to get back in?
Hunter didn't think so.
A moment later, a combination of ray-gun blasts and sheer muscle power broke the door down. A small army of dark figures flooded into the room.
Hunter just shook his head. He'd been right. They were not UPF soldiers, nor Erx and Berx and the rest of his gang.
They were Solar Guards.
Lots of them.
They took one look at Joxx and let out a great cheer.
"We have rescued our leader!" one man yelled, to the hurrahs of the others. "The Empire is well again! Joxx is alive!"
"What happened to the enemy fleet?" Joxx demanded of them, interrupting their celebration.
The guards hesitated a moment. "The invaders' fleet has been destroyed," one finally said, "and they are all dead."
Before Joxx could say anything else, his soldiers blinked him out to one of the Rapid Engagement Fleet Starcrashers in orbit above the tiny moon, Bad News 666.
Then one of the soldiers pulled out a ray gun, pointed it at Hunter, and pulled the trigger. A quarter-power bolt hit him in the chest, stunning him severely.
"And you?" the soldier growled at him, right up in his face. "You sir, are the only one left of the whole rebellious bunch. But that is something you will not be able to brag about for very much longer! I have already seen the orders for your execution. And from what I hear, you have been guaranteed a very painful way to die."
With that, Hunter was dragged out of the room and down the concourse of the ship by six enormous Star Rangers.
Even though he could barely open his eyes, he thought he could see evidence of a fierce firefight taking place on board the ShadoVox. Some of the walls were perforated with small atomic sparks drilling their way through the bulkheads, the residue of full-power ray-gun blasts. The ceiling was coated with a faint blue powder, the telltale subatomic dust caused by extensive blaster-rifle fire. And the deck was slick with something bright red: Was it blood? Or spilled star juice? Or just ion tea, the crimson liquid that flowed through the transdimensional tubes on every Star-crasher?
Hunter couldn't tell.
The guards dragged him down to the lowest level of the immense ship. He saw more evidence of combat at every turn. Walls scarred by ray-gun and blaster hits, sparks gnawing into everything everywhere. The floor always wet with something red and sticky.
All this time, something inside Hunter's battered head kept telling him, This can't be real. Their quest halted? Everyone dead?
No, not this way.
They reached the bottom of the Starcrasher, the so-called ghetto of the ship. The guards were punching him now, but he could not feel their blows. They reached a heavy steel door. It opened on command to reveal a very dark, very crude cell beyond.
"Welcome to your new home," one of the guards taunted Hunter. "But don't get used to it. You won't be here long."
With that, the guards threw him inside, spat at him, then slammed the door behind them.
Part Four
Only Heaven Awaits
21
It took more than thirty H-bombs before Joxx would admit that he was feeling himself again.
He was aboard a swift scout ship, heading for Earth at full-out Supertime speed. The vessel's medical officer had been checking on him constantly since he'd come aboard twenty-four hours before. Finally, after the 33rd injection of the super-mood elevator nicknamed H-bomb, Joxx admitted that he was coming around.
It was all the physician needed to hear. He could now report back to
Earth that Joxx the Hero was reporting no problems, was breathing, was alive, and hopefully would stay that way, at least while he was under his care.
Joxx was ensconced in the scout ship's VIP compartment, the prime spot right behind the swift little craft's control bubble. Essentially, it was a large, cube with a semicircle of clear superglass serving as its walls and ceiling. As far as the celestial scenery went, it was the best seat in town.
There was a large hovering chair next to the huge window, and it was here that the doctor had found Joxx every time he'd visited the high officer. Joxx was always in the same position, hunched forward, head in his hands, staring out into space. Brooding, was the archaic name for it.
The Solar Guards had been triumphant, the invasion had been halted, and the leader of the short-lived rebellion was in chains back on the ShadoVox. And Joxx himself was safe. That would have seemed enough to brighten the mood of the famous soldier, but as the doctor soon found out, Joxx was having none of it. His melancholy was running three layers deep.
The doctor was certain these doldrums were the result of Joxx's stressful mind trip imposed on him by the rebel leader. Many times with mind trips, it took a while for the effects to fully wear off. But now that the H-bombs were kicking in — or at least Joxx said they were — the doctor was hoping his job was complete.
But as he was making his hasty exit, Joxx swiveled around in his grand chair and gave him one last order: "Send the REF warfare officers in immediately."
Soon six men were gathered around a table that Joxx had made appear next to his grand, swiveling chair.
They were the top combat officers for the Solar Guards' Rapid Engagement Fleet. Joxx had ordered them to accompany him to Earth, not with any promise of commendations on arrival. He wanted to question them during the trip in. The REF's command staff historian was also on hand.
The six men were nervous; you could see it in their eyes. A couple were even trembling. Joxx had requested a briefing on the battle that had finally defeated the rebel fleet. The men came prepared in advance to tell him the story. Or the best story they could put together.
The battle had been fairly quick and very violent, the officers reported. The Rapid Engagement Fleet had fired its antistarship missiles at the six stolen cargo 'crashers, instantly destroying them. Eliminating the original invading ships, the blue and chrome beauties from a thousand years ago, had been a bit more difficult. The enemy had located the ShadoVox on the tiny moon of Bad News 666 just as the REF had located them. The fighting was so intense in the next hour, it even reached the passageways of the ShadoVox itself.
But the cosmos had been on their side, the officers claimed. The tide of battle on the ShadoVox was turned by the quick infusion of Star Rangers popping in all over the grounded Starcrasher and finally retaking the famous ship. Meanwhile, the REF ships had blinked out of Supertime and surrounded the small squadron of invader ships. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Outnumbered six to one, the enemy ships simply disappeared in the combined broadside that came at them from nearly every direction.
"It was a very valiant effort on our part," was how the lead REP officer concluded the report. "We pray we did the Emperor proud."
"And the debris field from all this?" Joxx asked them. "Where is it? Can it still be scanned?"
The officers all glanced at each other uneasily.
"It is so large, sir," the lead officer reported, "our scanners could not register it all on only one pass."
'Too big to scan? I've never heard of such a thing," Joxx challenged them.
The men glanced around nervously again. "Neither had we, sir," one finally answered.
The staff historian spoke up. He told Joxx how the engagement would be remembered. The official spin would be this: While Joxx was battling with the leader of the invasion in another dimension, the REF, under his command and worried for his safety, went beyond the call of duty and annihilated the rebels to the point that not even subatomic dust remained of them.
The historian asked if this version of events met with Joxx's approval. Joxx never replied. He just waved the men out of his quarters.
Then he turned back to the stars, and here he sat for the next twenty-four hours. His thoughts bounced back and forth between the report of the annihilated rebel ships and the cries he'd heard from the two girls back in the way station on Xronis Trey.
Even when he finally dozed off, those cries never left his ears.
Joxx reached Earth the next day. The trip in from the edge of the Two Arm had taken just about forty-eight hours. He landed at Eff-Kay Jack just before sunrise; the huge spaceport was chaotic as usual. He was scheduled to go right to Special Number One and brief the Emperor himself. An air-chevy was waiting nearby, ready to whisk him up to the floating city.
But there were more important things on Joxx's mind at the moment, even more important than making an audience with O'Nay. He'd been brought up to believe that the Empire was good, that it stood for the basics of discovery, knowledge, and culture. For the most part, that's the way it was in the Fourth Empire. It wasn't a democracy. But a realm so great didn't need to be.
But cleansing the Mother Planet? Especially of those who had protected her from certain disaster? If true, this was a historic betrayal — and one still without a proper explanation. This act alone was enough to tear a hole in the perfect tapestry of the Fourth Empire. And he knew it could only get worse. Was it possible that the present Empire not only knew about the Home Planets but was abetting the concentration camp? Someone was still paying the prison guards to watch over the place. Who else could it be? And in a society that prided itself in educating every citizen to the fullest extent, how could such a dark chapter be left out?
These questions and more had haunted Joxx during the flight in. That's why he waved the air car away.
He wasn't going to meet O'Nay, not now, anyway.
There was someone else he wanted to see first.
This was a peaceful place.
The sun was warm, and the land was a pleasing mix of rolling hills, forests, and mountains. A beautiful wooden villa overlooked one of these mountain lakes, which in turn, tumbled right by the front door and cascaded six hundred feet into the bright blue ocean below.
From the villa's back tower, the major city of Poox could be seen even on the darkest of nights. The playing fields of Xomx were to the north; long stretches of pure white beach ran to the south. This shoreline was dotted with resorts, palaces, and casinos; nudism and heavy drinking were the twin rages at these places. An air-chevy could deliver anyone to those hot sands from here in less than a minute.
Joxx knew this well. He'd done just that many times as a boy. The villa was his family's home.
He'd materialized at the front door of his homestead just minutes after landing at Eff-Kay Jack spaceport. There were no servants about the grounds, no guards, either. Only the soft wind blowing and the sound of waves below.
But just as Joxx was about to turn the old-fashioned doorknob to go inside the villa, a chilly presence was suddenly at his shoulder. An ice-cold hand touched his arm. It was a sentinel, one of the ghosts of the sixth dimension. He was standing next to Joxx staring at him. Joxx remained unfazed, though. He knew why this thing was here.
It had been sent out from Special Number One to get him. The sentinels were frequently used to summon people to the Emperor's presence. This one seemed a bit perplexed, though. Thus the ice-cold fingers digging into Joxx's arm.
"Great soldier Joxx," the sentinel began. "Son of Joxx the Elder, I have been sent to remind you that—"
Joxx held up his hand, cutting the apparition off in mid-sentence.
"I don't need you to remind me of anything," Joxx told him.
"But you're expected at an audience in the Imperial Chamber," the spirit said, not missing a beat. "An air car was waiting for you at your arrival point."
Joxx unlocked the icy fingers from his arm.
"I have something else to do," he
said, walking right through the spirit, something that was considered highly impolite. But Joxx was a changed man. He hadn't even combed his hair in days.
The sentinel was dismayed and still somewhat baffled. No one ever responded to a direct call from the Emperor like this before.
"But Commander," he insisted, a hint of emotion echoing in his ethereal voice. "Do you intend to keep the Imperial court waiting?"
"I'll get there eventually," Joxx told the ghost. "Tell O'Nay to keep his pants on."
Joxx floated into the house and found his father right where he knew he would be: in the big room on the top floor, the one that stretched out over the cliff and was made entirely of superglass. Anyone who entered the room got the very real sensation that they were hovering above the sea. His father was standing against the window, staring out at the ocean, a million thoughts running through his head.
Joxx Senior was astonished to see his son. He embraced him long and hard. Tears came to his eyes.
"Your mother will be happy to know of your return," he told Joxx after a perfunctory salute between them. "But I was told that you had an audience with the Emperor as soon as you got back."
"I came here to speak with you first," Joxx replied. "1 have something to tell you."
He sat his father down and then told him everything. From his arrival on Megiddo and his being outwitted— twice — by the invaders to his long, painful mind ring trip with Hunter and everything he'd seen inside it, including the three scenarios in Kelly's Hollow.
Then Joxx looked his father straight in the eye.
