Starhawk (18 page)

Irregular Space Wing #1 arrived above Needle City at dawn the next day.

Joxx gave a brief speech, this time broadcast directly through the ships' intercom systems. By Joxx's estimate, the invaders' ships would be heading down Thirty Star Pass within hours. The orders to the new space wing then were simple: You have the advantage in numbers. Lay in wait within the Pass, spot the enemy first, and then fire on him immediately. One hundred twenty ships launching all their weapons at once would create a wall of fire that no fleet could get through. The odds of victory would be overwhelmingly in their favor.

Standing in the huge window atop the big needle, Joxx dramatically saluted each starship as it floated by. Once past his imperial review, the ships formed into ten squadrons of twelve and ascended into the thin clouds. There came a burst of enthusiastic communications between the ships and Joxx's new command center, formerly Sheez's lofty suite. Martial music and preimplanted thought-drop messages with Joxx offering encouragement popped into the minds of the wing's crewmen.

Only freedom awaited them once the fleet defeated the marauders, Joxx said in whispers that would follow the crewmen up to space. Indeed, his voice would be in their heads for the entire voyage. By midmorning, the fleet hi left orbit and was on its way to Thirty Star Pass.

The
ShadoVox's
official historian would later descril their departure as being "a proper send-off."

11

The vessel
Saint Double-X Valdez
was known as a bum runner.

It was considered a starship, but just barely. It hauled cargo that few other craft on the Two Arm would carry. Used weapons, escaped criminals, the illegal drug known as jam, just about anything that wasn't ion waste. Its crew was just one step up from being escaped criminals themselves. The captain never distributed their pay without a loaded ray gun at his side. During sleep periods, he sealed his cabin with no less than six atomic locks. The other crew members did as well.

The
SDXV
was about a quarter mile long, wedge-shape, and rusting heavily at the seams. It carried no weapons. In centuries past, it had relied on its small size and quick speed to get out of any tight spots. But it had slowed down considerably over the last hundred years—and this was not good, because the
SDXV
was in a very tight spot now.

Its crew had found themselves on the tail end of the massive bug-out from the upper half of the mid-Two Arm, A bad propulsion spike had grounded them on a hellhole of a planet called Thumbs for nearly two weeks. It seemed more like two years. The bum runner's crew of six could only watch as the mad dash of starships and refugees passed overhead. Long streaks of lights, tearing across the sky, night and day, clogging up the well-worn star lanes. From the ground up, the exodus looked nonstop.

The reason for the rout, of course, was the rumor that mad invaders were charging headfirst down the Two Arm.

They were supermen. They were cannibals. They were unstoppable and burning through anything that stood in their way. The
SDXV
was running empty, there was nothing aboard her that anyone would want. Still, from what the crew had heard about the marauders, they knew they would be shown no mercy. These invading monsters were both powerful and devious.

They could sneak up on a starship and blast it to dust in a fraction of a second. They could invade and plunder a planet in less than a solar day. They had left so much destruction in their wake, if one looked hard enough into the ragged star clouds that made up the upper Two Arm, it seemed like that part of the sky was on fire.

'They're coming on fast," the bum runner's crew had heard the refugees say. "If you want proof, just look up in the sky."

The runner crew had finally replicated a workable prop-spike, and the vessel got spaceborne again.

The problem was, they'd wasted so much time on Thumbs, the invaders were now right on their tails. They'd hit Thumbs just two days after the
SDXV
left—along with another hundred or so starships in the area, at least according to all the local jabber on the overcrowded ultrasonic radio waves. The captain of the
SDXV
had run the ship full throttle since leaving Thumbs, yet by his calculations, the spearhead of the invasion force was so close behind, they would overtake them in less than a day's time.

Then, about fifteen hours out of Thumbs, the invaders' advance column showed up one thousand miles off the bum runner's port bow. And it was true, what everyone said. The invaders never appeared on the runner's rear scanners. The mystery fleet had somehow come from an entirely different direction and were just suddenly ...
there
.

The bum runner's crew said a quick good-bye prayer together, and then each man found his own little space and just hung on, waiting to be blasted to subatomic powder at any moment.

But that didn't happen. Instead, the invaders went right by them, just like they were standing still. Flying in very close formation, their numbers impossible to count, they were going as fast as prop-core ion-ballast vessels could go. The invaders' ships left such a storm of turbulence in their wake, the
SDXV
was tossed around for several long, heart-stopping moments. It was all the crew could do to keep the ship in one piece.

The invaders were out of sight in an instant, roaring down the star lane toward a place the runner's crew knew led into Thirty Star Pass.

The runner's crew still had a big problem. They were behind the invaders now, and there was no guarantee they'd be spared a second time if they met up with them again. Yet they didn't have enough fuel to take any other course than straight down the pike, through Thirty Star Pass. The bum runner would have to proceed very cautiously.

About two hours later, the
SDXV
was shaken by a fierce ultrasonic radio storm. It skewed every piece of electronics aboard the vessel to within a hair's breath of inoperation. The interference was all around them, hitting them in endless waves. Space was suddenly thick with ion rays, string ruptures, and subatomic thunder.

All indications were that a massive space battle was taking place close by, most likely somewhere up ahead.

Another two hours passed.

Finally the
SDXV
reached the upper approaches to Thirty Star Pass. Most of the ship's electronics had blinked back on by now. But the ship's comm room and its scanner screens were deathly quiet.

The ship entered the pass, and that's where they discovered the reason for the silence. A space battle
had
been fought here—a huge one. The debris stretched for hundreds of miles in all directions. The runner crew counted dozens of burning starships, some still green from the afterglow of a direct Z-gun blast. The runner pilots had to use all of their accumulated know-how to carve a path through the debris field. It had come on them so quickly, they were in it before they'd had any chance to avoid it.

The crew stared out their arched portholes, astonished at the destruction floating all around them. Whatever happened here had happened very quickly. And no doubt, the invaders' fleet had been one of the combatants. Yet the
SDXV's
quadtrols could not detect one atom of debris that belonged to the ships that had streamed by them two hours before.

There was only one conclusion then: This had not only been a huge battle; it had been a very one-sided affair as well.

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!"