Starhawk (21 page)

But then another strange thing happened. As Joxx stood over his control board, angry and baffled by what was going on, he happened to look up and out the needle's window. A ball of red light was coming at him at incredibly high speed, not from high in the atmosphere but directly across the Sea of Green.

Before Joxx's eyes could adequately tell his brain that something else had been added to the confusion, the ball of fire went right by the Needle, leaving behind a hypersonic boom that rocked the enormously tall structure to its foundations. Joxx was thrown to the floor, his head smashing into one of the viz screen monitors on the way down. He regained his feet, only to be slammed against the control board again.

The sky needle began swaying wildly and did not stop for ten long, frightening seconds. Then, no sooner had Joxx managed to finally get to his feet, when the fireball streaked by once again. It was going so fast now, it was just a blur.

"
What the hell is that
?" Joxx heard himself cry.

It was onto one of the largest blaster sites outside Needle City that this mysterious rain first touched down.

It was near a place called Pooks, on the other side of the world from Needle and just below the equator. The Anti-Aircraft battery was located at the peak of a 7,500-foot plateau known simply as the Rise. It was one of the highest elevations left on the dried-out former gas giant. That's why the strange deluge hit there first.

There was a massive number of gun emplacements atop the Rise, the largest collection by far in Megiddo's southern hemisphere. Joxx had seen fit to install no less than twenty Master Blasters on the Rise to be complemented by several hundred Faster Blasters and almost two thousand half-tube blasters, all of which had been aligned on long pickets of reionized steel.

These batteries had spotted the rain of strange objects at the same time as Joxx and everyone up north. It was just seconds later that the interconnected firing command went out. All of the long-range destructo-ray tubes on the Rise focused on one huge quadrant in the sky, some eighty miles up, and started blasting away.

But just as the other batteries had, they saw the swarm of bright streaks passing through this first fusillade with some ease, falling swiftly through the atmosphere at high speed and heading right for them. The second fusillade went out just a few moments later. Again, with barrels readjusted and bearings reset, the sky lit up like day from the combined barrage. But still the streaks of light kept falling through what would have seemed to be an impenetrable barrier of blaster power.

And now these things, whatever they were, had passed below 60,000 feet and were coming on fast. The commander of the batteries on top of the Rise quickly realized that as brilliant as Joxx's anti-aircraft system might have been, it was clear that there were so many of these falling objects and therefore so many possible targets, it was overloading the planetwide system on a massive scale, throwing it in pandemonium. It was also clear by now that these things weren't invasion shuttles. They were much smaller and moving way too quickly.

So the base commander yanked his system off-line and ordered the third barrage be fired manually, this one en-gaging the array of Master Blasters he had at his disposal. The fusillade was so powerful, the heat immediately ignited hundreds of fires in the thick jungles surrounding the installation. The Master Blasters were sending up rivers of highly charged electrical bolts; indeed, the whole sky was covered with them. Still, the majority of mysterious objects made it through all this as well. The weapons operators on the ground—condemned inmates all of them—just couldn't believe what they were seeing. How could anything get through such a thick curtain of death rays?

For many, those were the last thoughts they ever had.

The mystery objects came crashing down on them just ten seconds later.

Some of those on hand at first believed the objects were meteorites, as improbable as that might be.

They came down at incredibly high speed, trailing long red and green tails that exploded in a shower of deadly sparks whenever they hit. And they hit hard. The kinetic energy of these things was tremendous. All kinds of structures around the plateau base—towers, bunkers, vehicles, as well as the ring of blaster emplacements themselves— began to disappear in a cloud of dust and rock as the mysterious missiles came down. Most of the base was destroyed in seconds.

Those inmates caught out in the open never knew what hit them. Hundreds of direct hits resulted in quick explosions of bloody fog, then little else. Those under cover were astonished by what they saw next. Through the smoke and gristle, they realized that these things weren't missiles or meteorites or some kind of radically new bombardment weapon.

They were robots.

In the next minute, thousands of huge red and black battle robots rained down upon the hapless defenders at the Rise. In a way, the robots were like bombardment weapons as just one hitting the ground could cause massive amounts of damage.

But this was not the most astounding feature of the bi-zarre aerial attack. As the stunned defenders watched each robot annihilate itself on impact, the hundreds of its broken pieces would lie still on the ground for only a few moments before, like magic, they started converging on themselves. Even the pieces of debris following the blaster hits high up in the sky were coalescing once they came down. Gathering together in what seemed a defiance of all nature, the torn and shredded robot segments started a slow but steady process of reassembly.

Incredibly, in just a matter of seconds, a robot would rebuild itself, arms, legs, torso, and head all connecting together with a series of clicks and clacks. Then, with a flash of power from God knows where, the robot would suddenly surge back to life, rising to its full height of nine feet tall.

At that point, little rocket engines in the soles of its boots would ignite, and the robot would lift off again, quickly disappearing high into the night sky from whence it came.

It was like this all around the planet.

Reports from every weapons post echoed the confusion being caused by the incomprehensible robot-fall.

There was chaos inside the large room atop the sky needle tower as well. The interconnected anti-aircraft system had quickly overloaded, had tried to recover, only to overload again. It finally crashed for good. The shutdown was so intense, the control panel in front of Joxx exploded, covering him in a storm of sparks, singeing his hair, his face, his hands. Partially blinded, he snapped his fingers, and a sea of deatomizing foam appeared, emptying on top of the control panel, dissolving it, viz screens and all.

Joxx recovered quickly and immediately began to recreate a new firing system with his electron torch. All the while, he was yelling commands to his army of technicians, who were trying their best to follow his wishes while at the same time stumbling around in the top floor of the tower, as the structure continued to sway even more violently.

Joxx was about halfway to building a new, temporary firing system when another piece of the sky fell on his head.

It came in the guise of an old-style viz screen that suddenly popped into view right in front of him. After a burst of static, Joxx found himself looking at the very worried face of the man he recognized as commander of the SG supply base over on TransWorld 800.

The man could barely speak. In the background, a small war was going on.

"They're here!" the officer finally screamed.

"Who is?" Joxx roared back at him.

"The invaders!" the man cried, ducking under his console as a huge explosion went off just outside his bunker. "They hit here instead! And they are stealing all of our cargo 'crashers!"

A wave of bewilderment ripped through the needle-top room. Everyone in the embattled headquarters turned to look at Joxx. The SG officer was standing perfectly still, staring back at the viz screen showing the events on Trans World 800, absolute astonishment on his face.

"They attacked...
TransWorld
?" he was finally able to stammer. "
How
?"

Another huge explosion rocked the tower. Robots continued falling on the city below.

"They were just suddenly here!" the man was yelling back at Joxx. "They blinked in, and the next thing we knew, their troops were swarming all over us!"

"How many ships do they have?" Joxx screamed back at the man. This made no sense. "How many dozens?"

The TW800 officer's face screwed up in confusion.

"Sir, we only saw six ships," he said. "And about a division of troops in all..."

That's when everything just stopped.

"Just six ships?" Joxx mumbled. "Just one division of troops?"

"Yes, sir," came the troubled reply. "Plus some kind of a secret weapon that can—"

Then the transmission went dead.

Joxx became immobile. He literally couldn't move. He could barely breathe.
Six ships
? How could that be? Why would the enemy attack anything with only six ships? Where was the rest of the invaders' hundred-ship fleet, its two million soldiers?

Unless... Unless they never existed in the first place.

That's when Joxx pulled out his electric sword. It was suddenly very clear to him what had happened here. He'd been fooled. Misled.
Misdirected
about everything.

By one man. The ion mover.

That bastard...

Joxx streaked out of the room and disappeared down the transport tube, falling the three miles in just a matter of seconds.

He emerged from the bottom door and charged down the dark corridor, his hair ragged and flowing, his eyes absolutely mad.

All guards had long since abandoned this dungeon. No matter to Joxx. He reached the cell door and sliced it in two with one stroke of the glowing sword. He stepped inside, ready to do the same thing to the ion mover.

But he stopped in his tracks. The cell was empty.

The ion mover nowhere to be seen.

Outside, the fireball streaked by again.

A moment later, the swaying three-mile-high tower at Needle City began to collapse.

16

Earth, Special Number One

Princess Xara awoke with a start.

It was not a dream that roused her; she rarely had dreams anymore. Someone was pounding on her bedroom door. This was unusual. No one ever
knocked
around the Palace. There really was no need to.

The noise had startled her awake, but she recovered quickly. She pictured the door's lock in her mind and whispered the word, "Open." The latch snapped free. That's all it took. The big door swung wide to reveal a pair of enormous Palace Guards standing in the dark hallway. They looked very uncomfortable.

"Deepest pardons, my princess," one said with a deep bow. "But this person insisted that he speak with you immediately."

A man in a black cape and floppy black hat glided into place between the two guards. His clothes were soaking wet. Xara sniffed the air and detected the telltale sign of damp velveeta. From this, she knew the man was a spy.

The guards vanished. Xara waved the man in.

She had seen him before, lurking on the periphery of the Imperial Court, usually slipping in or out by a side door. He was a close confidant of her mother. But Xara had never had a conversation with him, and she don't know his name.

Why did her want to see her?

He, too, bowed deeply. "A million apologies, my princess. But I thought this was so urgent—and the news I bear so critical—rash methods had to be employed."

Xara slipped off her hovering bed and ordered it into the sixth dimension. It disappeared in an instant. Her room was plain, with lots of ancient woodwork, just a few chairs, and a small couch. An open window just above her bed place revealed a small slice of the morning sky above Special Number One. It was just a few minutes before sunrise. A slight mist had engulfed the floating city.

Xara was wearing her summer nightgown, a short, white, frilly piece of cloth. Her hair was let down, a beautiful rarity. She was barefoot.

Spies excelled at being inconspicuous: the art of knowing when not to stare. This spy was one of the most highly regarded in the entire Galaxy, and yet even he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She was light-years ahead of the other beautiful yet ordinary Specials. And she had what most of them didn't: a certain sweetness. It was in her eyes, in her smile. It made her all that more enticing.

The spy had to shake his head to clear away such thoughts. Xara could read minds. He didn't want to be caught thinking such lecherous things.

She moved over to the couch and sat down.

"Well? What is it?" she asked him simply.

He took several steps forward and stopped about five feet in front of her. The large oak door closed behind him.

"My lady, some startling news from the Fringe," he began. "Here on Earth, this information is known only by a few—at least for the moment. May I count on your confidence?"

She nodded. "Yes, of course."

He lowered his voice. He knew most rooms in the Palace were bugged.

"You are aware of the troubles out on the Two Arm?" he asked her.

She nodded again. Mysterious soldiers were coming down the second swirl, catching the Empire by surprise amid the Earth Race celebrations. Her cousin Joxx had or-ganized the defense of a very strategic planet. A rescue force was on the way.

The spy took a deep, troubled breath. "My lady, the defense of the planet Megiddo did not go well. Your cousin Joxx is dead. The invaders have not been stopped."

Xara began to say something, but the spy just kept on talking. "Even worse, the invaders attacked a cargo station about forty light-years from Megiddo—a complete surprise. They stole six cargo 'crasher spaceships. Now, those 'crashers are not armed at all. In fact, they are simply huge enclosed cargo bays with a prop core on the back and a cockpit up front. However they can travel in Supertime. And there are indications the invaders will arm them and use them in an unconventional manner. It is clear now that capturing these ships had been the invaders' intention all along."