Starhawk (24 page)

Joxx was surprised to find no evidence of the space trucks his men had been flying in the last hours before the battle. An area close to the Needle down by the beach had been blasted out for the heavy-duty spacecraft to land, delivering the equipment from TW800. But there was no sign of them there now. No intact trucks, no wreckage either.

This meant only one thing: Joxx's men had quit the battlefield without him.

No search. No rescue effort.

They had left him behind for dead.

Of all the indignation he'd suffered during this endless day, that one cut the deepest.

Joxx was a Special, but he wasn't real good at what he was about to do. This would not deter him, though. He was so angry, so intense at the moment, he felt he could do this on willpower alone, and not necessarily by invoking some old trick known only to the Specials.

He stood at the peak of the highest twisted piece of what had been the sky needle and gazed hard at the rising moon. He suppressed a strange desire to begin howling at it. The last of the rain clouds were booming over the sea to the east. A bolt of lightning lit up the dismal scene for just a moment.

This enemy was good, Joxx thought. The strange invaders had bested him here, handing him the first two defeats in his career.

But they had made one big mistake: They'd left him alive.

And now, he was about to make them pay.

He snapped his fingers, and an instant later, he was sitting in the control room aboard the
ShadoVox
.

It smelled musty and was damp inside, but this did not bother him.

He sucked in a mouthful of air and let it out slowly. Outside the nearest porthole, he could see a set of craggy, lifeless mountains; through a portal next to it, the edge of the huge, deep crater in which Joxx had hidden his extraordinary warship. To its left, through the control room's arched superglass window, he could see, drifting in space

100,000 miles away, the still-burning planet of Megiddo.

Straight ahead, not five miles away, was the southern base of an ancient pyramid.

So, this was his ace in the hole. The secret known only to him. And he was very proud of it.

Joxx had hidden his ship in a place that no one in their right mind would come looking for it: on Megiddo's tiny moon, the appropriately named, Bad Luck 666.

As soon as he drew in that first mouthful of dank air, he felt his body and spirit start to revive.

This ship, this enormous instrument of war and incredible power, was his. It belonged to him. He knew it, and it knew him. He could fly it by himself. He could fire its weapons, he could run its sensors. It was mightier than any vessel in the SG Rapid Engagement Force, and just the fact that he would link up with this rescue force—and that he now had a ready-made fleet out here at his disposal—further warmed his inner being. With them, he would track down the invaders, find them in their stolen 'crashers, and utterly annihilate them.

In this plan he had supreme confidence.

He might be home in time for the Earth Race yet, he thought.

Joxx settled into his commander's seat and pushed the first of three old-fashioned levers, which began the activation of his propulsion core.

Once these systems engaged, the Starcrasher's engine somehow became one with the waves being sent out by the Big Generator—or something along those lines. In any case, Joxx's magnificent ship would be powered up. He could lift off and be going two light-years a minute an instant later.

But just as his hand reached for the third lever, he felt a touch of cold steel on the back of his neck.

He turned slowly and was astounded to see a man dressed in a strange combat suit, wearing a mask, pointing a ray gun at him.

Joxx froze. This man was about to kill him—he just knew it. The look in the eyes staring out from the mask was one of fire, anger. Hate. It was strange, but Joxx's next thought—and possibly his last—was that the intensity in this man's eyes had not always been there. That it was a new thing for him. That he'd looked different than this not long before. The masked man didn't say anything; he just held the ray gun one inch away from Joxx's right temple for what seemed like a very long time. He saw the man's finger begin to squeeze the trigger.

In that eternal moment, Joxx could not help but notice that several other people had somehow come aboard the
ShadoVox
with the gunman. They were all wearing masks; they were all carrying huge weapons.

There was an enormous individual off to his right; he looked like his arms were actually too muscular for his body. Behind him was an enormous robot, bigger and even more nasty-looking than the million or so that had rained down on Megiddo. Standing next to the robot was a very small man wearing a cassock and the collar of a priest. Behind him, were two men who looked almost like twins, except one appeared slightly taller. With them were two very old men, both with long, white hair and carrying weapons that seemed way too heavy for their frail arms.

Joxx started to laugh. He'd never seen such an unlikely group in his life.

"Are those weapons even real?" he asked them.

No one moved, no one said a thing.

"You all look like you just walked out of viz screen play—and they really got the costumes wrong!"

Still, only silence in reply.

"
Who the hell are you people
?" he finally shouted.

The gunman then drew a box in the air; a viz screen blinked into existence an instant later. It showed twelve starships hanging in space. Six looked very old, yet new at the same time. They were all blue and chrome and loaded with weapons. Beside them were the six cargo 'crashers stolen from TransWorld 800. They, too, were now bulging with weapons. Nothing fancy, just rows and rows of weapons bubbles sporting all kinds of Z-gun muzzles.

Joxx's mouth fell open.

Well, so much for
that
question.

He heard the telltale hum coining from the gun against his head. It was the sound of a power surge, which guaranteed a full blast as soon as the trigger was pulled.

The silence stretched out unnaturally. Soon the chill was back in Joxx's belly.

"How?" he finally asked in a whisper. "How were you able to deceive me so?"

At that moment, another person walked into the control room. He was covered with soot, just like Joxx, and sporting many cuts and bruises, too. But he was smiling. And he wasn't wearing a mask. Joxx took one look at him and nearly fell off his seat.

In that instant, it all made complete if terrible sense to him.

It was the man Joxx knew as the ion mover.

In reality, he was CIA agent Steve Gordon, master of the undercover disguise.

Part Three

The Hole in the Water

19

Everything was green.

The field across the road from the ditch was thick with bright three-leaf clover. The grove of holly trees behind the ditch shimmered in dull emerald as well. The grass and the weeds in between, even the dust on the road itself, had a lime-colored tinge to it.

The only thing not green this early morning was the sky. It was dark gray and overcast, with low-hanging clouds spitting out drops of cold rain every now and then. The sun had been up for about thirty minutes, but it would not be seen this day.

The eleven men in the ditch were under orders to keep quiet. They were sitting in the mud, some smoking cigarettes, others cleaning their weapons, still others checking their ammunition supply. One man was endlessly probing through a box full of hand grenades, counting out the full complement of twenty-four before starting over again. Another man was blowing on the terminals of a car battery in an effort to keep them dry. The men were doing everything they could to stay calm—everything but talking.

They were all dressed pretty much the same: thick wool pants, muddy boots, flannel shirts, tweed jackets, and flat, cloth "Mickey" caps. Three were armed with AK-47 Kalishnikov assault rifles, two with double-ammo banana clips. Three others were holding M-16s; they, too, had extra long ammo clips. The rest had shotguns and hunting rifles. Most of these weapons were in good shape.

Except for Hunter's, that is. His rifle was in such bad shape its stock was attached to the barrel by a wad of worn-out duct tape. The trigger and the firing mechanism behind it were both rusty; the ammo supply was loose and needed a piece of tape to hold it in place, too.

Hunter just shook his head as he examined the beat-up weapon for the thirty-seventh time. It was always like this.

Exactly three seconds later, he heard the first of the three armored cars approaching. The growl of the unmuffled engine broke the silence of the damp early morning; a few brown doves fluttered out of the woods behind him in response.

The armored car was coming, as it always did, from over the hill to the north. This rise began on the other side of the field of clover, about a quarter mile away. The other nine men in the ditch—they were about forty feet away from him—became very tense on hearing the sound. They pressed themselves up against the side of the gully, eyes riveted on the top of the hill. The armored car let out another mechanical groan, soon joined by a second and then a third identical sound.

"There's a trio of them," one of the men farther down the ditch declared grimly. "And they'll be on us in a minute, so do one last check of yer weapons, and everyone keep yer mouths shut!"

It was at this point, as always, that the strange noise started up from the woods behind the ditch. It, too, was mechanical, but not in the same way as the approaching armored cars. It was more high-pitched and ethereal. Everyone in the ditch had been hearing it, off and on, for the last hour or so. They'd been doing their best to ignore it—a difficult thing to do, because the noise was just so weird.

The three armored cars coughed again in unison; a moment later, the first one appeared at the crest of the hill.

"It's a Saracen," one of the men farther down the trench called out in a whisper. "That means one mounted gun and eight blokes inside."

"I just hope those battery wires hold, Paddy.... It's a damp one this morning—"

"I told yers to shut up! Now, button it!"

Hunter let out a long yawn, then shivered in the sudden fog. The first armored car had topped the hill and was now on its way down the other side. It was following a narrow road that came down off the hill, passed through a thick grove of holly trees, rounded a bend near a violently rushing stream, and eventually ran right by the ditch itself. Hunter tightened the strands of duct tape around his weapon and blew into the firing chamber, trying to keep it dry.

That's when the man on his right suddenly came to life.

"
What madness is this
!" the voice screamed into his ear. "
What have you done to me
?"

Hunter just rolled his eyes at the outburst. This might be harder than he thought.

He turned and looked at the person beside him, this eleventh man. His clothes were muddy, just like his. His Mickey hat was floppy and water-stained, just like his. His gun was even wrapped in duct tape, just like his.

But this man was nothing like him.

Just the opposite, in fact.

It was Joxx.

And at the moment, he looked terrified.

"
Where am I, you disdainful fool
!" he cried out even though Hunter had raised his fist and was ready to strike him. "
I'll have you burned six ways by Z guns for this
—"

Hunter let go with his punch, catching Joxx right on the jaw. The Solar Guards' high prince fell back into the trench, splattering himself with even more mud. He looked up at Hunter, absolutely astonished.

And he did shut up ... for about two seconds.

"
What sorcery have you played here
?" he began screaming again. "
What cruel, sick game
?"

"I told you two to pipe down!" came the sharp rebuke from farther down the ditch. "The blokes can hear you all the way back to the border."

Hunter pulled Joxx up by his collar and slapped him once across the face.

"You heard the man," he growled at him. "
Shut up
!"

Joxx's eyes became wild as a weird kind of reality began to sink in. The last thing he remembered, he was sitting in the control room of the
ShadoVox
, engines not yet running, a ray gun pressed up cold against his head. Then, suddenly, he was lying here, in the muddy ditch, dressed in dirty, wet clothes, holding a very crude weapon, and being slapped around by this man who looked strangely familiar.

Hunter pulled him up close to his face and looked him right in the eyes.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked in an angry whisper.

Joxx's eyes went twice as wide as before.

"The Earth Race," he was able to say. "You're the last winner. The
maccus
... Hunter..."

"That's right," Hunter told him. "I'm also the guy who just stole your ship and made you look like a fool back on Megiddo. Now, if you don't do what I tell you, I'll cut your head off
and
send your ship into the nearest sun."

Joxx was still reeling from the two blows to his head. Where was he? How did he get here?

"Have you implanted something in my brain?" he cried out at Hunter. "Something to create such a hallucination?"

Once again, Hunter slapped him across the face. "Listen to me, pretty boy," he said through gritted teeth, "these other guys are not exactly our friends. They will kill us as soon as look at us. Now just keep your mouth shut and let me explain something to you."

Not five hundred feet away, the first armored car had reached the bottom of the hill. It was now entering the wide curve that eventually led right past the ditch. Hunter didn't have much time.

"You are in a mind ring trip," he told Joxx quickly. "What the hell do you think that is wrapped around your head? If you try to take it off, I can guarantee you, your skull will explode. That's the way I programmed it."