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
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.