Everything was carried over to Megiddo in two huge space trucks Joxx had found at Brakes; a half-mile-square area next to the space needle had been leveled as a place for these large vessels to land. Then Joxx drafted two thousand of TransWorld's civilians into his newly christened Army of Empire Defense and had them brought over to his fortress planet as well. The TW800 facility was then sealed and anything able to fly locked up tight.
Joxx also had one more star in his pocket, a very secret weapon: the ShadoVox itself.
That his prized warship might be one of the intended goals of the invaders only made his position more precarious. He'd used the ship continuously in the past twenty-four hours, setting up his defense system and getting the manpower and the right materials in place. Megiddo had been rocking with the thunderous noise of the starship flying here and there at the bombastic crank power, so much so, that many on the ground found their ears had begun to bleed anytime the starship passed overhead. The noise was that loud.
But again, as awesome as it was, the ShadoVox could not engage an unknown number of invading starships on its own. True, by wading into a swarm of enemy vessels, the Vox could probably take out nearly half of them. But that left the other half, and in that scenario, he didn't have to be a military genius to know the numbers just weren't in his favor. And why would he deliver into the enemy's hands one of the things they'd come for in the first place?
No, using the ShadoVox up front was not in Joxx's plans this time, either. He was much too clever for that. Instead, he'd hidden the massive battle cruiser in a place where not even the most astute enemy commander would think or even dare to look for it.
The truth was, the ShadoVox wasn't even on Megiddo anymore.
15
It was just after dawn the next day when a mysterious craft blinked into a very low orbit around Megiddo.
It stayed in view for just thirty seconds, descending at high speed into the upper reaches of the planet's atmosphere right above the repair yards at Brakes before blinking out again. The crews of nearly one-quarter of Joxx's blaster sites picked up the craft on their viz screens. It was way too small to be a starship and was moving too fast to be a shuttle. The anti-aircraft crews began tracking the object, but it stayed just out of range of their most powerful weapons. A coincidence, or so it was hoped.
The brief sighting did trip Joxx's worldwide firing system, though. As soon as the first weapons site spotted the bogie, the whole network lit up, right around the planet, just like it was supposed to. Sitting before a monstrous bank of viz screens in his headquarters atop the sky needle, Joxx celebrated this small triumph. His grand idea had worked. His system was in sync.
One hour later, the mystery craft appeared again. This time about 100 miles above Knifetown, an abandoned pirate base 1,500 miles west of Needle City. Once again, the craft entered the top layer of the atmosphere at very high speed, staying visible for just twenty seconds or so before disappearing again. It was still too high for any of the newly installed blasters to fire. But Joxx's brainy acquisition system had worked again. The interlocked batteries lit up around the planet less than a second before the target vanished.
The object was sighted twice more in the next two hours. Once up around Megiddo's north pole, then again above the Big Rocks prison on the planet's south pole. As before, the ship blinked in for just a few seconds, disappearing again just after the blaster system came on-line.
Perched atop his three-mile-high tower, a small army of technicians in position around him, none of this bothered Joxx. What was the mystery ship doing? Probably scouting locations for troop landings, Joxx surmised, taking some quick intelligence readings needed before the invasion began. But at the same time, the enemy's activities were still working to his advantage, putting his system through crucial real-time tests, all but proving it would work when the real attack came.
As the day wore on and word of the mysterious appearances and disappearances went through the ranks of the planet's defenders, the system began powering up and then shutting down on its own, the result, no doubt, of some itchy trigger fingers.
But that was ok, too. Joxx knew if he was to succeed here, his people on the ground had to remain alert.
Night fell over the northeastern half of Megiddo's northern hemisphere. Joxx remained in place at the top of the sky needle, his personal viz scanners floating in space all around him. He could see as far as orbit with some of these long-range devices. Like several hundred thousand other eyes around the planet, he was looking straight up, trying to detect any hint that the enemy was up there and coming down.
Midnight came and went — nothing. Another hour of darkness passed. Still nothing. Then, about two hours after midnight, a streak of light appeared in the sky above the pole. Then another appeared high above the western mountains. Then another down near the south arctic.
In seconds, hundreds of streaks were crossing the sky above Needle City. They were first appearing way, way up, obviously plunging in straight from orbit.
Several voices screamed into Joxx's intercom now. Battery commanders, from all around the tiny planet, were all yelling the same thing: "Here they come!"
A new viz screen appeared in front of Joxx. It gave him an instant readout showing the number of objects falling in on the planet. The number was 1,782 when it first blinked on.
This tally fit Joxx's prediction. He figured each enemy ship was carrying about fifty shuttlecraft. One hundred enemy ships, a total of five thousand shuttles.
But strangely enough, none of the invaders' warships had appeared in orbit. Had they launched their shuttlecraft from farther out? Were they somehow masking their presence? There was no way to tell.
A few seconds later, the number of incoming objects had risen to 3,517. Another few seconds, it was up to 4,023. Two seconds after that, the number went up to 4,933.
Joxx went into action. He punched the activator button on the main console in front of him. This gave out the command for his interlocking blaster system to start tracking automatically. It took not a second for his command to go right around Megiddo. From the equator to each pole and back again, every weapon was instantly juiced up and waiting for the first objects to pass below 400,000 feet.
Joxx looked up at the new viz screen; the number of incoming objects had risen to 6,429. The enemy had more shuttles than he thought. No matter. His blaster network was large enough to handle them all. He began receiving go lights from all around the planet; the system was ready. Joxx looked at the viz screen again. The incoming number had jumped to more than seven thousand.
Yet there were no mother ships in orbit.
How could that be?
were working correctly. They were. The number of objects now falling on Megiddo had topped ten thousand.
Joxx was stunned. This was twice as many shuttles as he'd expected. He did a slew of calculations in his head. His blasters could still handle the invaders, but more of the shuttles might get through the first layer of blasters. However, many of those would undoubtedly be decimated by the second layer, around 200,000 feet. His confidence level was still running high.