Hunter began stuttering his reply when suddenly the door to the war room opened and two familiar faces were marched in. It was Erx and Berx, followed by a very confused Home Guard officer halfheartedly holding a ray gun on them.
For Hunter, they couldn’t have shown up at a better time.
“These are my colleagues,” he hurriedly told the Home Guard officers. “They’re the ones who launched the empty canister at the xarcus, the bluff that got it to stop in its tracks.”
The others in the room let out a great cheer. One look from Poolinex and the officer with the ray gun lowered his weapon and skulked out of the room. Hunter’s introductions were interrupted as another gigantic barrage of X beams hit the city.
“May I have a word with my men?” Hunter asked Poolinex.
“To set a strategy, you mean?” the Home Guard officer asked hopefully.
Hunter nodded uncertainly. Erx and Berx rolled their eyes.
“Yes, something like that,” Hunter mumbled in reply.
The Home Guard commander nodded and went back to his map. Hunter, Erx, and Berx shuffled through a side door and found themselves outside in a darkened corner of the ancient city square. Enemy X-beam blasts were rocking the buildings all around them.
“You guys didn’t happen to bring any wine down with you, I suppose?” Hunter asked them.
Erx and Berx shook their heads.
“We were hoping you did,” Erx said.
“I certainly could go for a belt right now,” Berx said.
“Bingo that,” Hunter agreed.
More X beams went over, landing deep inside the city. The resulting noise and pandemonium were tremendous.
“This is a real mess we’ve walked into!” Erx shouted above the commotion. “I’ve never seen a place so churned up with bodies and bones as that battlefield out there. Are you sure these people have been fighting for only a year?”
Hunter shrugged. “I’m not sure how long it’s been,” he replied gloomily. “But it can’t last much longer. These people don’t have a ghost of a chance, whether we’re here or not…”
And that was the catch.
Sure, they had a huge warship up in orbit, one that was built to carry a small army of X-Forces special operations troops and tons of sophisticated weapons. But because Hunter knew this flight to Zazu-Zazu would be completely unauthorized, they had left all those troops back on Guam 7, holding down the city of Nails. Nearly 350 light-years away.
For this little side trip, it was just he, Erx, and Berx.
“I don’t suppose either one of you wants to tell them that it’s just the three of us?” Hunter asked his colleagues. “That we don’t have anyone else with us?”
“Not me,” Erx replied. “I don’t have the heart.”
“Nor do I,” Berx added.
The three men grew quiet for a moment. They knew well the dangers of being in the wrong place at the wrong time — the banishment of Zap Multx and his men to the Ball being the most glaring illustration. But it wasn’t like they could just snap their fingers and make this all go away. Qez was facing an entire corps of soldiers plus the colossal tank. It was a hopeless situation — and now they were caught right in the middle of it.
“This was a mistake from the beginning,” Hunter murmured.
“We knew a war was going on here. To show up, so unprepared — and going against orders…”
He shook his head. He had let personal goals get ahead of his professional duty — with disastrous results.
In another place and another time, this would be known as a royal fuck-up.
Berx put his hand on Hunter’s shoulder.
“Don’t fret, Hawk,” he said. “We would have come to this blessed place eventually… I think.”
Another barrage of enemy fire went over the city.
“Has anyone properly inquired as to how these Nakkz characters were able to build such a behemoth?” Erx asked. “I would have thought that after an extended period of warfare on such an isolated world as this, the technology of the weaponry would have started to devolve, not get better.”
“That’s so true,” Berx said wearily. “If you leave two people fighting each other on a planet long enough, they’ll deteriorate to throwing stones at each other. So how did these mooks get to build such a huge weapon as that supertank?”
Hunter just shrugged. It was a good question — one of many.
“Maybe they had help,” he said, in an offhand way. “Like those guys who attacked the BonoVox had help.”
Both Erx and Berx shivered at the thought.
“But help from whom?” Erx asked. “Who would be handing out this kind of superior technology way out here?”
Neither Hunter nor Berx replied. Neither wanted to go there.
Another barrage of enemy fire went streaking over the wall and came crashing down somewhere deep inside the city.
“Why didn’t the Zazus evacuate when they had the chance?”
Hunter shrugged glumly. “I can tell by the faces in there, running away just isn’t their style. Even if they had the transport out — which they clearly don’t.”
“But the women, the children, the old people,” Berx said, indicating the chaotic city behind them. “Our ship isn’t large enough to take even a third of them.”
They ducked as another barrage of X beams went overhead. Hunter turned back to them. “You know, it goes without saying that if you two beamed out right now and avoided this whole mess, I wouldn’t care a—”
Erx held his hand up and effectively shut Hunter off.
“And it goes without saying that we would never do that,” Erx replied. “We are officers in the service of our Emperor. We are here fighting for his interests — sort of. This is our job… not that he could ever stay awake long enough to appreciate it.”
Another barrage of X beams hit the north wall. This one was particularly powerful — so much so, the entire city began to shake. Worse yet, the sky above them was starting to lighten.
“But we must do something to help these poor souls,” Berx said.
Hunter thought for a long moment, then eyed his flying machine still sitting in the middle of the city square.
“Okay,” he finally said. “How about this: I’ll go after the xarcus…”
Erx and Berx just stared back at him, eyes wide.
“You’ll what?” Erx cried.
“Go after that tank… alone?” Berx pressed.
Hunter put on his crash helmet. “If I can just get inside the thing, maybe—”
Another furious barrage of X beams cut off his words. When they could speak again, Erx shouted to him:
“But what should we be doing while you are off on this mad quest?”
Hunter could almost hear the sound of the huge army stirring with the first rays of the dawn. When the light of the very quick day arrived, there was no doubt the Nakkz would finish their attack. And that meant that even if he managed to affect the xarcus, the bloodthirsty enemy would soon be coming right over the walls.
“Under the circumstances,” Hunter finally told them as he started off toward his flying machine, “I think it might be time to call for help.”
27
Hunter’s biggest challenge now was figuring out how much of a running start he would need.
He lifted off from the city square and went into a hover about fifty feet above the battered north wall. It seemed as if the entire population of the fortress city was watching him now, not just the people around the square. From the streets, from windows, from the tops of buildings. Even though the city was under heavy attack, word had spread fast about the strange visitors from outer space who were here to help them. Hunter spotted a handwritten sign on top of one building just off the square. Incredibly, it was a child who was holding it.