It was at one of these alpine resorts that the ion mover's star humper made a crash landing.
He came in on a X-66 pocket rocket. Or at least something built to look like an X-66. Five hundred feet long, two hundred feet at its widest, it was shaped like a wedge, of course, but was one of the smallest vessels flying. It had punctured the planet's puff with no problem, clipping two snow peaks on the way down. Slamming into a jagged ice field, it finally came to rest just a few feet away from the entrance to an immense resort owned by the Spuz-Nix, one of Megiddo's largest crime families.
Security troops rushed to the scene and managed to pull the pilot out of the wreck before the subatomics blew it up for good. The guards brought the man to a small hospital within the resort, but the doctors refused to treat him; this, after the man confessed to being an ion mover, someone who made a living picking up ion waste from scattered spaceports and disposing of it, usually by blasting it into the nearest sun.
Many ion movers were drunkards, or mentally disturbed, or at least on their way to madness. Because they were soaked through with all kinds of nasty radiation, they were usually solitary beings, plying vast distances between star systems in their poky star trucks, collecting the most worthless material in the Galaxy.
But many also possessed a strange power, a kind of dark clairvoyance. They had the ability to predict the near future, but only in the worst possible light. They could only foresee bad things, some in a manner so strong, it was said, they couldn't lie about their visions if they tried. Stories were told about ancient star commanders who would keep an ion mover locked up in a cage close by, simply so he could tell them when the battle was about to be lost. Just the presence of an ion mover during a conflict could throw an army's morale into a tailspin. Even holo-girls avoided them.
Usually ion movers were very tight-lipped. This man was anything but. He didn't stop talking from the moment he was pulled from his crash to when the resort doctors reluctantly agreed to treat him. He was demanding an audience with the planet's highest officials, claiming he had some critical information to tell them. The future of the entire Two Arm depended on it.
The doctors wanted no part of this, of course. The Families were getting ready to bug out of Megiddo, too. Had it been anyone else, they would have prescribed two blaster shots to the back of the head. But the truth was, when an ion mover claimed to be the bearer of news — any news— it was wise not to ignore him.
So the chalet's security troops sent him south, to the planet intelligence center in Needle City. Here, he was cleaned up, given a cup of slow-ship wine, and then brought before President Sheez.
He told Sheez his storv. which bv this time, confirmed every worst fear held by the rotund president and his men. Knowing that seats getting off Megiddo would really be at a premium now, even for the president, Sheez threw the ion mover in the jail located on the bottom floor of the needle and started making plans to clear out. He'd been behind bars ever since.
But five minutes after Joxx's arrival on Megiddo, the prisoner found himself standing in Sheez's airy chamber once again.
Joxx was sitting behind Sheez's desk now; his intelligence officers were sitting close by. Two guards deposited the prisoner before this panel, then quickly disappeared. The man was dirty, with long, matted hair and a scraggly beard. He was wearing a long, threadbare tunic that resembled a cargo sack. His face and hands still bore the cuts and bruises suffered in his crash landing. He seemed uncomfortable but not nervous.
Joxx had never met an ion mover before, but he knew how to handle one, nevertheless. He stared at the man for a very long time then thundered, "Do you know who 1 am?"
The prisoner just shrugged nonchalantly. "Are you some official from the Fourth Empire?"
" 'Some official?' " Joxx mocked him. "I am hardly just 'some official.' "
Joxx launched into a discourse about his favorite subject: himself. He detailed his various high commissions, his many space victories, his unique starship, and his very close relationship with the Emperor. The lecture lasted nearly ten minutes.
Still, the prisoner didn't seem very impressed.
"Why would such a bright star want to talk to someone like me?" he asked Joxx when it was over.
"Because I hear you've come to this planet spouting outrageous nonsense," Joxx shot back at him harshly. "About marauders and such and instability farther up the arm. There are very busy, very important individuals on this planet, and your tall tales have sparked a major concern with them. So much so, that now I'm involved. My ship and my crew. It would be a big mistake to waste our time."
"But I am not foolish enough to do that," the prisoner replied quickly. "I have done good business in this cluster before. I would never jeopardize that. But my fear is this: The news I have to report might mean none of us will ever do business here again. You, me, no one…"
This was a strong statement — enough to give Joxx pause.
"Tell your story then," Joxx finally told him.
So the man did.
He'd been hired to pick up a load of ion waste on a small planet farther up the star road called Sodom-Lite. This world was a combination space brothel and jam mecca, not an uncommon environment out beyond Thirty Star Pass. It took him two days to fill his ship's tanks with the ultrahazardous refuse and another day to get clearance for takeoff.
The night before he was scheduled to depart, a mystery army appeared up in orbit. Suddenly people were running through the streets, crying that there were dozens of ships circling the planet, waiting to attack. Sure enough, within minutes, combat shuttles began raining down on the tiny world. All of the planet's military installations — manned primarily by hired space thugs — were quickly eliminated; all of the spaceports were overrun as well. Anyone who resisted was instantly dispatched by blaster beam. The marauders were bloodthirsty, vicious. Nothing could stand in their way. In less than a solar day, Sodom-Lite had fallen.
The prisoner fled to the countryside that first night, along with many of the planet's urban residents. But while making his escape across an open field, he was snatched up by a squad of the mysterious soldiers, flying in one of their invasion shuttles. His abductors brought him aboard a star-ship parked up in orbit. The people controlling this ship made no bones about what they were up to. They were marching down the Two Arm and would zap anyone who interfered. As proof, they brought him to the star cabin of this ship and allowed him to look out on their fleet hanging in orbit nearby. He saw dozens of the battle-hardened ships, possibly as many as a hundred, all of them bulked up with long-range space weapons.
"These people seemed absolutely fearless," the prisoner told Joxx now. "They bragged that their soldiers were the same way. Indeed, they showed me viz-screen evidence of other battles they'd fought and won against hundreds of sleaze planets farther up the arm. After seeing all that, there was little use in arguing with them."
Joxx contemplated the man carefully. "Is it your claim, then, that these people are not some sort of space trash, out on a lark?"
The prisoner almost laughed. "They are certainly not that, my lord," he replied. "They are an army. A very large one, a very well-armed one, and very organized. Their methods are brutal. And they are coming this way very fast."