The ShadoVox had ground to a halt at a point just above the north wall of the monstrous prison. It was hovering silently now, at exactly 1,000 feet, its pearl-white fuselage unbroken and gleaming like a sun. It hung like this for many minutes, to give the inmates shivering below enough time to be sufficiently awed by the starship's size and magnificence. It worked. There were a half million men jammed into the prison yard. Between the cold and the intimidating presence of the two-mile-long vessel, few of them could speak.
Finally, a shower of green beams cascaded down from the ship, burning their way through the pesky snowstorm. Suddenly, there was a large protective bubble hovering fifty feet above the prison yard. A gaggle of SG officers was standing within, illuminated by unseen lights. Joxx, of course, was front and center.
Most of the inmates recognized him. Cape flowing, wild haircut, amazing good looks, larger than life, he was gazing out over the vast prison courtyard, chin raised in his best imperious pose. Many of the inmates had fought against him over the last ten years; after all, they were criminals, and the Solar Guards were the police force of the Galaxy. The inmates here today were the lucky ones. They'd done battle against Joxx and had somehow come away with their lives.
Joxx opened up a subatomic broadcast link and began speaking. His words were suddenly all around them. "Anyone who has ever seen combat on a starship should raise his hand," he said.
Roughly half the inmates raised their hands.
"How many have ever worked the mechanics of a star-ship before?"
The other half raised their hands.
Now, of those holding their hands aloft, how many were due to be executed within the next month? Four in every five hands went down. There were roughly 100,000 left. These inmates were told to step forward, hands still raised.
Of this number, how many wanted a chance to be released from prison altogether, along with a full pardon?
Not one hand came down.
Joxx smiled; the snowstorm increased. He knew many of the 100,000 inmates were lying, but that didn't matter.
He immediately conscripted them all.
The ShadoVox's next stop was the city of Brakes.
Located on the west coast of the landmass shared with Needle City, Brakes was an enormous spaceship repair facility, one of the largest in the Moraz Star Cloud. It did major business and had dozens of gigantic repair bays; they stretched for miles in all directions. The facility was deserted now, though. Everyone had bugged out two days ago.
Left behind in its work yards were 120 ion-ballast star-ships, all in various stages of reconstruction, all of which had seen some sort of military service in the past. By Joxx's orders, the ships had been scanned from orbit during the night by the ShadoVox's universal quadtrols. Everything that needed to be done to make each ship spaceworthy again had been identified and documented. Then Joxx decreed that a small ocean of thought drops be manufactured, with his own voice injected, each one containing a tiny piece of the knowledge gained from the massive ship analysis.
With the crew of the ShadoVox acting as prison guards, those inmates who'd claimed experience in starship mechanics were airlifted to Brakes. Each inmate took his thought drop and heard Joxx's voice tell him what job he should do and how he should do it. Joxx had already programmed the ShadoVox's replication devices to create thousands of electron torches. These were distributed to the inmates along with clear-cut orders to get the abandoned ships back in working order — quickly.
And for anyone found to have been lying about his ability to fix starships?
They would be executed on the spot.
The conscripted shipbuilders went to work. Joxx's vision was to turn the broken-down vessels into a fleet of ships, each one equivalent to a midlevel space cruiser. This meant a 2,500-foot-long, wedge-shaped vessel with fast engines and many, many weapons. The ships were refitted with new ion-ballast propulsion units. On their best day, these engines could go only a fraction of the speed of an Empire Starcrasher, but that didn't matter. The invaders were flying ion-ballast ships, too. The builders installed hundreds of Z-gun batteries and multiple space-torpedo launchers as well, utilizing just about any point on a ship's fuselage that could bear an extra load.
Those inmates who'd claimed space combat experience were then brought to Brakes. They'd been given Joxx's thought drops, too. Each contained a mission to be fulfilled once the ships were spacebound. This second wave of inmates familiarized themselves with their new weapons, their living quarters, and the nascent ships in general. Thus the vessels were crewed with both the builders — who'd now become ships' engineers — and those inmates who'd fought in space. There were about eight hundred men assigned to each ship, a very skeleton crew.
The combined fleet numbered ten dozen ships. By Joxx's word, it was christened Irregular Space Wing #1. The crews were dubbed FSH — for future space heroes—and given stylish, self-replicating black uniforms. Joxx named each ship after a member of his extended Imperial Family. Each vessel was also emblazoned with the traditional war colors of red and green.
In ancient times, such a massive project would have taken weeks, months, even years. But combined with the unlimited power of the ShadoVox, the sheer force of Joxx's personality, and brute manpower — lying or not, every inmate did his duty, preservation of life being the best motivation — all this took less than twenty hours, the length of one Megiddo day.
It was a grand achievement, done in Joxx's grandiose style, but he had no illusions about the abilities of his new fleet.
He knew most of the fighting men aboard the ships weren't seasoned space warriors. Many had simply survived battles. In his plan, though, none of that mattered. For this strange campaign, all the future space heroes needed to be were warm bodies with brains attached.
The flight plan for every ship was already set in an unbreakable string program, locked in sequence with its control bubbler. The firing sequences for all the weaponry was carved in strings, too. The ships were so loaded with weapons, they were little more than firing platforms with people inside. All that would be needed from the crews would be to fire the right weapons at the right place and at the right time. How hard was that? Even a robot could do it.
Irregular Space Wing #1 arrived above Needle City at dawn the next day.
Joxx gave a brief speech, this time broadcast directly through the ships' intercom systems. By Joxx's estimate, the invaders' ships would be heading down Thirty Star Pass within hours. The orders to the new space wing then were simple: You have the advantage in numbers. Lay in wait within the Pass, spot the enemy first, and then fire on him immediately. One hundred twenty ships launching all their weapons at once would create a wall of fire that no fleet could get through. The odds of victory would be overwhelmingly in their favor.
Standing in the huge window atop the big needle, Joxx dramatically saluted each starship as it floated by. Once past his imperial review, the ships formed into ten squadrons of twelve and ascended into the thin clouds. There came a burst of enthusiastic communications between the ships and Joxx's new command center, formerly Sheez's lofty suite. Martial music and preimplanted thought-drop messages with Joxx offering encouragement popped into the minds of the wing's crewmen.
Only freedom awaited them once the fleet defeated the marauders, Joxx said in whispers that would follow the crewmen up to space. Indeed, his voice would be in their heads for the entire voyage. By midmorning, the fleet hi left orbit and was on its way to Thirty Star Pass.