“Must have been an important call if the Metamorphs didn’t bother to collect the freshly killed meat,” Maddox said.

  “Hey,” Dravek said, “look at this.” He held up a big machine gun.

  They found more weapons, loading up with the extra gear.

  Maddox now had a heavy assault rifle. It was as big as he dared carry together with the extra ammo. He had a gut feeling they’d be in a firefight tonight. If they were lucky, they’d gain a vehicle through it. Thus, he was willing to carry more than he would otherwise.

  “I’m hearing something,” Maddox said. “See anything interesting with those night vision binoculars of yours?”

  Dravek climbed up the least damaged pod and scanned the darkness.

  “Yeah, maybe five clicks away is a bonfire of something. I see at least a dozen drop pods and a landed air vehicle. Hey, the air vehicle is firing shells at the Metamorph vehicles, making some explode and burn. Other black vans are farther away. Maddox, the air vehicle looks like the front part of the gondola, the former control cabin of the dirigible.”

  Maddox thought about that. Would the legions have designed an airship for fast escape? The control cabin could detach and become an air-mobile vehicle. Had it glided? Could it stay airborne for a time? Was that why Ophir had called for him to stay, to tell him the control room was the safest place on the dirigible?

  “We should head there,” Maddox said. He hadn’t forgotten the mind fusion that could tip the scales in the Metamorphs’ favor. “If we’re going to survive, we need transportation. Hoofing it on foot, especially once the sun shines—this may be our best chance for getting off Gath.”

  “Right,” Dravek said. “I’m with you.”

  They secured their gear, cinching every buckle tight. They clutched the heavy weaponry and ammo, loading up with as much as they dared carry. Then the two set out at a stiff pace, seeing if they could reach the firefight in time to be of service.

  -53-

  Maddox could feel the play of the Yun mind fusion the closer they came to the firefight. There were burning, balloon-tired vans, some closer to the grounded pods and air vehicle. The cannon from the grounded air vehicle must have destroyed most of the Metamorph vans. The trouble was that the Metamorphs offloaded from their surviving vehicles, running individually across the sand, dropping down and crawling like Wild West Indians to outcroppings or rocks. From there the Metamorphs fired rifles, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

  “I wonder if Gallant Ophir is there,” Maddox said. “If he is, would he call down a nuclear strike on top of his head, killing everyone?”

  “From what I’ve seen of the Honey Men,” Dravek said, “they don’t want to die any time soon. They want to live forever.”

  “Good point,” Maddox said. “If anything, Ophir is calling home for reinforcements.”

  “Reinforcements from the Honey Men would be days away.”

  “Maybe,” Maddox said. “Grandma Julia might have planned for mishaps and sent other dirigibles as backup. Anyway, how much longer until dawn?”

  “Four hours tops,” Dravek said.

  The firefight out there was still some distance from them.

  They’d stopped to drink water and eat. Then, the two men in desert gear continued their swift approach to the adversary. The Honey Men had been their enemies, but that had changed with the arrival of the Metamorphs, and the Yun People mind fusion.

  The landed air vehicle used its cannon sparingly. Maybe it was running out of munitions. Men behind the pods and lying on the sand traded fire with the circling, crawling Metamorphs.

  The Metamorphs were going to lose a lot more of their tusked soldiers doing it this way.

  As Maddox contemplated this, sprinting toward the firefight, he felt a dreadful force approaching. It wasn’t a physical thing but mental, telepathic. The awareness of it grew in Maddox until he realized—

  “Hit the ground, Dravek!”

  Maddox dove onto the glittering silvery sand. He felt Dravek thud beside him. Then Maddox did something most unconventional: he crawled atop Dravek and used his hands to clutch his companion’s head.

  “Don’t move,” Maddox hissed. “I’m gonna have to protect us both.”

  How did Maddox know this? It was an intuitive thing, something trained by Balron the Traveler many years ago.

  Maddox concentrated with every particle of his being as an intense telepathic force swept over the area. It reverberated with the forceful command of surrender: Lay down your weaponry. You are defeated. You cannot stand. You are on our territory. You are food. You are meat.

  The telepathic force beat like a heart. It was living. It was a terrifying thing.

  Dravek cried out, “We’re doomed! We’re doomed!” He repeated that over and over, adding, “Let me go. I must surrender.”

  Maddox clutched Dravek’s head even harder. “Listen,” he hissed into the clone’s ear. “We’re not doomed. Fight it. Concentrate. Believe we can win. We can always find a way. We are Captain Maddox. We always find a way to defeat the foe. We never surrender. We fight until the last breath, and then we still find a way to fight. Do you hear me, Dravek? Fight it. Do not concede defeat.”

  “No defeat,” Dravek said in a hoarse voice.

  “Right, that’s right. Hold on, brother. Hold on.”

  As the intensity of the telepathic—would one call it a mind bomb? A silent explosion blasted the desert ahead of them. The force bloomed outward in an explosive circumference.

  When it hit them, Dravek cried out and likely fell unconscious.

  Maddox barely held on to consciousness. That was most likely due to the Erill spiritual energy he’d absorbed long ago. By degrees, he shook off the debilitating mind blast and struggled up to his feet.

  “Come on, Dravek.”

  The clone didn’t respond.

  Maddox dragged Dravek upright by main force of strength. He slapped Dravek across the face once, twice.

  “Okay,” Dravek said groggily, “I’m awake. Let’s go—but where do we go?”

  Maddox pointed at the enemy.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Is it?” Maddox asked. “The Yun People used a mind-fusion blast. I suspect it took them time to gather it. I also suspect it has used up their mental energy for a time. If ever there’s a moment where our presence can do wonders, I bet this is it.”

  “Is this more of your intuitive reasoning?”

  “Probably,” Maddox said. “I’ve learned to trust it. Come on, Dravek. Pick up your weapons. Let’s go.”

  Now the two men ran. They ran through the night like cheetahs chasing prey. And unlike cheetahs, these two had the vitality and wind to run for a kilometer at high speed.

  They watched as black, balloon-tired vans inched toward the pods and the grounded air vehicle. Metamorphs staggered out of the vehicles, seemingly hurt or wounded by the mind blast—an unexpected and perplexing result.

  “We don’t know how all this operates,” Maddox said.

  “What? Huh?” Dravek said. “What in the hell are you talking about? I don’t understand what’s going on. How are you even breathing?”

  They’d stopped and were observing the enemy less than a quarter kilometer from them as they crouched behind a dune.

  “They’re dragging bodies from near the pods,” Maddox said. “The mind blast must have knocked the men out cold.”

  “I don’t see how anything we do is going to help. This is madness.”

  Maddox turned to stare at Dravek. “I agree. It is madness. And it’s our only chance at this point. We must grasp madness with both hands and go for it to the nth degree. Because the mind fusion is in play. Because there’s no other way that we’re gonna win.”

  Dravek studied Maddox, perhaps grasping the other’s earnestness. “Yeah, sure, we’ll do it your way. I’m certainly out of ideas.”

  Maddox stood, picking up his heavy assault rifle, watching Dravek stand and clutch his.

  “All right,” Maddox said, “we walk there and observe as carefully as we can. When I say go, start killing Metamorphs and if you can, blow up their vehicles, as many as you can.”

  “We should have taken a grenade launcher with us,” Dravek said.

  “Would-a, could-a, should-a. We have what we have. Now let’s do it.”

  “All right, Captain, I’m right behind you.”

  -54-

  It was weird watching the Metamorphs stagger like puppets that had lost their strings. They were jerky, slow and supremely ugly-looking. In the moonlight and in the lamplight of some of the surviving balloon-tired vans, the Metamorphs were shown to be huge, as Eddings had suggested.

  Each was larger than Primus Hern, boasting a broad shoulder span and deep chest, their mouths bristling with yellow, curling tusks. Most were bald and naked except for a human skull to cover his genitalia, desert boots, a long human-skin cape and an almost sword-like knife strapped to his side while he cradled a heavy gun.

  The Metamorphs carried soldiers of the Honey Men, those who were still alive but frozen into immobility by the mind-blast bomb. The Metamorphs carried the soldiers as husbands would their wives across the threshold: with ease and a grotesque eagerness. You could almost hear the Metamorphs salivating over all this feast meat they were carrying. They had captured a haul of live people.

  Other Honey Men were dead. The Metamorphs had laid the corpses in rows. Vehicles moved backward toward them. Smaller Metamorphs carried the corpses by limp arms and legs, tossing them in as if the vehicle was a meat wagon, which indeed it was.

  None of the Metamorphs seemed alert, but like drunkards who had been roused from a deep sleep. The Metamorphs were seemingly at the limit of their endurance. Still, the mind fusion must be forcing them to work.

  “Let’s spread apart a little,” Maddox said.

  Dravek didn’t need any more prodding than that.

  The two men stood in the moonlight, unobserved by the Metamorphs. Each gripped a heavy assault rifle.

  “Now,” Maddox said.

  Like angels of death, the two opened fire. They didn’t simply spray the enemy with bullets indiscriminately. They used three bullet bursts, tumbling Metamorphs, blowing up the vans, as they quickly discovered which the right places to shoot were. It helped that they used vehicle-destroying rounds.

  The two slaughtered stunned Metamorphs. Finally, a few of the enemy bellowed and stumbled away. A few pulled out their weapons but hardly seemed to know what to do with them.

  As Maddox and Dravek switched magazines, slapping them in, pulling back the bolts and continuing their slaughter, they advanced at a walking pace toward the camp.

  Maddox and Dravek were alert, their luck seemingly holding.

  Then, two other people joined the killing. A lean man in red robes and a woman staggered out of the grounded air vehicle, each picking up a gun and opening fire.

  “Mara and Ophir.” Maddox turned to Dravek. “Come on, this way.”

  The two men moved at an oblique angle toward the other two.

  Fires raged as the Metamorph vans burned intensely. The gasoline fuel and occasional internal explosions sent shrapnel flying in all directions. Dead and dying Metamorphs lay everywhere.

  There was an impotent rage in the air. Maddox believed it was the sluggish, Yun mind fusion trying to act. It couldn’t, not yet anyway. It was too weak after using its mind blast earlier.

  Mara saw Maddox, and she seemed to sense what had happened. She moved to sleeping people, kneeling and touching their heads. With some, she had to do that for longer.

  A few woke up, rising to their feet and grabbing weapons. Gallant Ophir gave them orders.

  Soon five Honey Men soldiers attacked Metamorphs still trying to react.

  The mind-fusion attack had started out as a Metamorph advantage. Now, with Maddox and Dravek throwing a monkey wrench into it, and with Mara’s help, it had upset the Yun People’s equilibrium.

  Mara’s telepathic “witchery” had shielded or revived men.

  Thus, a few hours before sunrise, the handful of survivors from the dirigible disaster slaughtered the remaining Metamorphs. There were hundreds of dead, if one included everyone.

  As the last Metamorphs fell, Maddox ran to Gallant Ophir, greeting him on the desert floor.

  “You’re alive,” Ophir said.

  “I didn’t think you were either.”

  “You saved our asses. I’m grateful and won’t forget that.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Maddox said. “Now what happens?”

  “We need to decide,” Ophir said. “Grandma Julia is eager to send nukes. You were right about ballistic missiles. So far, I’ve told her you’re unconscious and can’t speak to her. She demands to see you, as she doesn’t believe I still have you. But if I could have you talk to her, that might delay her launching the nukes, as she’ll believe she can live a few more centuries through your efforts.”

  “Let’s get to it,” Maddox said.

  Ophir escorted Maddox with Dravek covering his back into the grounded air vehicle that lay bullet-riddled in the desert.

  -55-

  Gallant Ophir stood before a comm screen in what had once been the control cabin for the dirigible, now repurposed as an air vehicle. Mara sat to the side, working the comm controls. There was dim lighting in here, which flickered at times.

  Ophir aimed his ruby rings at Maddox, while two Honey Men gripped the captain’s arms.

  Dravek was behind them, watching, with his assault rifle in hand.

  The screen flickered. A screen blizzard appeared, gradually clearing to reveal a face. Grandma Julia with her wrinkled skin and dot-like black eyes stared accusingly at Maddox.

  “You see, Grandma,” Ophir said with a grin. “I told you I had him.”

  “What’s wrong over there?” Julia asked.

  “Rockets rose from the desert,” Ophir said. “We used our counter-missiles, but they proved ineffective. It did give us time to load the drop pods, though. It also allowed us to detach the control cabin from the doomed dirigible.”

  “You’re grounded on the desert?” Julia asked.

  “Yes,” Ophir said.

  “Then it’s over. You’re all as good as dead. I should launch the missiles.”

  Ophir laughed, shaking his head.

  “Are you addled because you know you’re meat for the Metamorphs?” Julia asked.

  “We just won a tactical victory,” Ophir said. “The Metamorphs attacked us in force, using a telepathic mind assault against us. It hurt their own people, though. With Mara and the others’ help, we regrouped and hit the Metamorphs from several directions. We’ve taken control of the situation.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Julia said. “Dawn is fast approaching. You’ll all cook in the heat.”

  “We’ve found Metamorph holes to use as temporary shelter,” Maddox said.

  Julia glared at Ophir, as if angry he’d let Maddox speak. Finally, Julia responded, saying, “How could that possibly help you?”

  “To survive the heat, the day,” Maddox said. “You need to send reinforcements, if nothing else to pick us up once we acquire the ancient weapon.”

  “You can’t think you’ll survive the Yun for several days while on the ground,” Julia said in disbelief.

  “Of course, we can survive,” Maddox said. “We’ve learned the value of our telepaths. They’re instrumental in defending ourselves against the mind fusion.”

  Julia stared at Maddox.

  “I’m alive,” Maddox said. “And we can still acquire the ancient weapon we need to fight the incoming Leviathan assault vessels. That will allow me to teach you their longevity treatments.”

  Ancient Julia shook her head. “You lost both dirigibles. You’re stranded in the mid-world desert. It’s over for you. I’m going to launch the nukes and teach the Yun People a lesson they’ll never forget.”

  “Do that,” Maddox said, “and you lose any chance of increasing your longevity. Surely, you can wait a day or two to launch the ballistic missiles.”

  “Are you begging, Captain?” Julia asked with a sneer.

  “Grandma,” Ophir said. “We’re in a seriously bad situation. We all recognize that. We’re not meat for the Metamorphs yet, though. We have the equipment we need, and we plan to use the Metamorphs’ own desert vehicles against them.”

  “It’s over I tell you,” Julia said.

  Ophir glanced at Maddox and then looked at Julia on the screen. “I’m not too proud to beg. I most certainly want to live. We can still do this. We need reinforcements, though.”

  “So, the Yun People can destroy two more dirigibles?” Julia asked.

  “You have the wrong perspective to all this,” Maddox said. “We’re much closer to victory than anyone realizes. The Yun mind fusion is sluggish due to its recent activity. This is the moment to strike. We’re going to attempt just that. You can win all that you’ve desired. Or you can sulk and throw it all away by ordering the ballistic missile strike.”

  “You dare to insult me?” Julia asked.

  Maddox shrugged. “I didn’t realize you were such a fool as to throw away an opportunity for more life.”

  “Enough,” Ophir said harshly, using the back of one of his ringed hands to slap Maddox across the face. “You will address my grandmother with respect or learn the reason why you should have.”

  Maddox drew himself to his full height. “Don’t dare strike me again or you’ll lose the opportunity to Leviathan longevity.”

  Julia’s cackle echoed over the comm. “You just earned the right to a chance at more life, Gallant,” she told Ophir. “If Maddox had begged—never mind. You lost the dirigibles. Can you gather more soldiers who might have landed through using drop pods?”

  “We’re going to look,” Ophir said. “A few more pods might have survived. Right now, though, we’re going to strike for the ancient weapon site. Maddox and Mara both think the Yun mind fusion seeks the same weapon. It could be a hard fight. But that’s better than letting them capture us. We have plenty of small-arms weapons. Whether that’s enough—I plan to find out.”