J. King: INVASION

"That'll be the day," Tahngarth rumbled.

The four comrades climbed the stairs from amidships to the bridge. They opened the hatch and one by one clambered through. Mana conduits glowed around them.

"Here it is!" Hanna declared from the navigator's console. "Look, here-three loci of topographic disturbance."

Gerrard stalked toward her and stared down at a map of Benalia. Hanna was marking Xs in an equilateral triangle above the nation.

"Three loci of -?"

"I've calculated it all out," Hanna said. Her blue eyes flicked impatiently as she rapped the back of her hand on a pile of figures. "There are disturbances here, here, and here. Geometric disturbances."

"Geometric-"

"Distortions in the fabric of space. Stretched-out geometry. They shunt us off our target like a drop of rain off an umbrella. That's why we can't get to Benalia."

Gerrard's eyes were grim beneath stormy brows. "Good work, Hanna. Any idea what might be causing these distortions?"

She breathed deeply, pausing for the first time in hours. "We ourselves make a geometrical disturbance every time we planeshift. It's a simple fold of space with a localized effect-two hundred yards or so. These things are warping space for a thousand miles each."

"That's a heck of a big ship," Squee offered.

Hanna shook her head, hands in sudden motion again as she dragged a folio of Phyrexian ship designs from beneath her desk. They were plans she had gleaned from the wrecked armada base in Mercadia. She spread them out. The ships depicted there were massive and grotesque. They bristled with hornlike protrusions. Their hulls seemed bone or carapace.

"No, even the largest ships we saw in Mercadia could not make that kind of disturbance."

"Brace for reentry," Sisay warned.

The crew each grasped handholds and watched as reality swam up around the ship. Scraps of sky and sea schooled densely beyond the dissipating energy envelope. The blackness of chaos was shut out behind bright, sinuous order. Fleeing cloud, clashing wave, cowering land-it might have been the exact same spot they left.

"Coordinates," Gerrard asked gently.

"Working on it, Commander," Hanna answered, ship plans cascading from her desktop as she noted new magnetic readings.

Squee scrambled to gather the plans.

"They aren't ships," Sisay broke in from the helm. She guided Weatherlight smoothly through racks of cloud. "Ships would make only a momentary disturbance. Unless they were continuously planeshifting in and out of the same spot, it wouldn't be ships."

"Unless they were portal ships," Gerrard said in sudden realization. He took the ship schematics from Squee, unrolled one, and spread it on the console. It showed a massive ship that seemed a crab claw opened wide. "When these pincer portions here and here pivot downward, they create a portal between them." He dragged the schematic away and pointed at the three spots on the map. "Those are huge aerial portals opening above Benalia. We're not talking about three Phyrexian ships. We're talking about hundreds pouring out of three separate portals."

Despite the flurry of paper on her work space, Hanna finished her calculations. "We're twelve hundred miles southwest of Benalia City."

Sisay hissed, "Even at top speed, it would take us nearly two hours to get there."

Tahngarth pounded his palm with his fist. "The Phyrexian ships are already coming across."

"Pinpoint the center of one of the disturbances," Sisay ordered. "If we strike the umbrella in the exact center, maybe we won't be shunted aside. Maybe we can break through."

Eyebrows furrowing, Gerrard said, "You think Weatherlight's got it in her?"

"I know she does," Sisay replied.

Gerrard shrugged. "She's your ship."

Leaning to the speaking tube, Sisay said, "Karn, what do you think? One more planeshift, down the center of one of those things?"

The response seemed to come from the ship herself. "One more. We can do one more."

"Coordinates locked, Captain," Hanna reported as she tightened the bolts on the longitude and latitude levers.

The engines barked once and then droned with fierce life.

"Brace for planeshift!" Sisay called.

The planks bucked. Beyond the bridge, air wavered as if from heat stress. An envelope of calm rose around Weatherlight. It pushed back the shimmering sky and sea. Once again, reality stretched beyond its breaking point. Black seams snaked across the sky. The heavens unraveled. Scraps of the world fled away. Then there was only the vast blackness.

This planeshift was different, though. Instead of gliding through emptiness, the ship seemed to be plunging forward through muck. The power envelope rattled. The engines whined. Everything felt sluggish and hot. A wall of energy appeared ahead. Supercharged chaos slowed to take on momentary form. In seconds, Weatherlight struck that endless barrier.

Despite their handholds, the crew pitched forward. Sisay and Tahngarth kept their feet. Gerrard staggered to one knee. Squee scampered up beneath the navigational consoles and clutched Hanna's legs.

Then they were through. Reality coalesced again out of chaos.

Below, the plains and woodlands of Benalia spread to the horizons. Above, the sky was cluttered with clouds. In their steamy midst hung a vast black hole, a hole in the heavens.

"There's your Phyrexian portal," Sisay noted quietly. "But where's the portal ship?"

Through gritted teeth, Gerrard growled, "On the other side- in Rath, or Phyrexia, or wherever. Makes it impossible to destroy from here."

"That hole is big enough to admit three ships abreast," Tahngarth whispered.

Gerrard nodded. "And there they are, coming through."

Light failed beyond the lip of the portal; though within it, in murky crimson, huge and horrible figures appeared. They were ships-dragon ships the size of Weatherlight, cruisers thrice her displacement, and some larger still, massive things covered with holes.

Here was the long-dreamed evil.

"Plague ships," Orim growled.

"They've seen us," Sisay said, pointing. "Look."

Two of the cruisers nosed through the gap. The sunlight of Dominaria broke upon them. Spiky rams led their prows, and behind them were rank on rank of scabrous ribs. Black shadows became black realities. The central hulls of the ships seemed cancerous carbuncles piled atop each other. Next came flaring spines, razor wings, and clouds of oil soot. They were huge ships, the size of floating cities.

Swarming antlike across them were Phyrexians.

"Evasive action?" Sisay asked.

"Take us to them, Sisay. Battle stations," Gerrard responded. He repeated the order into the tube. "Battle stations!"

Tahngarth yanked back the forward hatch and descended amidships on his way to the forecastle guns. Sisay meanwhile hauled hard on the wheel. Weatherlight banked and climbed. Behind her, Hanna nearly bit a stylus in two as she worked out new calibrations. She spared a moment to swat Squee out from under her desk. The goblin retreated toward the poop deck door and huddled there.

"Get to the aft gun. You're not as craven as all that," Gerrard said.

"Who? Squee?" whimpered the little green man.

"Yes, Squee. You're the one who shot Volrath out of the sky, right?"

A glad light came to the goblin's eyes, and he hurried out the aft door.

"What, if I might ask, is your plan, Commander Gerrard?" Sisay shot over one shoulder.

He smiled winningly, "To fight Phyrexians."

Then he too swung down through the hatch. It was his last chance for bravado. The ships were closing fast. Gerrard sprinted across the amidships planks, vaulted up the forecastle stairs, and rushed to his gunner's rig. Even as he fastened straps about him, he pumped the foot pedal that charged the gun. A moan began in the metal. It shivered and grew warm. The powerstone arrays in the center of the gun's housing glowed to life.