J. King: INVASION

"Everybody all right?" Gerrard shouted.

"Just a little scratch," Hanna answered. She gripped her stomach and smiled bravely. "Makes me want to fire this gun."

"The job's yours. See Orim about that scratch as soon as we're out of here."

"Look sharp," Sisay shouted. "There's the next armada."

Beyond the dipping prow of Weatherlight, a vast black cloud appeared. It swelled quickly outward until it filled the whole horizon. Instead of mist, though, this cloud was made of ships- Phyrexian warships.

There were dragon engines, cruisers, and plague ships but also hundreds of others. Many had been specified on the plans Hanna had stolen from the Mercadian hangar. Solid-hulled ram ships hovered like barracudas. Fat barges provided floating laboratories for Phyrexian vat priests. Bombers bore payloads of plague on bat-like wings. Helioslicers held themselves aloft with whirling blades that could mince whole armies. Icthus ships seemed winged spiders, with eight articulated lances for spearing merfolk. There were ship types for slaying every creature in land and water and air. They lined up to soar through the pincers of the portal ship.

"Let's not give them time to fire," Gerrard commanded. "Karn, keep the wings folded and the engines roaring."

"Aye."

"Sisay, we need perfect flying. No collisions and straight through the portal."

"I'll fling us through. You clear the way and shut the door behind us."

"Right. Tahngarth, Dabis, Hanna-we'll have just one chance at this."

"Don't worry. I'm pissed," Hanna said. She clung to the starboard amidships cannon, pivoting it fore.

"Just hold on. You're not strapped."

"Can't get rid of me that easily," she said, flashing him a grin.

He returned the look. "Here we go!"

Weatherlight blazed across Rath like a shooting star. Her engines lit the sagittal crests of the troops that crowded the land behind. Her ray cannons flung blazing light at the stacks of hovering ships ahead. Red plasma spattered arsenals, punched its way through engine walls, ripped open carapace hulls, slew the slayers on the threshold of the world.

Gerrard's cannon barked. Scarlet energy shot in a long column outward. It struck the rear stabilizers of a ram-ship dead ahead. The heavy craft pitched forward, driven over by the cannon fire. The ram head cracked into a troop ship below. The two halves of the troop ship split. Phyrexians spilled out like pepper from a mill. Weatherlight rocketed through the vacated space.

Tahngarth meanwhile lined up a shot, his bullish nostrils snorting. He fired. Red-hot energy pounded the aft of a command cruiser. The blast ripped free the flying bridge of the craft. It toppled aside, taking its controls and staff with it. The rest of the ship began to yaw slowly like a falling maple seed.

"Bull's-eye!" Gerrard shouted to him.

The minotaur squinted and rumbled, "Don't get cute."

Weatherlight cleared the spinning wreck. The portal ship appeared beyond, just visible through the waiting armada. The first two cruisers were making their leisurely way through.

"Save your shots!" Gerrard called. "Time this right."

In moments, they were in range.

"Aim… Fire!"

Six of the seven ray cannons could bear on the portal ship, and they all discharged. The racing blasts seemed red spokes on a vast wagon wheel. Each one soared unerringly to strike the pincers of the ship. They sparked and flared. Fires erupted from the ship. There was no time to see more.

Weatherlight shot through the portal. Blue skies replaced red. Benalia replaced Rath.

"Did it close? Did it close?" Gerrard shouted.

"Negative," called Sisay. "The cruisers are coming through-"

Four quick blasts came from the aft gun. Squee pumped the hissing weapon. Tracers stretched back to sock the bow of the half-emerged cruiser. Explosions popped along its hull.

"Great shot, Squee!"

The cruiser foundered, halfway through that hole in the sky. It listed to port. Its masts raked along the side of the portal, ripping at the superstructure. With a sudden boom like thunder, the gateway slammed closed. The prows of the two Phyrexian cruisers were severed from the rest of the ships. They fell away. The wrecks tumbled, sparking.

Benalia received its invaders with the wide-open arms of a brick wall. Each hulk shattered on impact.

"Hanna, find that third portal."

"We've got to land," Karn interrupted ominously from below. Weatherlight's wings raked out, and her engine slowed. "We're overheating."

"Fine-land-but get us to Benalia City. Get us to the Capashen Manor."

On a lofty ridge in eastern Benalia stood two men. They might as easily have been two armies. Power armor encased their bodies. Metallic, hypertrophic, veiny-the suits were set with power-stone arrays. Thick capes draped their shoulders. Bladed battle staves leaned in their grips. Flight dynamos jutted from arms and legs. Black crystals gave gauntlets the touch of death. Whole armies had been defeated by these two men.

They were not men, not truly. One was a millenniumold mage, with short gray hair, mutton chops, and a pair of wide-spaced mustaches bracketing his mouth. He wielded the power of skies and seas, of volcanoes and verdant fields. The armor he wore was a concession to his friend. Even without it, the mage could bring the heavens down to kiss the dust. The other man was a near-god. His body was nothing but a convenience of his concentration. Nothing but will held him in one place. He stepped among and between worlds as easily as other men stepped stone to stone. For him, the power armor was a vanity. He could have simply imagined the suit into being, but he loved to build machines.

Urza Planeswalker drew a deep breath of the cool air. Wind dragged at his long, ash-blond hair and goatee. It snapped his cape behind him.

"Do you sense it, Barrin? Do you sense what Weatherlight has just done?"

Mage Master Barrin nodded. Time had wrinkled his flesh and clouded his eyes. Still, he seemed a young protege to Urza. Indeed, he was. Though Barrin had lived a millennium, Urza had lived four.

"Yes, my friend. I sense what they have done-your savior and my daughter and their ship." The words sounded sharper than he had intended. It mattered little. Urza was oblivious to social slights. "They've closed two of the portals."

"Splendid." Urza rarely smiled, but he did now. "Gerrard at last is testing well." He glanced at his friend. Caprice shone in the planeswalker's gemstone eyes. "You said it was a mistake to create him. You said no man could live up to the destiny I assigned to Gerrard."

"I said no man could endure Gerrard's destiny." Shrugging his eyebrows, Barrin added, "We have yet to see. I only wish my daughter had chosen another man to love. It is dangerous business to love a savior."

"Hanna chose as her mother chose," Urza said offhandedly.

Barrin scowled, regret boiling in his eyes. "There is still this third portal." As if to banish memories, Barrin stared out over the wide plain. Wild wheat filled the fields, nodding white heads in the wind. "We should summon the aerial contingents. At top speed, they could arrive even as the portal opens."

"No," Urza said flatly. "I will summon them, but they will come slowly. They would be weakened after a more speedy flight." He activated gems imbedded in his staff.

"Better to field many troops early than to perish before stronger troops arrive," quipped Barrin.

"Haste makes waste. Better to bide our time," replied the planeswalker.

"If it were up to you, Urza, we would bide forever."

"If it were up to you, Barrin, we would do the same."

"But it is not up to us. It is up to the Phyrexians," Barrin said.