J. King: INVASION

Urza's temples reddened. He had no need to blush. The capillaries that suffused his flesh were mere figments of his mind but, as figments, were all the more receptive to Urza's mood.

"If we succeed in this war, nothing ever again will be up to the Phyrexians," replied Urza.

Barrin grasped Urza's armored shoulder and pointed toward the wide heavens. "Here they come."

The sky opened. Blackness ripped a hole in blue. A portal yawned wide. From its lightless depths stared a malign presence.

Urza's hand tightened on his battle staff. "My old foe. He is gazing at me."

"And you are gazing at him."

"Were it not for him, I could simply walk to that portal and shut it down, but he knows me. He shoves at me, even here."

Ships-small, fleet ships-shot from the yawning portal. They buzzed outward and swarmed there, watching for attack. Some were dragon ships, their necks and tails coiling. Others were smaller still, single-pilot jump-ships configured like fleas. A few were puppet craft, unmanned and controlled distally. All flew in intercept patterns as the first big cruisers made their way through the portal.

"They've learned from Weatherlight's tactics," Urza observed grimly. "We'll not be shutting this one down in Gerrard-fashion."

"He's shoving at you, Urza," Barrin said. "Shove back."

Nodding in satisfaction, Urza raised his battle staff. "First- some old friends. Do you think they will remember my falcon engines?" He pressed a certain stone.

From among waving heads of wheat, metal things surged suddenly skyward. There were ten thousand of the birds-little more than wings of steel, gemstone eyes, and nostrils that craved glistening-oil. In their brave breasts the falcons bore Thran-metal shredders. When they struck Phyrexian flesh, the shredders emerged to dig through.

Falcons rocketed skyward. Their pinions shrieked in the ascent. In moments, they had reached the foe. Falcons converged on the vanguard of Phyrexian vessels. Many cracked through jump-ship windscreens and punched into the chests of Phyrexian pilots. Most hurled themselves onward to the cruisers that lumbered above. Plasma batteries answered from the huge ships. The falcons easily evaded. They reached the cruisers, delved into whatever hollows presented themselves, and coursed down corridors into chambers where Phyrexians stood their posts. There, they shredded.

Once again, there came that impossible grin on Urza's face.

"You're enjoying this," Barrin observed grimly.

"It's a sort of chess match," Urza replied. "Two foes, ancient and powerful, battling over little squares of turf."

Barrin's face was bleak. "Two not dissimilar foes-"

"He has led with his knights and bishops. I have led with my pawns. They are swarming and destroying his pieces."

"Weatherlight is not a pawn. That ship, and Gerrard, and my daughter-it's your king. You're leading with your king."

Urza gestured as jump-ships fell in a regular rain from the skies. "It is beautiful. How can you not smile?"

"In this chess match, Master Urza, you have sixteen pieces and he sixteen thousand."

"I have sixteen billion," Urza said. "I have every fluttering heart on this planet." He brought his staff down.

From the rocky peaks all around came the whine of cables snapping suddenly taut. Enormous trebuchet arms arced up from machines hidden in cut branches. Their uplifted baskets flung Metathran troop transports high into the air. The small ships spun skyward. They were simple in design-mere wheels hurled on the air. Within those wheels sat Metathran shock troops-blue-skinned warriors bioengineered for this very war. They were held against the walls by simple centripetal force. The transports had no engines of their own. On the perimeter of each disk, five powerstones in the five colors of magic were imbedded equidistant. In dynamic opposition, they made the wheel into a mana magnet. It was drawn inexorably to the most powerful mana source nearby, where it would clamp tight. Reaching the height of their arc, the transports sensed the cruisers emerging above. One after another, they whirled upward. Dragon engines flew down to intercept them. A few disks struck the dragons, knocking them aside and continuing on their steady flight upward. The pull of gravity was nothing next to the pull of magic. Like sucker fish around a shark, the disks schooled up around the nearest Phyrexian cruiser and latched on. Immediately, Metathran warriors climbed from their wheels, boarding the enemy vessel.

"They will not survive the battle," Barrin noted. "They are bred not to care whether they do," Urza said. "So are Phyrexians," Barrin replied.

"Then they should be a fair match," Urza mused. His eyes glinted. Whenever he stared intently, the faceted gemstones in his skull showed through the masking glamour they wore. "I only wish I had batteries of ray cannons. That was my one great oversight." "One… great

… oversight," Barrin echoed sardonically. Urza raised an eyebrow. "Phyrexians inherited Thran power-stone technology undiluted. They had six thousand years and a world laboratory to improve on it. I've had to dig Thran hulks from deserts and volcanoes and guess at glyphs and work in impoverished isolation." He gave another rap of his war staff. A hundred more troop transports launched overhead. "Of course they have ray cannons."

"Weatherlight has Phyrexian ray cannons. You could study them there. Your titan engines could use such weapons."

"I would not interfere with the development of the crew." "They wouldn't even know you were there," Barrin interrupted testily. "You are Urza Planeswalker, after all."

The new batch of troop transports swarmed a third cruiser, just then emerging from the portal. The first two ships, sharks drifting side by side, no sooner cleared the gap than black-mana bombards hurled destruction from one to the other. Ropy lines of energy spattered the sides of one cruiser, eating it away.

Urza nodded. "I see the teams have reached the fire controls,"

The attacking ship banked inward. Its huge hulk ran up alongside the neighbor ship. Lateral spikes sank like fangs into the wounded vessel's flank. Sparks ringed the gouges, and oil bled forth.

"They've reached the ship's bridge too," Barrin added.

The cruiser ground a deep cleft in the side of its cohort, severing vital conduits. The second cruiser began to list.

"You don't need ray cannons when you have strategy," Urza thought aloud.

The sky leviathans seemed to fuse. They scissored together, shearing away metal as they went. One lost lift.

Spewing flames, the two massive machines pitched toward the plains.

"And now, they've shut down the batteries," Urza said as commentary. "They should be returning to their transports. Once the mana batteries are dead, the transports will rise." His gemstone eyes followed the battleships as they plunged. Not a single transport had disengaged from the hull. "Any moment now, and they will whirl away to attach to the next ship."

The ships formed a huge V as they struck ground. Their prows dug deep. Soil mounded ahead of them and splashed outward like water. The ships compacted. What air once resided in those oily chambers shot forth in angry hisses. Panels blasted loose. Explosions followed. They began in shattered power cores and spread on plumes of oil and ignited even the white heads of wheat. Then the raving flames were extinguished by a black implosion that sucked air into its empty belly.

Grass was pulled from its roots. Trees were leveled in converging rings. Barrin himself would have been sucked into the vortex had it not been for Urza's stony hand grasping his shoulder. The whole world seemed to gasp in that moment. It was a deafening drone. Slowly the roar died to a sound like horses screaming, then sudden silence.

Releasing his comrade, Urza said hoarsely, "Not as I had planned it."