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  THE PHARON INVADE

  On the screen Stephanie could see the Pharon warriors shambling up the street in their ornate, golden armor.

  The walking dead. The Rotten.

  Their armor was beautiful, covered with symbols and hieroglyphics, and with high ornate collars behind their heads. But their faces were nothing more than wrappings and gray skin, long since dead, as if frostbite had taken them. The warriors were in pretty good condition for dead beings. Only one or two had complete chunks of them missing or rotted away.

  Suddenly on the display the missile streaked in and smashed straight into the middle of the group, exploding in a surrealist sort of slow motion. On the screen it was clear that at least four of the aliens had been blown completely apart by the missile explosion.

  At that moment three of the other warriors took aim upward with their weapons.

  "They aren’t going to retreat from this," Stanton said.

  VOR: THE MAELSTROM

  Vor: Into the Maelstrom

  by Loren L. Coleman

  Vor: The Playback War

  by Lisa Smedman

  Vor: The Rescue

  by Don Ellis

  Vor: Hell Heart

  by Robert E. Vardeman

  Vor: Operation Sierra-75

  by Thomas S. Gressman

  Available from Warner Aspect®

  VOR : ISLAND OF POWER . Copyright © 2000 by FASA Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Warner Books, Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

  VOR: The Maelstrom and all related characters, slogans, and indicia are trademarks of FASA Corporation.

  Aspect® name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.

  A Time Warner Company

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2456-9

  A mass market edition of this book was published in 2000 by Warner Books.

  First eBook edition: January 2001

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  For Loren Coleman

  Thanks for all the friendship

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  About the Author

  Prologue

  * * *

  Time: 12:14 Universal Time

  17 minutes before Arrival

  T he Pharon high priest stood in the control room of his spacecraft, the jewel-of-power solar collector over his head almost touching the ceiling as he stood watching the viewscreen. Displayed before him against the blackness of space was what looked like a small asteroid, no more than six kilometers long and half that thick. The light of the Maw, distant and faint, traced only the rock’s outline against the few stars. This was an almost empty area of the Maelstrom, near the outer edge. There was very little here to interest his people except this rock.

  A simple-looking asteroid tumbling in the darkness.

  But the high priest knew that it was much more. The rock contained vast power. A power he would someday control for his people.

  The fluids of life coursed through his body, pumped into him by the pack on his back. The wrappings on his arms were new and uncomfortably tight, yet he knew he must keep them that way. His vest was also new, with ornate glyphs showing his rank and accomplishments. His mailed skirt hung down behind him, protective rear armor. Soon, when he controlled the power of the rock, he would have even more beautifully carved glyphs to be proud of on his vest.

  His craft hung in space to one side of the tumbling asteroid, the ship’s sleek, aerodynamic shape giving the impression of movement even when it was hovering. The nose of the ship was pointed slightly downward, looking like a bird’s head from a distance. The gold and chrome of its skin reflected the distant light of the Maw at the center of the Maelstrom like a faint, internal glow.

  At least twenty other Pharons, mostly foot soldiers, also accompanied the high priest, as well as the two pilots sitting to his right. But he ignored them all for the moment, spellbound by the slowly tumbling rock showing on the screen.

  Suddenly a blue light seemed to encircle the rock, illuminating structures on the surface. One entire side of the asteroid was flat and covered in tall buildings never intended to exist in the vacuum of space.

  A city.

  An alien city could now be clearly seen. He knew the shape of it from memory, the pattern of its streets, the height of its buildings. He had followed this city for longer than he dared remember, always hoping that one day he would get the chance to learn its secrets. But as long as it remained in the coldness of space, the city’s secrets remained just that.

  Secrets.

  “Move back and stand ready,” he ordered the pilot, who obeyed, maneuvering away from the blue glow surrounding the city-covered asteroid.

  The glow increased, expanding, with no clear power source.

  Then the glow contracted.

  Then expanded again, the entire time never more than a kilometer off the surface of the rock.

  The Pharon priest marveled at the power of it. He must learn what controlled such power, then tame it.

  The city became clear, brightly lit as if spotlights were covering its every centimeter. Towering structures seemed to reach for the ball of blue energy surrounding the asteroid, never quite touching it.

  Then the blue glow began to swirl with intense force, expanding, contracting in the void of space.

  “It is about to shift,” the high priest said to the crewmen beside him.

  The blue of the energy surrounding the city-covered rock seemed to flash brightly as it reached its most intense point.

  In an instant the rock and the alien city winked out of sight, leaving only the faint shadow of a blue ball that also quickly vanished.

  The Pharon priest stared for a moment at the empty viewscreen, then turned to his second. “Where did the city jump to?”

  “A new planet’s surface,” his second said. “Very close to our current position.”

  For the first time in hundreds of jumps, the city had landed on a planet. And it was close enough to reach in time. The high priest’s voice concealed his excitement.

  “Take us there,” he said. “Quickly.”

  In the blackness of space the sleek shape of the Pharon craft turned and shot off, tracking the alien city once again to yet another new destination in the Maelstrom.

  1

  * * *

  Time: 1:17 A . M . Pacific Time

  14 minutes before Arrival

  D r. Hank Downer shivered. The wind coming off the Pacific Ocean cut through his light jacket as if it wasn’t there, the salt air stinging his neck
and face. He pulled the zipper up a little closer to his chin, hoping to block even the smallest breath of wind. It did no good. He would never get used to the dampness of the ocean air and the biting cold of the Oregon nights. The weather there never seemed to change. Cold rain and cold wind. Always the same.

  At least at the moment there was no rain. But the wind felt like it was peeling off layers of skin. The noise of the wind against his ears threatened to drown out his thoughts, but it was not enough to overpower the sound of the pounding of the surf.

  He and Stephanie Peters stood on a beach that stretched for kilometers of blackness in either direction. To the south a few lights shone from the small coastal town of Dustin Cove. Once a thriving coastal fishing community, the town was now populated mostly by research scientists like him and Stephanie and the facility’s military contingent and their families. They all worked at the nearby Oregon Research Facility. The Union government had long since bought out the original residents, more than likely for security reasons.

  In the other direction was nothing but sand and rock bluffs. This was a desolate stretch of land, isolated from the population centers of Oregon by mountains. It must have been the isolation that had made the government decide to place the research center out there. But the government didn’t have to live there.

  “Isn’t it a beautiful night?” Stephanie asked, putting her arm through his and pulling herself up close to him. “Smell that wonderful ocean. After all day cooped up underground, this is great.”

  It was a little after one in the morning, and they both had to be back in the lab at eight. If it were up to him, he’d be asleep right now in a warm bed. But she had wanted to take a stroll on the beach, to “clean some of the cobwebs out of my mind,” she had said. He hadn’t wanted her to go alone. Besides, it was a rare chance to spend a little more time together.

  So there they were.

  Stephanie stood facing directly into the wind and took a long, deep breath. Then she pointed at the black sky. “There are actually a few stars out.”

  “Very few,” he said. The wind seemed to yank the words from his mouth and float them up the sand dune and into the pine forest behind them. The paucity of stars in the clear night sky was just another of many reminders that Earth wasn’t where it used to be. Six years ago the planet had been ripped from its place among the stars and sucked into the anomalous space everyone now called the Maelstrom, a place where the laws of physics seemed to take every other day as a holiday.

  What Stephanie was calling stars he knew were mostly just planets that had been pulled in along with Earth, close enough to reflect the bright light coming from the Maw.

  She knew that, too, but Stephanie still liked to pretend they were stars and that the night sky was beautiful. Not Hank. He could never forget the thousands of stars that once filled the heavens and the fun of picking out the constellations or watching Mars and Jupiter move through them. For him, nothing could compare with that. These few points of faint light, scattered like dots on a black page, would never be enough to be beautiful to him.

  “Oh, come on,” Stephanie said, giving his arm a squeeze. “Let’s just enjoy a little of the night and not think about anything for a few minutes.”

  She let go of his arm and headed down the beach, her small flashlight making sure of the path ahead of her.

  He followed, staying close in the darkness, not turning on his larger light, but using hers for his guide as well. His feet sank with every step into the soft sand. He could feel the grains flowing in over the top of his boots and grinding through his socks. By the time he and Stephanie had gone the hundred meters south to a small alcove of sand, rocks, and driftwood, he was limping. Both boots felt at least a couple of kilos heavier.

  Stephanie dropped down into the sand near the bottom of a steep dune facing out over the dark ocean. Then she clicked off her flashlight. Hank stopped to sit on a log a few steps away and started untying his boots. At least here the wind wasn’t numbing his ears and face. And he could almost hear himself think, even with the pounding surf just down the beach.

  His eyes had grown accustomed enough to the faint light to see that she was staring out over the ocean, her chin resting on her pulled-up knees.

  “I love it out here,” she said. “It makes me forget all my cares.”

  Hank didn’t answer. Again, it didn’t actually work that way for him. Most of the time he just kept right on worrying no matter where he was.

  He left his boots untied and moved over to sit down beside her. She instantly leaned against him, resting her head against his chest while continuing to look out over the ocean.

  He put his arm around her. Though they’d been together for six months, they were rarely alone together. In their work in the underground research bunker, they were surrounded by hundreds of other scientists also working there.

  “That’s nice,” she said, snuggling against him.

  He had to agree. It was. Very nice, actually.

  They sat there, listening to the wind and the roaring surf for what seemed like a long time, saying nothing, not even moving. Sometimes moments were just meant to be left that way, Hank thought, and this was one he would always remember.

  Suddenly Stephanie sat upright, pulling out of his grasp and pointing out over the ocean.

  He saw it, too.

  The surface of the ocean was now visible before them, as if lit from above. He could see the pounding waves, the black rocks, the wind-whipped whitecaps.

  “What’s causing that?” he asked.

  “Not a clue,” she said.

  Around them it kept getting brighter and brighter, the light almost white as it turned the night brighter than a well-lit lab.

  Suddenly the sky over the ocean seemed to crackle, and everything around them had a bluish tint. The waves, the sand, the rocks.

  Everything.

  Then the sky over the ocean exploded.

  Lightning struck the top of a wave a short distance offshore. The bolt came out of nowhere. There were no clouds, nothing but the blackness of the night sky and the intense white light seeming to come from everywhere at once.

  “Amazing,” Stephanie whispered.

  Hank, too, was in awe. He’d never seen anything like what was happening around them.

  Then more lightning strikes.

  And more.

  And more. Faster they came, until it seemed the bolts were flashing down everywhere, as far up and down the beach, as far out over the ocean, as he could see.

  And they were coming at them.

  He could now both feel and sense the electrical charge in the air around them.

  His clothes seemed to grow stiff, crackling with little sparks.

  His hair floated away from his head.

  Electricity, massive amounts of it, was flooding over the ocean and beach.

  He pulled Stephanie back, and they scrambled on hands and knees, staying close to the ground, until they were lying behind the dune. There were no rocks or logs around them. Just sand. A dune didn’t make a good place to hide, but it was the best they could do without trying to stand and run. And Hank had no doubt that if they did that, they’d soon be dead.

  Thunder shook the ground as more and more lightning struck up and down the beach and over the waves. Hank and Stephanie wiggled their way down into the sand, trying not to be even a slight bump above the surface.

  One strike hit the log right where Hank had been sitting a few moments before and covered them in sand and splintered wood.

  His ears rang from the unbelievably loud concussion.

  “That was too close!” he shouted.

  Stephanie only nodded as the deafening thunder filled the air around them.

  Vast plumes of water shot into white light with each lightning strike on the ocean. And what had been night had turned into the brightest day. The air itself seemed to glow.

  “What’s happening?” Stephanie shouted, her voice barely audible between the intense claps of thund
er.

  He had no idea what was happening. Plenty of strange things had been occurring all over the planet since that awful moment when the Earth was drawn into the Maelstrom, but Hank had never been this close to any of them. Nothing like this.

  “I don’t know!” he shouted. “It must be something from the Maelstrom.”

  It was the only thing he could think of. Nothing like this ever happened naturally on Earth. What else could it be but the Maelstrom?

  During the first days of the Change, the Earth had suffered myriad storms, cataclysms, and general disasters. A large chunk of United Africa had even vanished, but things had eventually settled into a kind of normality. Of course, that didn’t mean nothing else was happening. It just meant it wasn’t getting reported to the general populace. Even he and Stephanie, working at a top-secret Union research facility, knew only what related to their own projects.

  Lightning and thunder pounded the beach around them.

  Another strike of lightning hit the hill above them, covering them with even more sand. He felt like they were in the middle of a giant battle of the gods. Everything was shaking.

  Sand rattled down the slope above them.

  Ocean water sprayed them as the wind drove it inland.

  Lightning continued to strike all around, and thunder rocked the ground.

  They didn’t dare move.

  Hank felt like he didn’t dare even breathe.

  He held Stephanie, and she held him back as the world around them went totally and completely crazy.

  Out on the horizon, through the bright flashes, Hank thought he could see a dark shape floating downward in the bright light.

  “Over the ocean!” he shouted into Stephanie’s ear. “Look.”

  Stephanie nodded. She was watching it, too.

  The black shape was like a hole in the white light.

  Slowly, like it was drifting down on a slight breeze, the hole in the light settled into the ocean, just short of the horizon.

  Then, almost as quickly as the storm had begun, the lightning slowed down. A few more strikes on the waves, and it stopped completely. The rumbling thunder, too.