She smiles brightly as she pulls the furs more tightly around her.
"The Director gave it to me. He said that I looked cold."
Not that she needs it. Environmental field and all that.
Yes, I imagine that surrounded by men stuck on a single sex military base in Siberia, the athletic, well endowed alien princess in short shorts and halter top probably did look cold.
Speak of which…
Something for her, OL? Upgearing a fellow lantern?
"Speaking of clothing, how does this-"
I take a bracer with an embedded sunstone out of subspace and hold it out to her.
Oh-ho! Now that would be useful for her. Like a pocket battery of solar energy.
"-feel?"
She gives it a small frown, then puts it over her left forearm and actives the auto-fit function. It tightens in place, the sunstone lighting up a moment later.
Lantern Koriand'r gives a slight gasp of surprise.
Heh, like a warm summer's day... And the bracer probably feels nice too.
"It feel like warm sunlight! What is it?"
"A Kryptonian sunstone. Kryptonians are also solar powered, though it works a little differently for them."
"Do you have more? Can Tamaran buy them?"
Huh, that's one thing Earth can provide. How many other things are there, I wonder?
"You'll have to talk to one of our kryptonians." Jor-El isn't really set up for mass production, and we can't really ship anyway. I look down at the depot. "Find anything?"
She shakes her head. "I did not. None of the patterns which you described were on any of the walls, or the ceiling, or the furniture, or the people."
Making a visual inspection, of course. Since if they were, they'd be conspicuously absent on a ring scan...
I nod. This is a 'secure' facility, but it isn't anything like as secure as the launch site. By design; it wouldn't be practical. Things are checked coming in and going out, but a lot of things come in and go out.
"So… Something came from somewhere, passed through here and might have ended up on the ships. But since we don't have any idea when or what it was, that doesn't really help."
Well, darn. Back to the mental editing lead, then.
"Are there very many things on Earth that could do this?"
"There are machines that can grant humans telepathy. A company I'm associated with is trying to update one, but the original machine was built decades ago and I doubt that I'm the only person who had this idea. Any human can learn magic, and… A sufficiently skilled street magician could do everything we've seen so far."
But what reason would Constantine have to do this?
...I kid, I kid.
Russia.. doesn't.. exactly have supervillains. There are superpowered criminals, but they generally don't wear costumes or use signature weapons. Not unless they're working overseas, anyway. Independent superheroes are also somewhat thin on the ground. As a result, there isn't a readily available data source that isn't coming out of the Ministry of Justice, and the League's never really been sure about how reliable those are.
China grudgingly cooperates with the League because they don't think they're ready to go their own way yet, and hate being reminded of the fact. Russia grudgingly cooperates with the League because they used to be fine going their own way and now aren't, and hate being reminded of the fact.
International politics in a superhero world, yay.
On the other hand, both of the Russians associated with the League are national heroes while the Chinese guy is someone they wanted rid of.
Hm. There are a few people listed as 'at large' who might have been able to do the bits we've been able to detect… But other than grabbing and interrogating every one of them-.
Which the Director is probably doing already. If nothing else, this gives a good pretext to do so.
Ring, scan Moscow. Current location of 'The Goatsmasher'?
I get an image of a group heavily armed Federal Police and.. Red Rockets, attacking a white haired man. Bullets do nothing but empowered his kinetic blasts, but they were prepared for that. He's hit by flares, some sort of ice gun and high-powered tasers until he collapses.
Oof. One of the stronger locals, eh?
Cleaning house. I wonder if the Director kept quiet after the collapse of the Soviet Union so that he'd have a target-rich environment to work in when he had someone in the Kremlin he could work with?
No. No, deliberately letting things get worse seems contrary to his character. But he probably finds it really convenient.
He struck me as someone who would prefer absolute control over everything, with every person knowing exactly what they have to do, and doing it without argument. Like an army of machines.
Something below catches my eye, and I look down to see that Dr Balewa has arrived. I take that as a sign and drop down to ground level, Koriand'r following me as I do so.
The warehouse workers have been restrained, but haven't regained consciousness yet. Mr Hol isn't superstrong, but he is a fair bit stronger than a human of his proportions would be, and he wasn't exactly pulling his punches when those guys jumped him.
That may sound odd, but consider - a goose's wings are strong enough to break a large man's bones. That's only six-odd feet of wingspan. Imagine what a Thanagarian's eighteen-foot-plus wingspan can do.
Dr Balewa is staring at them… I'm assuming that he's trying to sense any residual magic or at least identify spells that could have been used to do this, but there's nothing visible going on. I'll just.. wait until he finishes.
"Curious."
I see he's found something. And evidently it's not good.
"Sir?"
"I have the spell, but I do not recognise the form or the tradition." He frowns. "That is strange."
And very worrying, since he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Earth magic. It would have to be very, very obscure for him not to recognise
something about it.
"It is? I thought random cults brute forced blood rituals often enough-."
"That is a tradition in its own right." He shakes his head. "Magic schools have their forms. Even 'traditional' magic has a form, whether it works or not. I have had a very long time to acquaint myself all of the forms of magic on the Earth. I do not recognise this."
So it's the original work of a talented amateur... Or it's something not of this earth. Or
both.
"Martians?"
Because if so this is going to be a pain.
Oh, yes. Who knows what's going on up there, considering what's been happening in the Renegade's timeline.
"Perhaps. Perhaps. I have not seen martian magic. But I do not think that a martian could adapt to the magics of the Earth quickly or easily."
Ah shit. Mental manipulation and magic?
"Do you think it was the Star Conquerors?"
...Oh,
bugger.
He freezes, then slowly nods.
"That is distinctly possible. None of the victims have the wounds on their faces that they bite leaves, but the improved version created at STAR Laboratories did not need to leave such wounds. Doctor Mist to Betman."
Crap. Crap, crap crap. This is not good at all...
"Go ahead."
"Orange Lantern has observed that this could be the work of the Star Conquerors, and I believe that he could be correct. I can attempt to track whoever did this by using the people they have touched, but they have become adept at disguising themselves and it will take some time."
He better be quick, this is not something to let sit...
"How long?"
"I cannot be certain. I should have a better idea after half an hour."
"The Lanterns are on call to perform an emergency interception if they try to de-orbit the ships. I'll contact Fate and ask him to check the remaining personnel at the launch site."
More mages. good. The sooner this gets chased down, the better.
"Very well. I will speak to you again in half an hour. Doctor Mist out."
Koriand'r frowns, then her ring glows and her eyes widen.
Checking her files? She's smart!
"Why did you not track down these 'Star Conqueror' creatures after you fought them?"
"Because the planet is a big place and they're very good at hiding. And we had no idea what they were trying to do, and we still don't."
As far as I remember from the comics, Star Conquerors mostly wanted to control things and keep expanding. These ones -if it was them- clearly had something in mind when they picked these targets. And now we're stuck waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Maybe... They want to call home?
