3rd July 2012
10:47 GMT -5
The defence fleet reorientates as the four of us grow steadily closer. I don't think that they honestly believe that we're the main attack; Reach ships are known to be able to kill Lanterns, and I see they've reactivated some of the older models and sent them to the Reserve Fleet we're currently facing.
Not that the old ships are worse than the more recently constructed ones. Far from it. Rather, they're optimised for fighting Lanterns, targets they stopped needing to specialise against once their war with the Green Lantern Corps ended. Ships whose forward deployment might have been taken by the Guardians as an indication that they were thinking about fighting Lanterns again. Those things are ships that the Orange Lantern Corps has run training exercises about; they don't try and kill Lanterns with direct fire. They usually have some small direct fire weapons for coup de grâce shots, but their primary armaments are things like spatial disruptors which can cover huge volumes of space, or telepathic weapons which interfere with a Lantern's focus and so their ability to create and maintain constructs.
A few ships try firing on us, but the sheer volume of space that they're trying to cover means that there's next to no chance of them scoring a hit. I spot two drone carriers launch their cargoes in our directions, but since they're forced to travel at sublight speeds they won't be in effective weapons range until long after we overtake our quarry. If that's all they can do…
"Illustres to Clarissi. Reach fleet doesn't appear to have long range FTL weapons."
"Obviously. Empathic results?"
"Crew well motivated and sure of themselves. They know that they're unlikely to survive, but they believe that they can cripple us. I can't see anything related to a clever strategy or concealed allies."
"Scarabs?"
"They're blocking me, so they're probably-."
"Understood."
The connection fades. Well, alright, naturally he's paying attention to the only active combat currently taking place. But if he's done an analysis on the weapons the defenders are actually using, couldn't he have shared that with us? He's a far better analyst than me.
"So..?" Velus flies a little closer. "Are you planning on fighting..?"
"Ideally, I won't. Dox has me here for two reasons, but it would be far better for Orange Lanterns who aren't me to get experience in real combat with their rings against our primary enemy."
"Oh? Well, we got two minutes until we're in effective attack range… So?"
"We will lose battles during this war. That is practically unavoidable. But this is a fight we're supposed to win, to spur on our allies and potential allies. Losing here is unacceptable. If something strange happens and all other forces we're bringing to bear aren't enough, it's my job to ensure a victory."
"Because you're a super-Lantern."
"I'm not sure that I'm the most powerful Lantern in the universe, but I'm either number one or number two. It.. being understood that raw power isn't the only measure of ability. To the best of my knowledge the Reach don't have anything I can't defeat, but me having to do so would prove that Dox's preparations have been essentially useless. That's bad, politically."
"If you say so. What's the other reason?"
"My usual job. If an Orange Lantern goes crazy, it's my job to disarm them."
"You had to do that before?"
"A couple of times. Larfleeze was my first. The others were easier."
"Crazy Orange Lanterns are supposed to get real powerful."
"As I said, power isn't the only measure of ability. Clarissi Dox isn't all that powerful, but his understanding of weapons and technology means that he can do more with it. You heard about my fight with Lantern Ragnar?"
"He tells everyone. I think he's proud of it. Do you think you'll need to do something like that here?"
"No. I'm just insurance. But I'm trying to stay close to the most worrisome cases."
"Huh. Yeah, I guess that's fair. But all the targets in this system are military, aren't they?"
"If you can't identify targets-"
All four of us evade as a.. relatively weak gravity wave erupts outwards from the drive of our quarry. They appear to have accepted that they're not going to escape. Quite clever, really; their ship isn't designed to be able to do that and they must have reengineered the thing in flight without losing acceleration.
"-then you shouldn't be in the field."
But that sacrifice in acceleration for a desperation attack means that we're getting into attack range. Brobranbrak's ring glows brilliantly, then I'm surprised that zhe turns zhe's head away from the target to glance at me. Then zhe forms a… Crumbler ram construct and throws it towards the Reach ship.
"Well done. But-."
The ship begins to twist, and the moment it can bring any of its guns to bear it fires at the construct. Brobranbrak winces, but the construct collapses.
"-all Reach ships have weapons precise enough to snipe constructs. You need-."
"I do not need you to explain it to me."
Zhe reforms the ram and adds an outer shield before launching it again. I've felt like that before; the lesson is obvious and a person of reasonable intelligence can work it out without a tutor drawing particular attention to it. And zhe might have wanted to weigh up the ship's flak capacities for zheself. I shouldn't assume that Lantern Brobranbrak allowed zhe's contempt for aliens to influence zhe's decision.
So it's good that I don't have to assume things, and I could just check and confirm that's why. Still, I'll call it a win if zhe's abilities are improved by the event. No real need to labour the point.
The Reach ship fires again, but Lantern Brobranbrak remembers to have zhe's construct evade so that the shield only needs to take a couple of hits before slamming into the ship's shield envelope. The shield flares as the smart control system tries to respond to the thing that's hitting it before-. It's gone, and the ram carries on to punch a hole in the hull beneath.
Worth knowing. For a ship this size, smart shielding is the most efficient form of defence. But the standard 'neutral' defence is essentially an unusually efficient plasma shield, and crumber technology goes right through that.
Guns around the area struck lose power and some atmosphere vents, but that-.
There's a flare of light from inside the ship, and its motion becomes less controlled. Most ships that size don't focus on internal defences beyond teleport jammers, on the assumption that if the shields and armour have been breached then the ship's doomed anyway. Sticking a fission bomb is usually more than enough to wreck them from inside.
Quick check…
"Kill confirmed."
I check the system. The L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet is well inside the system, and will be coming within-.
I feel a new-. A cluster of new lights enter the system on another vector. Not reading L.E.G.I.O.N. transponders. If they're Reach ships-.
"Clarissi to Illustres. Return to the fleet at once."
"Acknowledged. Returning now."
But how will they hit him on Earth? And why would you want them to shoot Will Harper (The clone Roy,) anyway?
