1st September 2012
14:34 GMT
"You know, Barda…" I glance around at her and then turn back towards the main view screen. "
Dear sister-in-law,-"
I don't have to look around
to feel her shudder.
"-you don't
have to follow me everywhere. With the greatest respect to you, I haven't adapted the Tamaranean ships to take advantage of New God abilities and as far as I know you've never been involved in fleet actions."
"That's
not why I'm here."
"Would you care to explain, then?"
"I'm here in case you're up to something." I turn my head to look directly at her, then pointedly continue turning my head to take in the marines and Lanterns in the command centre, then drop my eyes to indicate my own rings, then return my gaze to her. "It was
supposed to be Superman, but you managed to get him distracted."
She's currently showing him around the Doomsday. While I
was going to ask Mr. Near to command it, she's… Actually turned out to be a complete natural. She doesn't have any military experience as far as Karsta and I can tell, but I suppose that the control interfaces are quite similar to the civilian ones she would have been used to. And the Dru-Zod neural clone serving as the ship's main computer isn't complaining about having a kryptonian in command.
"He's not exactly hard to influence. Though you
might want to talk to one of the Green Lanterns about not picking Kara up earlier."
"I could see the scars on her face."
"And if she'd been
naked then you'd have seen scars on every other part of her body as well. Kryptonians don't just grow body parts
back like we do."
"What are you up to?"
"Tell me or I will beat you with words until you tell me."
"
Stuff."
"Hah!"
The Hitchhiker's quote is overused, but it's true; the thing about space is, it's big. Even sending out Lanterns in every direction -something I don't particularly want to do, as I don't exactly have an unending supply of those- we could only cover a relatively small area. Our intelligence gathering within Vega is
reasonable, as there are only allies and primitive worlds with listening posts left. But that's in actual
systems; virtually all of the internal volume of the region is near-empty space and we're relying on emission detection systems that are merely
good.
And that's not even starting on the more sparsely systemed universe outside of the Vega Moat.
I'm taking a large portion of the fleet and Orange Lantern Corps to do reconnaissance in force in the direction of the depopulated planet Artemis and Kanto found. We're not just boom tubing there for a number of reasons: it's a
big fleet and making boom tubes big enough isn't exactly
easy, Other Grayven might well detect it and the fact that since we don't know where the attacking fleet
is we're having to scan as we go. So far we're detecting all of the signals we're expecting to, but that could change at any time.
If I'm
really lucky, we'll encounter him and it'll turn out that he only has a tiny fleet with him, we'll destroy it to deny him his sovereign authority bonus and then I'll jump in in person and finish him off. Otherwise-
My ring
glimmers.
-things could get interesting.
"
Grayven here. Go ahead."
A
face… Ah, yes, that's probably something I should have sorted out. Nice thing about living in Vega is that you don't have to deal with -or 'deal with'- Green Lanterns. Apparently our Sector only has one rather than the usual two for some reason, and since I've spent virtually all my time in Vega I haven't bothered having any contact with him.
"You're moving a large fleet into Sector Two Eight Two Eight. Explain yourself."
I
could refuse-. Actually that's not a bad plan. He is unlikely to attack unless I start something with someone, and refusing to explain would probably prompt him to follow us. Which could be useful. On the other hand I'd feel obliged to him if he
did step in, and having the Green Lanterns keeping out of Vega has been pretty convenient. They don't
necessarily stop empire-builders, but…
Mm. But… No. I mean, it's not like the Green Lantern Corps doesn't know what I'm doing. Green Man can watch from outside, and the Two Eight One Four Lanterns have at least a
rough idea.
"Looking for another version of myself. He's got a gordanian warfleet and he's heading this way to deal with me. There's a good chance-"
I
send him the contents of our investigation of the now-empty world.
"-that he had something to do with
this."
"Your records show no evidence that a gordanian fleet was involved."
"Other than the fact it's in a straight line route. But does it matter? If we find the people who depopulated this planet then we'll ask them some polite questions, and if I find my doppelgänger then we'll politely ask him to turn around, and if they're the same people then… Not much changes."
"I will accompany you to ensure that you remain… Polite."
"Okay, well done for being the only member of your species who understands euphemisms, but I only intend to be polite up to a point. My casus belli is either defence of another or self defence. If those are dealt with then I have no further reason to engage in aggression, but I
will have them dealt with."
"You have come a long way from your territory for 'self defence'."
"What sort of fool lets an aggressor enter his territory when he can see them coming? There's nothing else
for him in this region of space. But if it turns out that this is an unfortunate misunderstanding and not an attempt to slay me for sharing his face, then
that's fine. I make an effort to get on well with my brothers."
I make a gesture of appeal to Barda, and she reluctantly nods.
"Your expressed objectives are reasonable. I will take part in any discussions to ensure that is all that happens."
"Fill your boots. Grayven out."
The face vanishes, though
ring scan says that he's keeping pace with us.
"
Captain, time to next planet?"
Obviously I
know, but you've got to make sure that they're awake every so often, haven't you?
"Screening vessels are already there. We will emerge in two, one-."
Normal space reappears, and-.
That's a lot of ships.
That's a lot of
big ships.
The
sensor officer pulls up a summary with commendable speed.
"One hundred and two ships of dreadnought class by mass and power output. Four hundred seventeen battleship class by mass and power output. One thousand two hundred fifty cruiser class by mass and power output, along with that many again… I'm not sure, civilian ships?"
I nod. "Any of them Apokoliptian?"
She shakes her head. "None match known Apokoliptian ship types."
"That's a
mercy."
Now, the simple fact that there are a lot of ships doesn't
necessarily mean that we're outmatched, though on the face of things we're
epically outmatched. Building big ships with big reactors isn't
that hard; if their weapons and sensors aren't good enough just our Lantern complement could kite them indefinitely. But I'm not going
wall to wall with a fleet that big.
"Alright, interdiction-." Captain Karras nods, having already activated them. "Good man. We'll sit back and get a very good look at how they perform.
Lanterns, get outside and prepare to intercept. I-."
"
My Lord!" The sensor officer pulls up an image of the planet they're menacing. "Look!"
