I nod as I come up on… My home away from home.
"Does that include Bir Tawil? I can see the greenery from here."
Honestly, where
is home right now? The Mountain? Themyscira? Maltus? Gotham? OL spends hardly any time at rest, and most of the places he sleeps are just that, places to lay down and rest... Not actual
homes.
"No." Falil sounds quite sure. "Mighty Adom discussed the matter, and it was decided that your use of that place required that it be part of no nation."
"Thank you. I'll let you get back to it."
Logical enough. If it were in Kahndaqi territory, other nations would assume they're taking advantage of it to gain
some advantage, even if they weren't actually doing so.
I lower my ring, wincing.
This is a trade post which I upgraded slightly to be more suited for long term habitation. It was never precisely a fortress. But it has-. Had force fields and automated weapons of varying degrees of lethality. It.. technically still has armour that should turn aside most Earth-built anti-armour weapons.
I'm guessing the
Dark Side weren't
gentle in their assault. Unsurprising...
Someone smashed right through it all. That's… Within the combined abilities of people the Alliance has on its rolls, I think. If Marcus-.
I look over at the blasted-open anti-ship silos.
Safe bet Alpha Centurion led the assault, then. That's quite a bonus to the enemy.
Ring, scan for atmospheric disturbances commensurate to-. Yes.
Marcus's ship has some pretty solid shields. From the residual ionisation in the air it looks like it took a few hits, and then…
Going by the lack of wrecked ship, it's still functional, though hopefully damaged enough that they won't risk it again...
I float over to the closest silo and try connecting to the control system. No, it's been destroyed. Local backup? Destroyed. Targetting data in the gun itself? No.
"Orange Lantern to Blue Lantern. Bir Tawil's been attacked. Exterior defences appear to have been destroyed by a force that included Alpha Centurion's ship."
Which means they had the run of the place, then. Ship-based firepower is a big force-multiplier.
"Yeah, that's what we picked up. You got any idea how worried we should be about him just… Flying to another planet in it?"
"Don't know. Mister Wasem told me that Alliance members didn't need to wear the helmet to be under the sway of the Anti-Life. Otherwise I'd have guessed that they had to stay in range of the Earth's thaumosphere. If anyone is going to have been heavily dosed, it's Marcus. And he has the coordinates of every inhabited world in this region, so if he…"
Hopefully, whoever's in charge will be too
stupid to think of that.
"He can just fly off any time he wants to."
Ah.
"No, because he doesn't have access to the Justice League's interdiction system. He could fly off, but it would take him months to get outside the affected area at least. There's still boom tubes… Do we have a count on the number of simultaneous boom tubes they've used?"
Well, that's one relief, at least.
"I don't think so. Our coverage isn't what it was." He sighs. "Gotham and New York are little slices of Hell right now, Paul. The people who aren't catatonic are… They're lashing out at everyone and everything."
"Unlikely. There's almost certainly a pattern."
Probably under external direction to release their darkest impulses, as a distraction. After all, if heroes are occupied trying to stop them they won't be fighting their
masters.
"That's what Riddler says. One thing I don't get, maybe you can explain it to me: if Mannheim's trying to take over the world with mind control, why is he letting them tear it apart?"
"Could be several reasons. I doubt he could produce enough helmets for everyone in secret. So he sets this off, we're distracted and he has the time to finish his work. Or he might not be trying to conquer the Earth."
Certainly, the effect seems to be getting a little stronger with every moment that passes. Maybe he's playing a
waiting game.
"No?"
"This universe contains seven galaxies. Each contains about a hundred billion stars. The Reach are trying to conquer them reasonably conventionally, subverting their neighbours before annexing and exterminating them. By N.E.M.O.'s calculations, they might just about finish before the universe runs out of energy. Apokolips haven't been on a conquest-spree for longer than humans have had the wheel. Darkseid is trying to learn more about the Anti-Life because universal mind control is more practical than conquering everything."
Seven galaxies within
possible reach of the Milky Way, at least. Inter
galactic distances are
not small.
"So that's all it's about."
"That would be my guess. He's been able to negate Lanterns since the Green Lantern Corps' failed invasion. That's not new. But the sort of arcane technology Earth's developing is new. Maybe he wanted to see how they interact?"
Surely the Fifth World can't be
that strange and unfamiliar... Or he's being
very careful about it.
"But why bother attacking your place? What do you have in there?"
"Some weapons they either couldn't or didn't try to take in one piece." I don't suppose I can scan..? No, that would have been too much. "Not sure about the interior. I've got-. I had a coupe of purple healing rays here, but they don't seem all that worried about their people dying. I'm going to look inside."
Outside of his clones, I doubt he kept anything valuable in there. Not even his miniatures collection.
"Do you need help?"
"Doesn't look like there's anyone still here." And we're in the Anti-Life zone. We don't have enough people who can resist on their own. "I'll handle it. Probably just a matter of recording the damage. I didn't keep anything unique here."
Nothing that can't easily be replaced, outside of the clones. And even
they can be remade given time.
I release Lantern Thornton and send him forwards, flying in through the gaping wound in my breakfast room.
"It's clear."
I doubt they're lurking in there. The
Dark Side's strategy doesn't seem to run to anything clever like an ambush...
I follow him in. Am I even going to rebuild this? Yes, yes of course I am, but getting one of my…
Yes, first world problem, but I doubt that Jade's flat is in one piece either.
And there's still that slight sense of
violation, of someone creeping about your house and going through your private stuff... Thankfully they weren't smooth criminals...
"Damage to the interior is precise, targeted at defence systems. Some blood on the floor, and the… Pattern of dust and clothes suggests to be that wounded Justifiers were vitality drained. Estimate… Thirty minimum killed in the initial part of the attack."
The outer defences escalate to human-lethal, but they start at 'stun'. Or… It's possible that they interact with the Anti-Life in a way that causes more damage. There aren't all that many long-term Anti-Life exposure cases off Apokolips itself. We're probably going to be a gold mine for researchers.
Hopefully, those piles of dust have
some form of ID on them, if only for identification later. I doubt they'd discard wallets or the like upon being
reprogrammed.
"Still clear. The place is empty."
I continue on, maintaining my alert just in case. Living area looks like someone through an explosive into it. Orange light spills out from my left ring and begins reassembling the settee, though if I'm going to have to redecorate I should probably run it past Jade first. Dismissing my own efforts, I float into the working areas.
Can't help
wanting to tidy up, huh?
"Workshop and storage room were ignored as far as I can tell. The defence systems are destroyed and there are more remains, but it doesn't look like they took anything or destroyed anything that wasn't directly in their way."
"What sort of things did they ignore?"
I'm guessing someone with more
value was here, using the Justifiers as fodder and fuel to keep themselves fighting fit...
"Space-age tools. A couple of infantry weapon prototypes. Useful things that normal supervillains would loot. No what Mannheim wanted, so they didn't even look at it."
Next is medical. I float over the molten remains of the door.
Yes, one guess where they focused...
Darn it.
"One of the purple rays is gone. Parts of the computer have been carefully removed and taken. Three cloning tanks and my three backup bodies have also been removed."
Let's hope they aren't
functional without OL's animating essence.
"Your three-? Oh, because you can move yourself.. into one if you die."
"I'm not sure if I can do it on a thaumically active world, but that's the idea."
Though obviously I can't risk it now.
So, no extra lives if you fuck up. I expect you'll be more
careful in any upcoming fights.
