[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

12th August 2013
22:41 GMT

"Purple hair and tattoos?"

Kon nods. "If she looks like the others, yeah."

That's her. In the comics she was an alien living in Kandor, who mentally altered Superman to think he was her husband. Now that I think about it, that doesn't make any sense. There weren't any aliens in Kandor; Krypton had been isolationist for over a century before it exploded, and it's not like Krypton had any need for an alien underclass to do manual labour for them.

And wasn't Kandor part of that Mosaic thing anyway..? Author's note: No. Despite having a guy in the comics who canonically collected cities, they chose to make a character who when last seen was a pleasant old man retiring from active service go mad and abduct cities for no reason instead. Yes, I'm bitter.

"And this whole thing was a dominator plot to steal kryptonian technology?"

Kon shrugs. "That's my best guess. You said they had a space gate on Timaron?"

"Under the surface, yes."

"Were they trying to get kryptonian technology from there, too?"

"I don't know. It's possible that they just put a portal there so that they had one in the general vicinity. I don't even know if they put it there before or after Timaron was ravaged."

Arisia frowns. "Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

"The dominators have a bit of a habit of sneaking research stations into places no one was expecting them. The only difference between that and a gateway is that building a gateway would take longer. They've had forty years since Dru-Zod wrecked the place, but they've had over a century since Krypton abandoned it."

"Okay." She nods. "So the reason why everyone got turned stupid is that Lyla… Wanted to make sure that none of us talked to Zod and Ursa about her? Or-. About Non, because they knew him well enough to notice that he wasn't acting right? And that's why she knocked them out and didn't speak to them again?"

"That's my best guess. Plus, it increased how much we trusted 'Non-Du'. Nothing went missing, but she could have learned all sorts of things by observation."

Kon nods. "So what now?"

"We go back to Xudar, beat Lyla unconscious and then have the genomorphs trawl her brain to find out exactly what she did, and then if relevant put her on trial under the appropriate legal code."

"And Zod and Ursa?"

"Nothing's changed, except that Lyla might be responsible for the things they've been accused of. I'm carrying kryptonite and their environmental shields aren't configured to block kryptonite radiation."

"What if they're on the ships?"

"Then that's up to Jordan and Kal-El. More Jordan, really. I'm happy to pry them open but that might cause a bigger confrontation with the Dominion."

"Bigger than that thing with the guys working on Great Mother?"

"Those were -relatively speaking- nobodies. If their gamble doesn't pay off no one was going to do anything. Whoever did this has a slightly bigger circle on their forehead."

Arisia narrows her eyes. "Didn't you attack a dominator prison?"

"Yes, but I didn't keep hold of the high caste dominators who ran it. The Dominion is far too low on my list of priorities to start a fight right now." Hm. "Unless no one minds if I destroy their core worlds and butcher the entire population. I might be able to do that-."

"No." She shakes her head. "No don't do that."

I nod agreeably. "So the best case scenario is that we take all the dominators here prisoner and trade them back to the Dominion after learning what they were doing. So." I gesture in the direction of Xudar. "Shall we?"

They nod, and I extend my own environmental shield around them because with all due respect to Lantern Arisia I'm a lot stronger than she is. Space bends and my rings' power reserves tick downwards as I brute force us through the Dominion interdiction field towards Xudar.

Scanning…

"We're coming out behind their fleet. Not sure what they're doing or what's happening on Xudar itself. Two, one, now."

Spacetime wobbles, and we're back to following its rules.

And there are the ships, four military cruisers and a cluster of attack craft, backed up by a smattering of thralls.

"Green Lantern to Orange Lantern."

The cruisers aren't bothering to do anything so gauche as use a gravity well slingshot. Instead, they're just using their own gravity drives to twist around as they pull away from Xudar, the rest of the fleet following as best it can. They aren't actually trying to get their subordinates killed; they just literally don't care whether they live or die.

"I'm here with Kon and Arisia. Situation?"

"Ursa and Lyla are free, and Lyla got kryptonian powers. Any idea where they're going?"

"There's a spatial gate near Timaron. They were hiding it under the planet's surface. Mother of Mercy's in pursuit of their command ship, but with interdiction fields in action she's… A planet. They're not exactly fast or agile."

He nods curtly. "Lyla and Ursa are onboard one of those ships. I don't know which one."

I look at them. I don't know what Lyla looks like, but Ursa…

I add her location to the tactical plot. "Orders?"

"What do you think?"

"We don't really need either of them, tidy as it would be. But we can't let the Dominion do whatever it likes. I could easily wreck a few of those ships without killing too much of the crew. Alternately…" Hm. "Could you make a zeta tube construct?"

"No."

"Can Ghia'ta?"

"Ah… She says 'yeah'."

"Neat. Whoever's in charge will be on the command ship near Timaron, but the shipmasters will be experienced and capable. It would help if I had a distraction."

"Karsta wants to attack, Supes told her 'no'. I know how you feel but he doesn't think this is worth killing anyone over."

I suppose the Doomsday probably wasn't designed to be discriminating.

"Have her pursue on an attack heading, just to make them think she's going to shoot. Move after the alien ships yourself. You can disable them without killing anyone, right?" He nods. "Kon and Arisia can hold their attention here without getting in too much danger."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to board them, of course."

 

[Mr Zoat]

12th August 2013
22:45 GMT

It's not that the dominators couldn't learn to block me when I travel like this, it's that they haven't done so yet.

I give Team Distraction a few moments to get their attention. Dominator vessels tend to have highly hierarchical command structures. Everything will go through the shipmaster unless there's a high caste dominator on board, and even then the shipmaster will probably only refer to them if they need a policy decision. What that means is that if the shipmaster is making decisions about his ships being attacked there should be an appreciable delay in them making decisions about me.

But with the high caste in overall command not here, there's a limit to the amount of intelligence I can gather like this. The dominators on board just don't have strong desires relating to the mission beyond wanting to survive it. I haven't interacted with low caste dominators before, and it's… Interesting the way that their desires appear to be limited by their station. And not in the way that humans would be, where they might want all sorts of things but have stronger connections to things that are regarded as desirable in their subculture. Dominators seem to desire improvements in themselves, better tools for their jobs… And that's about it.

It's an interesting contrast to the Reach, where even a 'poor' Reachian will in effect have a middle class existence. The Dominion does have lower class dominators, rather than use alien slaves or metics for undesirable tasks. And yet there doesn't appear to be any resentment or burning need for personal advancement. As opposed to the psions who did want to advance themselves while still being mostly willing to work within the structures of their own society.

Alright, that's

enough. I appear in… A medical laboratory, a mid caste dominator performing basic tests on the recumbent Lyla. She seems at ease around them, smiling to herself as they move their instruments. In a remarkably human moment that makes me smile I notice that all the dominators in the room are looking at her rather than paying attention to their surroundings. My armour's stealth system activates almost immediately, but there was a good half-second there where they could have spotted me.

And because a dominator ship is almost certainly able to detect phasing but doesn't have a system for monitoring footfall, I'm just standing here. They'd pick me up immediately if they looked, but… There's nothing to cause them to look and the shipmaster is busy. And while Lyla could certainly detect me with telepathy, this armour has a mind shield.

"…in line with predictions. Some cells exist at the lower energy state, but that will most likely correct itself with further solar exposure."

Lyla smiles. "I shall become more powerful?"

"In line with previous estimates, yes. I am uncertain what the process will do to the mundane aspects of your physiology. If you desire your strength to reach the greatest height possible, it may be best to avoid solar exposure and concentrate on expanding your muscles."

"I cannot exercise like this? Kal-El had memories of machines designed to test even his strength."

"You have fulfilled your obligations to us, as we have to you. You are free to ignore my advice. If you want exercise equipment built for you to test your current strength, you will need to agree to new terms."

"You aren't interested at all?"

"That is not the information we came here to gather. Anything else is up to the high caste."

She opens her eyes slightly, regarding the dominator curiously. "Will they give my power to you?"

"That is unlikely. It would not aid me in my duties."

I deposit a gold kryptonite crystal behind me, my armour's stealth system obscuring it from the rest of the room. But the radiation should start-.

"Curious. The activity in your cells is weakening. Can you feel-?"

She sits upright, scowling. "Yes! What is happening?!" Something occurs to her, and she gets and the bed and grabs the physician by his overalls, lifting him off his feet. "If you have betrayed me I am still strong enough to-."

"No." He stretches his arms and cranes his neck to keep in contact with his computer. "If we were betraying you, you would not be coherent enough to complain. The photoreceptive kryptonian organelles which your body generated are still there, but their… Connection to the exotic energy source is being disrupted. This is fascinating. I will be certain to note that you have provided additional data beyond our expectations."

He does want to live, but there's no real fear at the idea of his immediate death. Just a sense that it's extremely undesirable to fail to complete his task.

"Fix it."

"I do not have the required knowledge of dimensional physics." His eyes dip, noticing the fact that her not particularly muscular arm is shaking with the effort of keeping him aloft. "If you put me down, I will resume my examination. Our agreement was to take the kryptonians' power and give it to you. If you do not have it, then we have failed to live up to our end of the bargain. Learning what has happened will further our understanding and is in accordance with our interests."

She calms down slightly, setting him down on his feet and sitting back down on the bed. "Do it, then."

Sound screen around the edge of the room, shield around the edge of the room, drop stealth, target automatic turrets there and there with energy pulses, they're nothing special and appear to be purely for ship security, generate a zeta tube construct and dial…

"What?" The mid caste dominator boggles as he takes me in, while his low caste assistants back off. One takes a look at the shield blocking the door but immediately abandons the idea of trying to break through. "Who-? Orange Lantern."

"Yep. And you're-" The zeta tube swirls to life. "-busted."

Construct tethers grab everyone in the room -Lyta's not entirely out of power so her construct is a bit more solid- and toss them through. A one way trip back to Xudar. If this was a Reach ship then I'd leave a bomb behind, but as this is a Justice League operation I'll just have to leave it.

And by 'it' I mean a box with 'LARGE BOMB' written on it. I-.

I pick up the gold kryptonite and send it back into subspace, because that's not something I want to leave with the Dominion, step

out and walk towards the thwarted desire for personal empowerment that marks out Lyla and

appear onboard the Xudarian flagship surrounded by armed marines guarding the prisoners.

"Thank you, gentlemen." The pink glowing zeta tube construct shuts down behind me. "Thank you, Star Sapphire Ghia'ta."

She gives me a shallow bow as I raise my left hand to my face, using my other ring to generate a teleport jammer.

"Green Lantern Jordan? Spy and other prisoners captured."

"Right." No face, because he's busy. "I'll call everyone off. You get Ursa?"

"She wasn't being held in the same place. I could try, but they'd almost certainly be more prepared this time. And zeta radiation-based travel is something they know how to disrupt."

"Then forget it."

"I take it we're letting them leave?"

"We're not starting a war with the whole Dominion right here, so, yeah."

"I'll tell Lantern Mother of Mercy to abandon pursuit. Lantern Tomar-Re will have other prisoners for us to interrogate, but I imagine that the Guardians will have them shipped back to the Dominion afterwards. Anyone need medical attention on our side?"

"Yeah. Superman and Osiris. I'll bring them to you. Green Lantern out."