With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[RichardWhereat]

Oh, I like that style of spite. If you're going to lose, or already lost, then just fuck absolutely everyone who "won."

 

[Darko]

Been a while since I've reread the Hyanthis stuff. My understanding is that she dealt with the Equalization (?) plague but required them to treat her as queen afterward, and used mind control to ensure this.

It was only when she returned to her homeworld that they could throw off the mind control, kill her local collaborators, and retake their empire.

As for her current empire, I don't actually remember if she's mind controlling all her subjects.

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She cured them of the plague and declared herself their queen.

They couldn't refuse because the plague damaged their civilization to such an extent that resistance would have been pointless.

She later left and a group of Thanagarians overthrow her installed government and seized power.

No mind control was involved.

much opinion or choice on that.

I think we did meet a subject from Hyathis' world, during the exchange of technology with the other plant planet, and he didn't seem mind controlled

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The leader of those Thanagarian mercenaries Paul hired to help Tamaran.

 

[Mr Zoat]

8th September 2013
11:04 GMT

That… Clears that up.

Ring, can you still communicate?

There's a brief glow.

Confirmed.

Alert this Sector's Green Lanterns.

Compliance.

Around me, the Mosteelians are looking a little more confident. The two who were actually measurably injured are checked over by their colleagues, while the rest calmly evacuate the room. Scans show that a second security detail is heading in this direction. I don't think that they think they can actually hurt me -the Dhorians got Jordan's compliance by holding the entire population of the Earth hostage, not by threatening him while he was paralysed- but I suppose that leaving me here isn't really an option for them. Their boss might still be in a construct, but Kromm isn't vital to Mosteel in the way that Hyathis is to Alstair. They'll think it's a shame if they can't rescue him, but it's hardly catastrophic for them.

Assuming that Bleez's ship isn't shielded against gamma gongs -and there's no reason to assume that it would be- then Jade's paralysed and out of contact. But she should be safe, since the ship's in stable orbit and Mosteel is deliberately leaving its hangars closed.

But they had ships in the general area-.

Honden looks nice.

I appear on Bleez's ship, next to where Jade is frozen in place. And-.

I can move again. Not… Having a physical body appears to nullify the effect. Switch to light armour, plug the ring into the ship's systems and add construct shields just in case someone takes a shot. Plot… Course for the innermost planet and…

And I can't warp because that's being interdicted. Transitioning isn't all that fast over interplanetary distances…

Plot course further out of the system and transition.

"Sorry for the delay. We're heading out of the system now, and you should regain the ability to move in a few moments."

Jade, naturally, doesn't respond.

Next step… Ring, are there any parts of this ship you can't scan?

A three dimensional model appears in my head, with a few areas highlighted. Not too surprising; Nth metal can block ring scans in high concentrations. That one's probably whatever this ship uses for emergency power storage, that's clearly armour plating… But why does that part of the escape pod have an unscannable patch under that seat? I head over to it, open the door and pull back the seat…

Secure bleed fracture pulse communicator. No idea who's on the other side. Probably someone back on Thanagar. But they're as good a person to speak to as anyone.

Activate.

"This is the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps. The fleet in Thanagar has been lead into a trap. The crew are currently paralysed, and Antares is shortly going to turn into a red giant. Please communicate to them that should the paralysis effect wear off they need to get out of the system as fast as they can."

I wait for a moment, but no one says anything. Probably just a drop box that they check every couple of weeks. I-.

"Orange Lantern. Confirm your message."

"I confirm it? I'll try and prevent things getting that far-."

"I will forward your message to High Command. Please do your best to recover the fleet."

"Will do!" I close the seat back up and head back into the ship proper. Alright, we-.

"Eh." Jade winces as she regains mobility. "I'd forgotten what that was like."

"Y-? Oh, right, you were there for Kanjar Ro paralysing everyone on Earth. It was in the escape pod."

She nods and heads to the cockpit. "I'll monitor things from here. Stop-."

I sight the distinct desires of people trying to make a sun explode and

appear amongst them, clamping constructs onto everyone around me and hauling them away from anything that looks like it could be part of a sun-expanding machine.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid that the apocalypse-"

That one is thanagarian-. And that's a symbol associated with the Seven Devil cults. The people who can make Nth metal using mass murder.

"-is cancelled."

I send a filament into the computer systems of the facility I'm in, and…

It's an engineering and monitoring station. It's not doing anything in Antares.

Confirm location? Yes, innermost planet, underground and shielded. Who's in charge..? One thanagarian in this room, and that Mosteelian has a slightly fancier uniform. Tear off the Nth metal armour and brand them both.

You want to be helpful.

"What can I do for you?" / "How may this humble vassal serve?"

"How are you killing Antares, and how do I stop it?"

The thanagarian shakes his head. "You don't. The energy drainer is already well into the radiative zone, and all we can do from here is monitor it."

The Mosteelian nods. "We can't even reverse the effect of the gamma gong from here. I'm sorry, but we knew that you might get involved so we tried to make sure that you couldn't stop it."

"The energy drainer. How do I find it, and how to I safely destroy it?"

The Mosteelian puts his hands on his head, their equivalent of a shrug of ignorance. "I just handled the calculations and the stealth launch system."

The thanagarian curls his wings slightly around his body. "It uses one of the mysteries of Onimar Synn-"

Oh dear.

"-to feed the energy to him directly. In truth, he has little interest in heat energy, but when the sun expands and consumes this system, he will feed well on the souls of all who live here.

The Mosteelian tenses. "What?"

"We didn't tell you that part. I thought it would put you off."

"It would."

"How do I track it?"

The thanagarian thinks for a moment. "In theory, you could track the change in heat gradient, but to be honest, at this point the internal convection currents of the star would make that difficult even if it wasn't largely made of Nth metal. I honestly think we're all going to die."

"How many interdiction field generators are there? If I can deactivate-."

"Hundreds of thousands. And they can't be deactivated in one go. Hyathis doesn't really understand computers."

Alright, sun-diving then. I can-.

No, wait.

That should work.

 

[NightmareWarden]

Too bad the atlantean spellcasters were necessary for Vril Dox's "teleport everyone into Reach space" plan. It would be nice if OL could grab a ship, bring it to Earth, use the ship to teleport Kon to this sun, and then let him have a go at this with his star-resistance blessing.

 

[Lazurman]

This sounds like a job for Superman. Or failing that, Kon.

 

[PeriodicPedant]

Dumb question:
In the event that Paul were to fail to avert the apocalypse here, why is he trying to save the Thanagarian fleet?

 

[chxenocide2]

Alright, sun-diving then. I can-.

No, wait.

That should work.

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The great thing about this story is that you rarely have to wait more than a day to see how a cliffhanger resolves.