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

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:49 GMT
…to where I want to go.
I am not an engineer. I have heard that Cousin Hephaestus still lives on Earth, and if this is what is expected from me I will ask to spend time there studying under him. But everything appears to be-

WOOMPF!

-in ordershieldharder. Without a connection to the crew I'm not sure if it's even possible to open a ship-scale boom tube…

No, wait, I have a bond to the Darkstar crew. That… May be sufficient?

My ship had an actual control panel which could be manually operated. Perhaps this is a security-?

I have a fraction of a second warning before the New God Captain punches straight through my barrier.

"Hey, Lowlie!"

Armour!

She grabs me by the neck and spins, using my construct armour to absorb shots from the first scarab. Just a positron ray, so it doesn't do much to a construct. Sword, my sword is-. In her hand, and she's thrown it aside.

"Are we ready to go?"

"No, it's more complicated than simply turning it on. How do you not know this?"

She-. EH! She slams my face into the deck, my construct just about surviving the impact!

"Lowlies don't talk back."

Apokoliptian. I didn't think that Lowlies could use New God technology anymore than Karrakanians without Rhea's blood could.

"How do you expect me to make a machine I've never seen before work, then?"

OWF!

"Make it work."

I don't.. think that she is more educated in using this technology than I am. If she cannot feel it, or only feels it in an approximate sense, then I may be able to fool her.

"Where would you like to go?"

"Wherever Grayven is."

"I don't know where Grayven is."

"Out of Reach space, then."

"I can do that. How do you intend to move the ship?"

"Huh?"

"Boom tubes are static. You need to fly the ship through it. This ship is a wreck with no engines."

"Oh, that's easy. I rigged the back half of the ship to explode! There should be enough mass around the bridge to let us survive for a few seconds, then I'm home free."

"But they'll shoot the moment the-"

Lantern Zartok flies past behind her, frantically weaving around shots from both Scarab Warriors. The one on the ground doesn't really seem to be responding, but the symbiote appears to have made its arm gun work.

I can't see Grood.

"-tube opens."

"So you better make sure it shows up real close."

"If I could time the explosives as well-."

I barely even wince this time.

"It needs to be timed just right or we won't make it!"

"You won't make it. I'll be fine."

"Not if we're past the opening point when it opens."

"I'm pretty sure I can jump for it. Now open it!"

The Maltus system is the obvious place to try and take it. Its location is commonly available knowledge on every world in the region; the Reach have captured Darkstars before and they already know about our fleet build-up. Taking Scarabs there won't involve giving them information they don't already possess. But if something goes wrong with the boom tube I don't really want to create a route from Reach space to our capital world.

There are a number of worlds with L.E.G.I.O.N. fleets with Orange Lanterns attached to them. Such a flotilla would be able to control this situation easily, once we are away from the Reach fleet. If we had some way to communicate with them in advance, it may even be worth opening a tube to bring them here rather than the reverse-.

No. This device could not make a boom tube large enough for Lantern Mother of Mercy.

"I need to touch the device."

She looks at me for a-.

BOH!

Wha-?

She-. She punched me in the head hard enough to shatter my construct and-.

Agh!

"No you don't." She slams me face first into the floor, now without a construct barrier. "Now do-."

There should still be a fleet at Tillettit, and it's far enough away from anything vital that it's as good a place to go as any I know.

Open the W-.

Ah! She picked me up and slammed me down again, and now she's continuing to press!

"Not there, obviously." "You think I can't hear you like this?"

My sword's over there. If I can get-.

I fall to the floor as she loses hold of me. Scrabbling free, I see her staring at the sword halfway through her arm. And the fully armoured Darkstar holding it and trying to pull it back.

Open the Way.

BOOM!

I fly from the bridge, searching for the explosives or a good place to create an impeller construct to-.

"Drusa to Lanterns. Brace."

I brace myself against the corridor walls as the ship jumps forward. My ring shows me the Reach ships torn between not shooting at all, shooting at the debris field or shooting at the forward part of the ship where their Scarab Warriors are. A moment later they've failed to do anything with sufficient vigour and we're through.

Open the Way.

BOOM!

Oh dear.

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:51 GMT

I fly through the ship towards the boom tube.

"Drusa to Colos, I'm heading to the Citizenry ship."

"Cut the tether before you go. We'll be moving off once you're off the ship."

That's probably wise. Allyn might be able to keep the camouflage effect going while he's on the Citizenry ship, but if he moves through a boom tube in another part of the universe that situation might change.

"Understood." That shouldn't be-.

A female Darkstar is hurriedly donning the last parts of her exo-mantle, a woman I don't recognise shooting her with a purple beam-. A purple healing ray. This must be Darkstar Nguyen, the Illustres' lover. She wasn't part of the crew, which… Means that she was under cover on the Citizenry ship. She makes eye contact with me an instant before she clamps her helmet into place, and I crouch down next to the hull and picture the orange light moving ethereally through the hull and ingesting the tether.

"I'll deal with the Captain. You keep the ship in one piece."

I nod as I armour myself, then take the purple healing ray from the woman holding it. I don't know if Nguyen has the authority to give me orders, but she's the agent on-site and probably knows more about the situation than I do. Her head snaps back to the boom tube as she draws her-. Sword? Probably an Earth-sword with some sort of nonsensical ability.

Nguyen walks through the door cautiously, sword at the ready. I float through after her, ready to evade immediately if I need to.

Nguyen has her sword through the arm of a woman in green armour, presumably the captain. Local monitoring shows that the room is far too hot and radioactive for a conventional humanoid to survive unprotected, and the fact that Nguyen's sword won't come out shows that she's clearly tougher than most people.

BOOM!

No one would be stupid enough to open a boom tube without-

I catch sight of Grood crouched against a work station, clearly injured. I point the healing ray at him and fire it as Allyn flies off and Nguyen abandons her sword to duck under the captain's fist before shooting her in the face with her masers.

-a way to move the ship. None of us are in position, so the system designed to move the ship must already be in place because the Reach will shoot us dead if it isn't. Scan for-. Explosives? Calculate. Okay, technically-.

Alert! Reach ships-.

"Drusa to Lanterns. Brace."

The ships vibrates as the flaws in the explosive placements and the weakness in what's left of the hull make the explosive thrust uneven. All the explosives went off so I can't navigate with those-.

In slow motion in front of me Nguyen steps past the captain's swing and recovers her sword-. The captain's body was holding it in place by putting pressure on both sides of the sword without touching the blade itself. When she moved the arm the pressure was released. Zartok… Dances between the shots fired by one Scarab and the blade strikes of another, though he doesn't seem to have space to counterattack properly. The captain turns with Nguyen's movement, but-. She's not trying to hit Nguyen, she's-
Move. NOW!
BOOM!

-trying to open another boom tube. Has opened another boom tube.

I don't know whether destroying the generator shuts the tube down or not.

BOOM!

A new boom tube opens on the bridge, a huge figure-. That's Grayven. And whatever we thought happened to him and his ship, it looks like he's in perfect health.

The captain grins excitedly and she parries a swing from Nguyen, her counter going right through Nguyen's head as she phases. The Scarab Warrior fighting Zartok suddenly spins away, his armour morphing into a new gun which he-.
End.
Grayven's eyes flash red, a jagged line connecting him to the Scarab. The Scarab's armour… Evaporates, revealing a naked Reachian beneath.

"Lowlie."

"Hey, b-!"

"I see that my father's spy is still aboard." He looks at her with an expression of total contempt. "You are free to keep her."

The captain stops grinning.

"And I will do you the favour of shutting the boom tubes before the Reach fleet organises themselves to pursue you."

Zartok snarls.

"We do not need your pity."

Grayven turns his gaze upon Zartok. Muzzle the Yapping Hound.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHR!"

Grood's back on his feet. I.. don't think that picking a fight with someone like Grayven is a good idea. From the sound of it-. Was he the one who sabotaged the ship? We suspected that he didn't have a good relationship with Darkseid from the obvious lack of other Apokoliptian ships, but… If Darkseid was spying on him or foisting unwanted attendants on him...

Grood slashes into the flesh of the wounded Scarab, tearing through armour and flesh and-. Ripping the Scarab device out of its central nervous system in a shower of cerebrospinal fluid.

"HHHHHHHHRG!"

We've got an active Scarab implant? That's a major-

The Scarab glows for a moment and then decays into ash.

-victory.

Grayven looks around the bridge, the glow in his eyes fading slightly. Then he turns and walks back through his boom tube, which snaps closed behind him.

"How dare you treat me like a thrall!"

Zartok glows brilliantly for a moment, his corona billowing as if he were planning to throw orange spears at the air where Grayven had been standing. Then he dims and stalks towards the heavily wounded Knockout. She doesn't seem to know what to do, though her wounds don't seem to bother her in the least.

"Knockout. It appears that you have been abandoned."

"How.. dare he? How dare he?!"

"Fairly readily, it would appear. If you-?"

"You can't just… Refuse a gift from Darkseid! It's unthinkable!"

"To you, perhaps. Not to Grayven. Can I take it that you aren't feeling particularly loyal to either the Citizenry or to Grayven at the moment?"

"Yes. I'll betray them both." She turns and grins at Darkstar Nguyen. "If this little sneak is the one who interrogates me. I like her attitude."

"That can be arranged. Drusa, contact Maltus. Tell them… Mission accomplished."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 561 937.M41

I remember watching a video on YouTube about the French Revolution many years ago. The various contributors were discussing how the Committee for Public Safety went madder and madder and more and more murderous, and how that tied into other revolutionary philosophies. And most of them sounded like that fact was why they were very sceptical about revolutionary philosophy, because they'd seen where it led.

Except the Russian chap, who sounded like he thought it was great and completely appropriate to randomly murder people in order to maintain an atmosphere of fear that would make people reluctant to act against the revolutionary state.

"VILE HERETIC!"

My construct barrier wavers as… Some sort of energy field disrupting ammunition strikes it. Not actual Vindicare Temple shield-breaker rounds… I think. I'm too mobile to be a good target for temple assassins, so aside from one testicle-retraction-inducing encounter with a Callidus Assassin which I think was more an attack of opportunity I haven't been targetted. As far as I remember, shield breaker ammunition would break a shield whatever it was made of and these rounds clearly haven't.

My construct boyz swarm the Storm Trooper position, taking several hits before-

Waaaaaagh!

-evaporating, while their brethren slam into their targets with… With 'smackers', and begin clubbing them into compliance.

Some inquisitors are hard people in a hard line of work, confronting covert threats to the Estate Imperium. They're usually late to the party, fighting mutants, aliens, heretics and traitors in entrenched positions in the societies they inquisite in a desperate race to prevent some great catastrophe. Or they contain in their mind dangerous knowledge that is vital to a conflict but would corrupt a person of lesser devotion or will.

The old quote 'Some may question your right to destroy ten billion people. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them live!' isn't a dark joke or the ranting of some edgelord. I've seen Imperial loyalists burn a faithful world from orbit to destroy a reactivating Necron tomb buried underneath and I've seen what can happen when tombs like that reactivate and I agree that it was the correct course of action.

And some Inquisitors are like this arsehole.

I look at one of the holding cells, where the people were pushed inside until there was no space left at all, the bodies of the people closest to the bars… Partially pressed through. There's no one alive in there, but they… They could have lived for quite a while.

No sign of mutation or genetic corruption on any of them. No Eye of Horus tattoos, or other signs of religious heresy. A couple have genetic traits associated with low level psykers, but nothing above Mu level. Even the Inquisitor's own records just say that 'the will of the ineffable Master of Mankind drew them to my attention' and other just non-justifications.

This man didn't solve problems. He created them. And now I've got to deal with one.

Gremlin clanks up the corridor as the last of the Storm Troopers are… Um, detained. What he's wearing… We managed to acquire a couple of oddboyz to see what happened when they were exposed to him, on the grounds that they would be less hassle to contain than regular boyz. The results have been… Interesting, and the relatively smooth power armour he's now wearing is a marked departure from the way ork mega armour usually looks. It looks like armour and not randomly attached bits of industrial machinery, for a start.

"Looks like the boyz did good, Boss."

A mental impulse from me and they begin dragging the recumbent guardsmen out to the waiting detainment units. Technically, this is a Tau Empire-loyal human world invading its Imperium-loyal human neighbour, and as a result of the sheer barbarity of the rulers to their subjects they're not having any trouble finding collaborators. Earth-caste engineers will go through their… Horrendously brutal factories later to see what modifications can be made in terms of health and safety improvements…

They were literally cooking the foundry workers alive, for goodness sake.

I nod absent-mindedly. I'm not looking forward to the next bit, but that's my job.

"Boyz will be boyz."

The most deeply fortified cell is just ahead of me. The Storm Troopers were actually using the outer fortifications for cover, and-.

Ring charging. Capacitors at seventy six percent.

And something warp-related started happening here the moment Kais killed that flipping Inquisitor, which probably means that the wards were tied to his own psychic powers. And the Storm Troopers were stationed here rather than manning the outer defences.

Ring charging. Capacitors at seventy seven percent.

Artefact or psyker? Don't know. It's interfering with my scans. Gremlin is only here because as an orkoid he's a lot more resistant to this sort of thing than tau or most humans.

"Lotta sacrifices, boss. Didn't look loik that sorta Inquisitor."

Ritual sacrifices are best for sorcery, but actually? Just killing a lot of people in the same place works. The veil draws thin, and the next thing you know…

The ring defeats the lock on… Yes, it's a null chamber, as Gremlin readies his positron gun. Klaxon and warning lights as the heavy metal door slowly opens, my armour ready for any attack.

Ring charging. Capacitors at seventy eight percent. Capacitors at seventy nine percent.

Oh dear.

Scarlet and purple light streams out, moving in waves and leaving an odd ripple texture on any surface it touches. We've got a full on veil-piercing here, and that's a bad sign. The hole itself is manageable; this isn't my first time closing one. This issue is that every vaguely psychic person is going to start hearing the voices, if they weren't already.

A light stream touches my construct armour-

Capacitors at eighty percent.

-and gets absorbed as I push forward, Gremlin hanging back to cover me.

"Is there anyone in there? Please, try to remain calm, we're here to rescue you."

My boot hits a chain on the floor, links made from some psychically retardant material cut clean through and the remains of its purity seals melted on to the floor.

"Try imagining a wall. On the other side of the wall is a raging ocean, but where you are is calm."

Captured Imperial psykers haven't been entirely consistent in what they think they're allowed to share, but some just start muttering their mantras when their own powers start acting up.

"If you can hear my voice, please respond!"

The colours are fading slightly, and I can see the outline of the room. Looks like there's… Yes, an enhanced interrogation suite, Inquisition style. Clamps, chains, an excruciator, what's left of a scribe servitor… But they knew he didn't know anything! There wasn't anything he could tell them and they didn't believe otherwise. This was just… Horribly torture a man because that's the next step. And they don't even have the excuse that most Imperial organisations do about procedure being holy writ; the Inquisition is expressly empowered to go against that.

They just didn't care to.

Okay, I can't see anyone. They could be hiding themselves, but it's more likely that they're further into the warp.

A step from the real. Alright, let's do this.

"I'm coming for you! Please, come this way!"

The world ripples as the real pulls away and-.

A colossal arm of burning metal and slag punches through the materium and grabs onto me, pulling me into no-space before a vast daemonic face!

"Ave, domine."

And the real vanishes as I'm pulled deeper.

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 561 937.M41

I'm..! Burning!

Every part of my… AGH! Skin is… I can see welts-. No, that's… That's my armour, my armour has blisters and I can feel the blood draining and the fat dripping and the pus oozing! The pain in my eye sockets is incredible but I can still see…

RING!

AH!

Ah!

I'm not better, I'm not healed, but the pain is reduced to manageable levels. My injuries are glowing-.

"Advena."

Then the daemon hurls me away, and for a moment I foolishly assume that I'm heading back into reality. Instead, I hit-.

OW!

Hit a solid metal surface, my blisters tearing open again. Uh, the first version I read of the death of Horus described his armour as bleeding wherever Sanguinius cut it with his sword. And now I know how that felt. My armour's bruised, despite the ceramite being solid plates… Until a few moments ago. Now it and I are one and the same, and I need to-.

A piston screams towards me and I fly-.

Doesn't work!

I frantically scramble out of the way, the metal plate clipping my right leg-

CRACK!

-andagh! I grab a nearby support pillar and pull myself to my feet, avoiding putting any weight onto my newly broken leg. And I'm painfully aware that while I can charge myself with warp energy I can't just punch a hole back into reality myself.

The huge metal daemon is looking down at my form… From a hole in the roof and far wall of some sort of hellish manufacturing plant. Its face… The skin is like peeling… Metal? As if a coating was partially rubbed off. Around the joints I can see leaking lubricant fluid, and its mechanical eyes judder as they track me. Some parts of its body look like they're missing, as if whoever was making it gave up before they finished, cables and tubing left hanging free. I can actually see through it in a few places.

"What do you want?"

"We have known dark times. We have known strife."

Screech!

I glance up and hobblehobblehobble!

The industrial crucible crashes down and overturns, spilling molten metal across the floor towards me! Spotting a ladder on the side of a giant machine of some kind I hop at it and lunge, grabbing the furthest rung I can manage with both hands and hauling myself up just ahead of the glutinous slag!

"To live in these times is to have expendable life."

"Yeah, it's not called the-" Up, up. "-grim dark future because it's all puppies and rainbows."

The ladder's heating up and burning my hands, but it's nothing compared to what I got hit with when I first arrived.

"Where progress and humanity are replaced with brutality."

"Look, if you're trying to tailor a corruption narrative to fit me, you're going to have to try harder than that. I've got the orange light and the tau. I don't need-."

And that's when I spot that the rungs of the ladder are made of metal-coated human arms, reaching out from a machine whose outer surface is made of layers of metalised human skin.

Even for the Mechanicus…

"-Chaos or Chaos worshippers."

What god is it from? The decaying metal and comparatively laid back manner suggests Nurgle. But Nurgle daemons are usually a lot more overt about their decay, and this thing is more… Like damage from long term lack of maintenance rather than an infection or fungal growth. Its form is relatively stationary and rather… Bland, which implies that it's not Tzeentch. It's talking and there aren't skulls everywhere so Khorne's out, and while Slaanesh loves pain as much as everything else this is all a bit mundane.

I doubt that it's Malal given that we're in the warp, but since there aren't any other daemons around I suppose it's a 'maybe'. Which leaves other lesser chaos powers like Mo'rcck, Phraz-Etar or An'sl and I've got no idea what their daemons look like, or this could be a daemon of Chaos Undivided. If it's a regular daemon, it would have grown from a patch of undifferentiated energy not associated with the four. Or if it's an actual Daemon Prince, a being marked equally by each of the four, or a creature that absorbed and internalised enough warp energy to transcend its mortal origins without the four.

None of which helps me.

"Where the will of the few dictate the lives of the many."

"That's just human culture, I'm afraid."

"But a secret promise is made to those who are dauntless."

Oh. He came from that planet. Did the Inquisitor find a cultist by accident? I know that the princedom threshold is a bit lower for demagogues than it is for astartes, but there wasn't a cult here. They still have to do something, and getting tortured while someone else kills the Inquisitor wouldn't be enough.

I pull myself up on top of whatever this is a moment before the hands unclasp and the sheets of metal skin begin peeling off. Grabbing a control lectern for stability I look up at the daemon.

"Bit surprised it bothers you, though. Who are you?"

Its many robotic eyes move independently, taking in the whole of the factory. Some rotate further, and through the warp-stuff around it I can dimly make out more factories behind and above it.

"For at the end of days, they shall be found..."

Man-shaped metal sheets fly through the air towards the daemon as it spreads its arms wide to welcome them.

"Faultless."

They hit the daemon and flatten themselves against its skin, covering its metal plates and cables. To start with it just looks odd, but as more and more build up it changes the misshapen metal into a near-smooth humanoid.

What am I seeing?

I don't know.

I grab a metal person-sheet as it tugs against its mooring and try using my ring to learn something about it.

Damn this wretched world that I call my home.

And I feel it, feel the years, decades, centuries of the same cycles of suffering and misery. But they don't hope or despair, because it's all they know. They can't imagine anything else-. Or couldn't, until they were murdered by an Inquisitor and their souls were set loose into the warp.

Where they formed a bridge. Centred around-.

I let the flapping sheet go, and it flies around to cover the daemon's back. Or if I guess right, the newly ascendant daemon prince's back. That last prisoner, drawing the fragments of the souls of those who shared his misery into itself to fuel its ascension. And as far as I can tell, they're entirely willing to be consumed in that way, to get revenge at those who made their lives what they were.

The daemon above me flexes its limbs as the flayed metal skin finishes coating its new body, and I can see the edges smooth out as they fully integrate into its being.

And then it looks up, at the still open hole back to reality.

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 561 937.M41

"That's not a good idea!"

Once the daemon leaves, it will lose control of this patch of the warp. The factory should decay away and then I'll be free to follow it out. But that's a big daemon. It'll burn through its power at an accelerated rate; giant daemons are rare, but they occur frequently enough that there are records. Angron himself had to call a halt to his offensive on Armageddon when his horde started evaporating from lack of warp energy.

And the massive ritual sacrifices he made to correct the problem must have saved the Administratum years.

The purges… Yes, that might work!

"I, who am Faultless, was subject to the foulest of mistreatment at the hands of arrogant masters! And now, I will return bearing the wrath their deeds have earned."

"The Inquisitor's dead!" Its head jerks down, eyes staring at me. "We already killed him!"

"He was MINE!"

"We didn't know you existed! I came to the prison to free and heal you, and any others who were still alive!"

The daemon leans down, right hand resting on a part of the now-skeletal factory wall. Out of the corner of my eye I spot that the wall… Fills out, becoming whole and… Cleaner, as if it were newly made rather than subject to Hive City decay.

"I will be the judge."

Warning! Mental-

My mind becomes a square. Ridged lines form between evening meal, washing and sleeping, and those lines are solid and fixed. But the other lines are made of the myriad of different actions and situations I am in for the rest of the day, and the square-.

My face hits the deck just as the vomit leaves my helmet-mouth.

Wrong! Wrong! The square doesn't work, can't catch, every moment it tried to force what was there into a pattern where no pattern exists. Travelling and fighting nearly hold, but the differences in foes and locations still tear it apart.

I try pushing myself up

Travel-. Travel- Traaaaaaaaaaa-.

and the daemon slumps and I can think clearly-. Nearly clearly, again.

Can't just ring the vomit away, not while the daemon is imposing its version of reality on this place. But… Rag, and water, because that's what they'd use to clean up messes in the factory.

There. I splash some water-. Polluted water, across my face and armour, then use the rag to wipe as much away as possible. Given the state of my leg-. I can't fix it because no one would waste time giving a low-hive factory worker medical aide. Splint? Yes. Alright. And crutch. And hobble upright and make sure I tell Tsua'm and Bo'ohk to prioritise medical aid once I get out.

"Did you..? See what you needed?"

It closes its eyes, jaw working and expression pained.

"I saw a universe of colour, such as I have never seen before. I saw possibilities and a shifting, inconstant soul. I saw xenos showing more consideration and kindness than my own masters ever gave me."

"That might just be because I have something unique to offer them."

He shakes his head, eyes unfocused.

"No. I saw the human worlds you visited. So much… Life. Even the labourers were treated better."

"Those weren't Hive Worlds. Comparing the two doesn't work. Yes, the tau will make improvements, but it won't be anything like as radical-."

"Why?" His head comes up and focuses fully on me. "Why do xenos care more for our suffering than our masters?"

"Because people respond better to being treated well. In the Imperium, they can rely on cultural indoctrination to keep everyone working hard. The tau have to be a bit more mercenary. 'See, look how much your life has improved, and you can keep worshipping the Emperor if you want'."

"Does he exist, or is that a lie too?"

"To the best of my knowledge, the Emperor exists. The Ecclesiarchy doesn't get him quite right, but he'd definitely hate me for giving up on humanity in favour of aliens."

"Then why do we suffer so?"

"Because it's easy and simple. He cares about humanity, but doesn't care at all for individual humans. If the output of your factory stayed good, he'd think it was fine. Improving your standard of living would cost extra resources without a corresponding payoff in output."

"Did the Inquisitor have his sanction?"

"He doesn't approve their appointment on an individual basis, and… The organisation came into being towards the end of the Heresy. I don't know whether he created it or not. But… The Emperor wouldn't have condemned you merely for drawing his eye, but he wouldn't have contradicted the Inquisitor either. Saving you wouldn't have been worth the time. But that time would have saved other lives."

"Why did my soul not go to him at the moment of my death?"

"I'm not sure how it works. I don't even know if that happens."

The daemon looks around.

"Is he here?"

"Ah… He has a presence in the warp, yes, but it's a long way from here. You'd have to follow the astronomicon to its source, and it's fairly well protected against things like you. It would be a long journey, and I doubt that other daemons would be glad to see you." I sigh. "I could take you there in the material universe, but we'd probably both die without seeing him."

I'm sure that they've closed Jaq Draco's tunnel by now.

"Look, I understand that you want to tear everyone responsible for your situation apart, but we're past the point where that's a rational course of action. The people taking over your world have tau engineers and physicians with them. It'll take a while, the Hives are very big places, but they're going to start improving things. The existing rulers… They're going to be removed, but I'm afraid that if you subjected them to a magic mind probe you'll learn that they aren't especially bad people. The system they were part of just gave them more than it gave you."

"Then who do I hurt?!"

"I wasn't trying to give you a target. Lashing out might be cathartic, but it doesn't usually help solving complex problems."

"What of the other Hives? Other worlds? I saw them in your mind. How I lived is common."

"My current plan is to help the tau conquer the galaxy, while at the same time improving them to the point where they can fix that problem. I can't promise that it's going to work, but I haven't been able to come up with anything better. If you want to help cast down incapable rulers, we'd be happy to work with you."

Happy may be overstating things, but for once the tau's relaxed attitude to daemons might actually come in handy.

"I mean… Apart from that, what do you want out of existence?"

6 563 937.M41

Bo'ohk stands two places away from me, his right hand on The Faultless One's left arm. Before us, a Primaris Psyker checks the latest of the thousands of victims of the latest Inquisitorial purge for the taint of chaos. With each shaken head, a body is taken before the planet's senior Ecclesiarchy clergy to perform the funerary consecration before they're taken to the cathedral for burial, their clerical robes increasingly stained with blood and soot.

"It's a start."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
10:21 GMT

I sigh as the last few Reach ships metaphorically strike their colours. They know perfectly well that they can't get away before they're overhauled, not in a situation like this. The commanding L.E.G.I.O.N. admiral sends me a request for confirmation and I approve their plan without a moment's hesitation.

The Reach offensive is -currently- under control. Not beaten, no, but we were successful in defending most of our worlds and all of the worlds that actually have a meaningful industrial output.

I take a moment to look at the drifting hulks of the L.E.G.I.O.N. vessels that were destroyed in this engagement. Not a single orange glow in any of them.

Our ships do have escape pods, but there's no understanding that escape pods won't get shot at in this war. It's actually safer for naval personnel on crippled ships to deactivate available devices drawing power and shelter in place. While the fight is still going on it just isn't worth the Reach shooting at ships that aren't participating in it. Launching pods is something that only makes sense to do once the people on board get an all-clear signal or if there are boarders.

If the L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet were on the losing side, most personnel not in a position to get away will kill themselves to avoid capture, knowing full well that if they don't they'll be mind controlled and sent back to act against their own people. Reach ships have escape pods, but they're more like mini-ships and are far better at escaping to the rear of their formations under their own power. Somewhat aided by the fact that we don't shoot them even if it would be really easy, like now.

"Illustres to Orange Lanterns. Highest priority is to make safe damaged ships. Don't get distracted by pick-up duty until all survivors are safe. Once that's done, request new orders."

They don't all hop to it, of course. They are Orange Lanterns, and some of them prioritise friends or allies above what's actually sensible in the fight. Or taking trophies from foes they personally bested. I can't stop them without either significant retraining or dominating them.

But…

We reach out to their desires and faintly cause them to resonate with one another. A little groupthink to counter our pernicious individualism.

My ring blinks again.

"Illustres here."

Dox's head appears over my ring.

"Is it done?"

"That part of the Reach fleet that didn't fall back has been destroyed. We're in the recovery phase now. Do you have a new assignment for me?"

"Darkstar Jade Nguyen's infiltration mission has been terminated prematurely."

There's a slight pause. I don't think that he's telling me that she's dead, if only because he wouldn't prevaricate.

"She had only minor injuries, but she and Lantern Zartok's team managed to capture one of Grayven's henchmen, along with the command centre of a Citizenry ship."

"Are we changing our focus, Clarissi?"

"No, but it is my intent to pay a little more attention to Grayven's activities. He has ignored your offers for an alliance and I have no doubt that he will attack us should we appear to be gaining a decisive advantage. At the moment we are no more able to counter fleets transported by boom tube than the Reach is."

I nod. "Alright, what do you need from me?"

"Humans display reduced performance quality when active for long periods of time without rest. While your status as an enlightened Lantern insulates you from some of the causes, I am moving you off duty for the time being."

"Appreciated. Any news on Earth?"

"All N.E.M.O. assets have been instructed to avoid the place. Darkstar Nguyen's prisoner might be able to provide you with information regarding the Anti-Life, but I encourage you to actually take time to refresh yourself."

"Certainly, sir. Anything else?"

"No, that's all."

His head vanishes.

Okay. Off-duty. And

Jade is… There.

I check my location… The N.E.M.O. facility on Tillettit. Zartok spots me at once, a material spear in his hands. Allyn is watching… No, refereeing Jade's fight with… Is that Knockout? While Grood is just sort of sitting in the corner. He's not eating, which is a little uncharacteristic of him.

"Illustres." Zartok moves through his spear katas, without using his ring. I'm no expert in spear combat, but it looks like he knows what he's doing. "What is it?"

I walk a little closer to the sparring arena, watching as Jade dodges around Knockout's punches with her exo-mantle's flight system.

"I understand that you were successful."

"You could call it that."

"You disagree?"

"There's a Darkstar stealth ship in Reach space that will have to leave now that we're no longer on board. We were barely able to defeat two Scarab Warriors, I was forced to damage parts of the ship's control system that will make it near-impossible to fully reverse engineer, and worst of all Grayven decided to hand us victory."

"Did you talk him into it?"

"No. He said that Knockout was his father's spy, and that he arranged the entire affair to get rid of her. He assumed that it would be the Reach, but us having her was more convenient."

Ah. Hammer blows to his pride, then.

"Illustres?" Allyn turns away from the fight to look at me. "Could you please take over here? I have a prior engagement."

A glowing orange shield superimposes itself on the one he's making for a moment, then I absorb his construct.

"Dismissed, Lantern Allyn."

He smiles, nods, and then flies back towards the main compound.

I feel Jade's attention pass over me for a moment as she manoeuvres for space. Knockout looks like she's bracing for something, but Jade's posture relaxes and she raises her right hand to stop-.
Fight Better!
Knockout lunges across the arena as my barrier turns into a giant draconic fist, grabbing her and crushing her before spinning her around hard enough to turn a normal human into a bag of broken bones and shredded organs before slamming her into the toughened ground hard enough to crater it once, twice and thrice.

Knockout groans as I release the construct.

"Hey Jade. How did it go?"

"I submitted a mission report." She takes out her purple ray. "Do I need to use this?"

"On Knockout?" I walk over to Knockout and kick her. "No. She's Apokoliptian. You dead, Knockout?"

"Nnnnno?"

"Good answer. Apokoliptians understand and like the language of brutal violence. But really, how are you doing?"

"I nearly died because Grayven sabotaged his own ship. Aside from that, good."

"Are you finished with Knockout for now?" She nods. "Knockout, up." She groans, but comes to her feet. "Let's drop her off in a holding cell and do a full debrief."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 563 938.M41

"I have…" Bo'ohk's nasal cleft is twitching spasmodically. "Concerns."

I take a moment to watch the recording of the Faultless One as he leads teams of gue'vesa medics and technicians through the factory complexes of the planet below us. The cameras following them are recording this more for propaganda purposes than anything else, but it's still a useful monitoring tool. The humans in the team aren't from the puppet world who are officially occupying this planet, but rather from a world that was t'auified a good deal longer ago. The people from there are considered far more politically reliable, to say nothing of being much better trained than their equivalents from most Imperial worlds.

"I suspected."

"What..? Is he?"

"Not sure."

"P'ol, I am going to have to explain this to the aun'ar'tol. Not the Lar'shi'aun'ar'tol, the T'au'aun'ar'tol. Aun'o'T'au'Acaya'Va'Denta himself will want to question me. This is not merely a matter of practicality. It affects everything about how the Tau Empire deals with these creatures. So, please; as much as I usually enjoy our banter, this is a time for absolute seriousness."

I nod. "Understood."

"That is a daemon."

"That depends on what definition of daemon we're using. So far as I can tell, he isn't related to the four greater Gods of Chaos."

"According to the records we have taken from the Imperium's daemon hunters, neither are the furies. They are still the enemy of the Greater Good."

"Y-."

"And can never be anything else. That is important. Tyranids can never be anything other than devourers. Orks… The orks are the reason why we have a list of species who cannot be a part of the Greater Good, and… Grem'len…"

Oh, hang on, he's… Blinking erratically, which combined with the nasal twitching-.

I step closer, firmly place my hands on his shoulders to lock him in place, then sharply exhale directly at his forehead. He shudders, eyes opening slightly wider for a moment. I stare directly into them, waiting for a sign that he's back with me.

"I… Thank you."

I nod, then pull him into a hug. Tau do hug, a gesture that has more or less the same meaning to them that it does to humans. The usual difference is that tau rest their foreheads against each other rather than putting them over the other person's shoulder.

"You alright?"

"Hah? No. But… This is the disadvantage of being the ethereal on the mission: you do not have anyone to turn to for counsel."

I pull back. "So…"

"The wisdom of Aun'Va is considerable, but-. But no one is flawless. Humans of the Imperium are often shocked by our lack of fear where the warp is concerned. Everything I have seen about the nature of the creatures that live there has led me to believe that they are right, and that we were right to say that nothing that comes from the warp is anything other than anathema. But I thought that of orks and Grem'len has been receptive to the concept. For the good of my… Soul, if I have one, I need you to explain this to me as best you can."

"I'm not sure. I thought that daemon princes of chaos undivided were a… Group project. They made offerings to the four, built up rewards from all of them, and at some point absorbed enough warp-stuff to fully transform. But…"

I link to the ship's computer and call up the file on eldar Avatars.

"That thing's a fragment of the eldar God of War, shattered when Kaela Mensha Khaine lost a fight with Slaanesh. Not allied to the Gods of Chaos. In fact it doesn't even spend significant time in the warp. If you destroy one, its spirit goes right back to its home craftworld."

I assume that it goes through the Warp when that happens… I've never heard of the process being interrupted. Logically, it… Should be possible for warp phenomena to interrupt it. The warp spiders would stop a daemon infiltrating the infinity circuit, but trapping a recently dematerialised Avatar sounds… Plausible.

"And then there's the Emperor."

"You said that he was created by human psykers killing themselves and merging their minds together."

"Right. A synthetic god. Not tied to Chaos. Because while-. The strongest and most universal emotions create… Most creatures in the warp… The reason why there aren't 'kindness daemons' despite the capacity for kindness being just as universal as bloodlust is because they'd get eaten. The most powerful warp currents just tear things like that apart. So the Emperor can exist because from the first moment of his existence he was strong enough to look after himself, and had an anchor in the materium. Kaela Mensha Khaine didn't… Merge with Khorne because… I don't know, because the eldar are so psychic that they could prevent it? Because their particular attitude to violence was different enough? I don't know. But it is."

Bo'ohk nods. "There are records of orks being aided by manifestations of their gods also."

I shake my head. "That's just weirdboyz manifesting things with waaagh energy. As far as I know, Mork and Gork aren't directly involved. Other… I guess the Legion of the Damned would be similar, but we don't have good records on them. The point is, warp-native beings can exist who aren't.. exclusively hostile, they're just… Really unusual. And that will be part of their nature. No daemon of Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh or Tzeentch would act like this in a genuine way."

"So why does this one behave in this way? He has been close to many psykers, and they have not reacted in the usual manner. Is he, then, different enough from daemons that we should consider him something else?"

"I watched him absorb… Souls. But he wasn't eating them for their power. He made them his skin, adding them to himself. All… Human, so… The warp stuff was… Filtered? By human nature and human perceptions."

"Like the Emperor."

"No, the Emperor's components were psykers in their own right, and he had a material body. But… More like that. And their emotions… Resignation, suffering, betrayal by what they served… On a planet where those feelings were normal. It probably.. alters the local warp.. reflection. What I saw… Machines made of people. Because… That's sort of what it is."

"You said that daemons are fragments of the greater warp powers."

"Most are. Sort of. But 'daemon' isn't a purely descriptive term. The Imperium calls Avatars 'daemons', and they're different to most of the things that get called daemons." I point to the video as the factory machines are shut down and emergency field medicine is carried out on the scalded work force. "We won't actually know what he 'counts as' until we bring a holy relic into close proximity and see what happens. And even then, that might just be the Emperor's opinion rather than a statement about his nature."

Bo'ohk nods slowly. "Can we trust him?"

"I don't think-. He didn't seem particularly deceitful. He wants to help brutalised humans everywhere, and… Goodness knows there are a lot of those around the place. He has no loyalty to the Greater Good and I doubt that he ever will." I shrug. "But if we have him keep doing things like this, there shouldn't be a problem."

I take a breath.

"And then, there are the study opportunities. And the possibility that we can have him shield human psykers from other warp-entities, though we'd have to study him a lot. And he'd probably have to learn from scratch."

"What about human theology?"

"The Ecclesiarchy's faith doesn't have theological space for things like him. So we can't use him as a figurehead without provoking a crusade-. A bigger crusade, as they assume that the Tau Empire has fallen to Chaos. We should probably record his unusual appearance as being due to archeotech armour on.. databases we think that the Imperium can access. So… What's next?"

"We work to incorporate this world into the Tau Empire. And then, we journey to T'au to explain ourselves."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 563 941.M41

"So what's aw this abawt, then?"

Gremlin reaches up with his right hand to scratch his right ear, his eye ridges raised in my direction.

Orkoids don't have eyebrows, or any other body hair. Other than a couple of days where I got him a hair squig and he had a lot of fun trying a bright pink rat tail and top knot. And their facial expression comes more from their mouth than their relatively small foreheads. He had to learn that gesture by watching me.

"Gremlin, you know more about the way tau politics works than I do."

"That ain't what I mean, boss. You bin flyin' around an' doin' stuff for the tau for years. They fawt you was a daemon when they met you."

"So..?"

"So what changed? Why's they treatin' Faultless Boy different?" He taps his right forenail on the table. "Can't be 'cos he's a daemon."

"I think it's more that they now know enough to be scared."

"So why's they invitin' awl a' us who bin spendin' time with him to T'au? That'd be a ded stoopid thing t' do if he was go'na make trouble, innit?"

"I said they knew better. I didn't say they knew everything. Honestly, it's unlikely that it's actually going to reach Aun'va."

"But takin' a fing off'f the dekkodakka list-."

"The what?"

"You know. They can't be part a' the Greater Good, so shoot 'em when you see 'em. Dekko, dakka."

I smile. "Well, then it would be the dekko dakka directory, wouldn't it?"

He visibly thinks for a moment. "Kritikul enkawnta krumpin kompendium."

I shake my head. "The 'en' sound is too heavy."

He grins. "Konkurrence?"

"Um… Ah…" I grin back. "Maybe?"

"Think aw'll tell awll a' the orks I meet, 'bawt how the bugboyz rank higher 'an us on that. Should deawl with that whole problem."

"Might be a bit 'high concept' for most warbosses."

"'The blueboyz think the bugboyz 're harder 'an you'. I think they'd get it."

I shrug. He's probably right, though I think they'd probably attack the tau for the insult rather than the tyranids. Orks are more attackers of opportunity than planners.

"But anyways, Undyin' Spirit's the one who decides who goes on an' off, yeh?"

"As I understand it, he makes the final determination. But he's the head of a council of very senior and very well informed people. I doubt that it's going to purely be him." I frown. "Are you worried?"

"Bit, yeah. I'm on the list, too."

"You mean the kompendium?"

He doesn't look amused any longer. "No. I don't."

I nod, and insert trivial small talk into the monitoring systems.

"Sorry. Look… I… I'm working for the Tau Empire because I think they're the closest thing this era has to a civilisation that I want to be part of. That doesn't mean that I'm not aware that they don't always make the best decisions. If they rule against you, then I'll get you out and drop you off somewhere."

His ears flick as he stares at me contemplatively.

"Really?"

"Yes. You're my friend. You haven't done anything contrary to the interests to the Greater Good, and you've joined in our work enthusiastically. If they can't see that, they're the ones mistaken."

"Oh. Thanks, boss. Course, that… Does leave the question 'how'?"

"If they were going to kill you, then they'd just order Kais's team to sneak up on you in their stealth suits. So they either do actually want to talk to you themselves, or they're going to make a big show of it."

"An' if-."

"If they're going to make a show of it, then I guess I'm working for Farsight now. Ah, though I'd… Probably drop you off somewhere else. Otherwise… The tau can be pleasantly surprising in their rationality a lot of the time. Give them a chance."

"Yeah." He nods. "Alwite. So, same with Faultless Boy?"

"T'au has a much bigger population than Lar'shi. More high level experts. It's not like they've had the opportunity to examine a cooperative daemon before. In his case… He can't exactly die, he'd just get banished. But you know what tau are like with the warp; they'd probably just put him in a research institution somewhere isolated. I'm more worried about what he'll want. Or that they'll-."

"Try feedin' him souls like the Emprah?"

"It's something I want to be very clear about being impossible. We'd need a golden throne for a start, and we don't have one."

"Think I can back you up there, boss. Tau and sorcery don't sound like things that should mix."

"Thank you."

"Here, listen…" Orkoids can't really look awkward, either, but he's giving it a go. "Orks don't have families. Got mates, some of them, but a yoof just gets grabbed by whateva mob's abawt and hit ovah the head 'til he does what he's tole. You… Took a little snotling, an'… Made me. Tort me. Like I'm someone with something to contribute. Valuable, an' a person an' that. An' we fight togevah and.. learn stuff togevah, and… I guess what I'm tryin' ta' say, is…"

He looks directly at me, his face relaxing.

"When is you gunna make an honest woman outa Tsua'm Raard?"

"Um, what? That's not where I-. You've been talking to Bo'ohk about human humour, haven't you?"

"Bit. I do like that you've put a lotta effort inta me, I just don't have the brain gubbins to think of you as a father or anything like that. No offence."

I nod. "None taken. So what makes you think-?"

"Come on, boss. You explainin' the plot of every human story where humans an' aliens pair off, an' the underlying psychological mechanism for why a human would do it, was a ded giveaway. An' how you keep remindin' her how you like tau better than humans. An' how you deliberately don't tell her what you actually want 'cos of her orders."

"You said something to her after I spoke to that genestealer cultist."

"She wasn't gettin' it. I just sed somethin' abawt the eldar they've got locked in there."

Dark Eldar don't last long in captivity, even in a null zone. We're still not really clear why. Slaanesh shouldn't be able to drain them when they're cut off from the warp, but I suppose that means that they can't sustain their bodies with warp energy either. Tau… Tend to leave Exodite worlds in their space alone these days, and I actually got to be present during a diplomatic meeting with officials from a Craftworld passing through the Empire, which… Went about as well as it could have done.

"I find eldar fairly unattractive, actually. In terms of personality-."

"But now she's thinkin' abawt you an' aliens like somethin' that could actually happen."

"Thank you for your wingmanning efforts. I'll remember it if we ever run into Uthan the Perverse. They're into orks."

He looks sceptical for a moment, then realises that I'm not joking. "Should be interestin'."

"Please tell me if Tsua'm actually says anything to you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 564 941.M41

"…usually serve as technicians and overseers, rather than as labourers."

I watch through the doorway as Tsua'm takes the Faultless One though a slideshow depicting a tau industrial complex doing the same sort of work as he was doing back on his homeworld. He appears to be engrossed, but his responses aren't exactly human any more so it's a little hard to tell. Certainly, the tau industrial drones and protective equipment are…

I was going to think 'centuries ahead', but that's wrong. It's literally the opposite. Tau factories are a couple of centuries ahead of what my era could do. The Imperium is far ahead of them, but… Doesn't bother.

"This drastically reduces the number of worker-decs required for the same output, reduces the rate of worker injuries and allows for far more mentally stimulating work."

Tsua'm is smiling, and it's a much better smile than the one she used to have before she met me. More subdued, less axe murdering meth-head. Faultless One isn't looking at her, though. His attention is completely absorbed by the hologram of the working factory.

She's not showing him the accommodation, which is Spartan to say the least. And she's not showing him the recreation facilities, which exist but have almost no variety. Not good, just better. Honestly, I think she should show him. What he's seeing is probably incomprehensible to him, whereas a slightly larger dormitory with better hygiene standards is something he could relate to.

"I see only tau."

"There are factories like this on human worlds within the Empire, but human populations often don't have the education required to operate factories like this. It's really only the low-density worlds that have been fully acculturated."

"What do you mean by 'low density'?"

"Hive Worlds can have between five billion people and fifteen billion people per hive city, and the larger Hive Worlds can have many hive cities. A low density world would have a population of less than half a billion, or the equivalent if the habitable area is unusually small. This allows the rapid dissemination of educational materials to the entire population and the assurance of cultural unity."

"What happens to the rest?"

"The rest-?" Tsua'm blinks, her facial cleft twitching. "Oh, no, no! We don't kill the population down to that level! That would be terribly wasteful! Many humans worlds do not have population levels as high as the Hive Worlds, while in other places human populations are relocated from high density worlds."

I spent some time checking that the official version of Tau Empire resettlement policy was accurate, and… She isn't talking about the worlds where they settled Imperial prisoners, or the colony experiment where they took children between the ages of five and eight and raised them tau-style. That was actually a success, and the children involved were volunteered by their families in the hope that they'd have a better future which they do have, so as uncomfortable as it made me...

Of course, that's not really practical for everyone in a Hive City, even ignoring the massive drop in output it would cause. But the tau do improve the factories they oversee, and this is their aspiration for everyone.

"Tsua'm, why don't you show him one of the human worlds?" She gives me an interrogative look. "Even if it's not as nice as that, it'll give him a better idea of how humans live. We can even take him to one once the T'au'aun'ar'tol are finished with us."

"Yes. I want to see with my own eyes."

"Then unless they have new orders for us, that is where we will go. Faultless One, the system here is configured to respond to your voice commands. You can simply tell it what you want to learn, and it will display it for you."

He turns his head slightly to give her a sidelong glance. "What am I not permitted to know?"

"A few things regarding military deployments and the construction processes for certain weapons. And obviously we cannot tell you anything that we do not know. Otherwise, this is the same database that I use when I work."

Though I imagine that the search algorithm has been somewhat slanted.

"Then I will watch and learn."

Tsua'm gives him a shallow bow, but he's not watching her. He's walking closer to the hologram, staring at the drone production line as it turns the metal into standardised ingots. She looks pleased at his attentiveness as she walks towards me, and I step back to allow her to leave the room.

"Seems to be going well."

"He is single-minded. And quite different to the recordings of other daemons that I have watched."

I nod. "Those were mostly battlefield recordings, weren't they?"

"Do you think that has given me an incomplete view of their kind?"

"Yes, but not in a positive way. All the daemons I've ever heard of have been evil, it's just that not all of them are combat-focused."

"Then is the Faultless One something outside of your experience?"

"Yes. Honestly, I think that he might be more similar to the Emperor than any daemon."

She nods. "Because he was created by merging together many human souls, and not from a reflection in the warp or through the aid of a dark god. Does such a thing have precedence?"

"The closest I can think of would be the Screaming Cage, but the Sisters of Battle used to make that empowered one of their number, they didn't merge with her. And she was still alive. And it was deliberately created by a daemon, rather than being created by accident."

"So not much like him at all?"

My eyes flick her way, and I see that she's smiling. I smile back.

"It's the closest I can think of. It's a shame we don't have any real experts to study him."

"We will see what can be arranged. There are species within the Empire with warp knowledge we can draw upon."

"What, the kroot? I don't think a shaman who ate a few psykers is going to be much help. And the demiurg aren't going to let a Living Ancestor anywhere near him."

"Those are not the only possibilities. There are species who are not part of the Empire's public face who have more knowledge than we tau do."

Yeah, and there's a reason why they're not part of the Empire's public face. Some species have such a different way of thinking about the universe, such a different physical make-up, that trying to find a place for them to integrate into the Empire doesn't really work. At best, there's something they can do and the Empire just lets them do that.

I shrug and nod.

"That isn't a gesture that I can easily understand." She looks at me… Tau-puzzled. "The nod is agreement and the shrug is uncertainty or indifference. Together… You are willing to go along with the idea despite not being convinced?"

I nod. "More or less. I mean, the whole point of this is that no one knows what to do and we're just trying to make well-reasoned guesses."

She nods, then there's a ripple in her nasal cleft that I don't recognise. "On that subject, perhaps now is a good time to openly discuss your romantic interest in me."

"Um."

"I am not a drone, P'ol. I am an expert in xenosociology; after your reaction to the concubines I realised that you had specific views on how such things should be done. And I realised that that definitely does not involve compulsion or expectation, and that you would not demand intimacy from me. You could -and should- have spoken to me directly."

"Oh. Okay, yes, I just… Wasn't sure, and I think having a bunch of fanatics around reminded me that some tau can get a bit… Fanatical, about their orders, too. The fact that you're generally not like that is… One of the things that draws me to you."

"And you did not want to risk that trait by putting me in a difficult position." I nod. "Thank you."

She raises her right hand to my forehead, and flicks me. Or… Tries. Tau are pretty bad at quick precise movements and she more or less just pokes me with her knuckle. But I appreciate the effort.

I smile. "So..?"

"So I wish to hear all of your ideas about how such a relationship could work."

"Oh?" I smile. That's a pretty reasonable-.

She prods me with her knuckle again and then continues down the corridor.

"For professional reasons."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 564 941.M41

One nice thing about the older kor'vattra ships is that they have lounges and function rooms designed to be comfortable meeting places. Rounded tables capable of being raised or lowered to whatever height was appropriate for the tau's guests, and soft backless seats that were the designer's best guess for the widest variety of possible new friends. Because, naturally, the aliens they would encounter when the tau first flew into deep space would -barring unfortunate misunderstanding- be friendly and open to the idea of the Greater Good.

Kor'or'vesh ships are built with different principles in mind.

Tsua'm lowers herself into one of the tau-friendly chairs next to a low-set table, an alien seat opposite her already adjusting itself to what the ship's AI has listed as a me-appropriate height. I wait for it to stop and lock itself in place before sitting down myself.

"So where did you want to-?"

"Why me?"

"As.. opposed to..?"

"A human, from an enculturated world, perhaps? Or… Miss Lantern?"

"Ah… Degree of social interaction? We haven't spent a significant amount of time on a world like that, and it wouldn't make sense to base ourselves on one. Which means that unless I… Ask for some people to get brought to Lar'shi, which is a pointless use of resources unless there was another reason to bring them or I somehow knew that one was a perfect match for me."

"There is a motion which gets brought before the Eugenics Board at periodic intervals to expand their remit to other species. So far, they have always decided that outside of overt mutation, they simply don't know enough about alien biology to perform their usual duties."

"Tau castes pretty much require that sort of thing. If you were going to set up an equivalent thing for human-inhabited worlds… Well, you couldn't, the populations are too high, but you'd need a new organisation rather than one that would try imposing things that make sense for tau onto humans. And it would make more sense to monitor for psychic potential rather than trying to maximise their capacity for a particular trade."

"Tau caste require that sort of thing because we find tau in other castes attractive."

"I'd love to see the statistics on that. I've got a few suspicions about why."

"Oh? Tell me. I would be interested in an alien perspective."

"Tau castes are based on the pre-unification tribal groups, right? The tribes had skills that lent themselves to particular activities, and T'au society went from simply having those characteristics to deliberately exaggerating them. But the tribes looked a lot more like each other than the modern day castes do, right?" She nods. "So the castes are a recent thing, and your brains haven't really adapted to them yet. It's the same as the reason why I find small furry things with big eyes appealing; human children are small and have relatively big eyes, and our evolutionary predecessors were furry."

"So our devotion to the Greater Good must fight against our mont'au instincts."

"Your brain is rigged to look for certain things in your mates. If I had to guess, I'd say that… Fire Caste and Earth Caste males were generally considered most attractive males, and… Water Caste females… And Maybe Ethereal females would be considered the most attractive females. And Air Caste were the least appealing of both sexes."

"Because they are the most divergent from our ancestral forms. Fire and Earth have traits which make them seem more male to the primitive parts of our brains. And… Water Caste…"

Her eyes blink rapidly as she considers the idea.

"I… Will attempt to confirm that when we arrive at T'au."

"Why bother?" I shrug. "Just take a load of facial images and ask everyone on board to rate their attractiveness. There's no need to look at people who actually broke the Eugenics Board's rules."

"But how does that apply to humans? You."

"You have the same softer skin and more rounded faces that a human female would compared to a human male. And none of the traits that would suggest poor health in a human."

"Blue skin is not the sign of a healthy human."

"No, but it's so unusual that our genes haven't adapted to encourage avoiding it outside of the 'avoid the strange' programming."

"And I am not strange?"

"Most of the people I interact with on a daily basis are tau. I've even picked up some of the language, and I'm terrible with languages. I guess I've just… Adapted." … "The humans being weird probably helped."

"So you are not attracted to Miss Lantern because as an Earth Caste female she has a more masculine appearance."

"It doesn't help. It's also because… When I spend time with her, it's more professional. It's a professional occasion. I spend more time with you socially. And even if we… My knowledge of physics isn't good enough to.. share her interests."

"And the females of Kais's squad have a similar impediment."

"'Impediment'?" I raise my eyebrows. "Is there some sort of contest going on that I don't know about?"

She shakes her head once. "No."

I slump theatrically. "Harsh."

For a moment she looks genuinely concerned, but I can see in her face the moment she grasps that it's a joke. And as she decides to use human body language, smiling and covering her mouth with her right hand.

"See? You get me. It's basically just you and Bo'ohk who can do that."

"I suppose that I do. How would it work?"

"We would spend more time together, engage in recreational activities together… It's not something I've done much, and from what you said about your mother's efforts to help you make contacts-" Her right hoof twitches. "-you hadn't either. So we'd be finding out together."

"That is not entirely true."

"Oh?"

"There are… Primitive human societies within the Tau Empire, where there have been… Ceremonial marriages between a member of the Water Caste and one of their people."

"I'm not planning on us being ceremonial."

"Officially ceremonial. It is.. not impossible, that things are… Different, in practice. Under the circumstances, I will request… Further information from those involved."

"Huh."

"It would be difficult. The Eugenics Board may not be so pushy as my mother, but I will be expected to have children at some point."

I shrug. "That's why I'm planning to ask for access to their full database. It should be perfectly possible for me to… Create a genetic sequence that's a tau-equivalent of me. If we… Got that far."

"And sex? I assume that you want to have sex with me. Our… Systems are not completely compatible."

"A nerve ending doesn't know how it's being stimulated. I think there are ways around what might be a problem, in a more primitive society. I am confident in my ability to satisfy your requirements."

"You have thought about it in depth?"

"I've thought about you in depth." She nods. "So? Further queries?"

"I believe-" She gets up. "-that my curiosity-" She walks around the table. "-must be satiated by more direct st-."

She tries to sit on my knees, misses, and ends up on the floor.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Fear Ourself

20th January 2013
10:02 GMT

Jade nods. "The food is-." She frowns. "Better, here."

I look around the calm street in which our restaurant is situated. If not for the odd colour of the residents this could be somewhere in France or Italy; the roads are cobblestone and the buildings are clearly modernised relics of an earlier age.

Not Britain though: they drive on the right.

"Better than raw liquidised space snake?"

"Yes, but-." She looks uncomfortable.

"What is it?"

"What happens to the souls of the people who get eaten?"

I don't ask her to clarify whether she means the souls or the people.

"Nothing special. If the death is traumatic enough the person who ate them might become the attachment point for their ghost rather than the place they died, but otherwise they're off to the local afterlife as normal. Unless… You're telling me otherwise."

She gives her head a small shake, not looking at me. "I don't know."

"Most people the citizenry kill are on planets, and most of the rest are near to inhabited planets. What I experienced with my second death is unusual and only really happens in deep space. Even if you… Had a ghost haunting you, we're on a world with a measurable thaumosphere at the moment; they'd probably wander off. And, if you want, we can perform the appropriate death-rites to make sure of it."

"Can we change my brain back?"

"Change..? To how it was before you used my ring?" She doesn't nod, but she does make momentary eye contact. "Yes. It wouldn't.. be a good idea, but we could. Are.. you.. having problems?"

"No. No.. nightmares. No shaking or flashbacks. Just a background sense of… Wrong, that I ate them. That's more empathy than I used to have."

"That wasn't part of your training, was it?"

She turns her head towards me, frowning more deeply. "Eating people? No." her expression becomes contemplative. "Though I think Dad would probably have given us a pass on our wilderness survival if we did."

"I'm pretty sure that the Scouts Association would have failed me if I'd done that. And… Eating people is wrong, so I can't say that there's anything wrong with you feeling that way. How serious-?"

"No, not… I was just talking. So, what's the plan for freeing Earth?"

"If I knew how to remove Anti-Life, I assure you, I'd have volunteered that information. The League's plan is… I can't think of anything better, and it will probably work as it's supposed to."

"All that effort trying to take over the world, and the Justice League gets there first."

"The right to rule comes from the consent of the governed. And it turns out that the governed prefer heroes who've tried to help them to villains who keep robbing and killing them."

She raises her right eyebrow.

"Yes, I am including actual politicians, though in all fairness they're not all in the second category. The problem with democracy is that people don't always vote for who they're supposed to. I mean, would you vote for Knight or Horne over Superman?"

"I might if I thought he was going to fly off to save the world every day instead of doing his job."

I raise my eyebrows pointedly at her.

"Fine. No. So why didn't he stand for office?"

"Because his adoptive parents and work colleagues would almost certainly get killed. And because as good a man as he is, he doesn't actually have any experience in civil administration and wouldn't really know what to do. And he.. wasn't born in the United States. Now, Batman could run, but he doesn't have the same reputation amongst the general population."

"And it would terrify every other country on the planet. So what's the plan for dealing with that when it's over?"

"What, 'if we keep fucking up competent and morally upstanding people might take over'?" I shrug. "I don't know, but you know what happened with Brazil."

"The League hasn't done a thing to get rid of the Accala. I thought that was because there wasn't anything to restore."

"People have asked the League to do it, including survivors from the pre-Sheeda Brazilian government. This… Well, people will either restore their pre-Anti-Life governments, or they won't. The fact that a thing existed at one point in time isn't an indication that it must exist for all time."

"All men aren't created equal if one of them can fire lasers out of his face."

"All men aren't created equal anyway. I'd have to check with Rao to see if he endowed Kryptonians with the same innate rights as humans. But, yeah. If your political structures don't centralise power then it doesn't matter if the people with power are incompetent arseholes because they can't do anything too bad. If you do, then they need to be good people."

"And who better than the Justice League?"

"I hope someone, because most of them don't have the skill set."

"But they do all have the moral integrity. Have you ever read Starship Troopers?"

"I don't actually think that overthrowing the concept of democracy in favour of oligarchy would be as easy in reality as Robert Heinlein thought it would be."

"So you have read it, or..?"

"No, I just watched the films. The third one was surprisingly good, given the budget."

She smiles with a quiet snort.

"So you've got no idea at all?"

"No, no… I've got an idea, it's just that even if it works, the results might be worse."

"For Earth, or the universe?"

"Both. Though given that the universe as a whole isn't that bad-."

Wait. The Crime Syndicate reality. Would they..? Have some sort of non-evil Anti-Life? Or… Would it just be the Anti-Life in the hands of Highfather?

I'll pass that one along.

"What?"

"Just had an idea that may be even worse. Ah, first idea is to use different colours of power ring to forcibly push the Anti-Life out of peoples' souls. But we don't have all the colours, and Alan and Ghia'ta probably aren't skilled enough, and I doubt that Sinestro will cooperate."

"Why do we need Sinestro? Kalmin works for you."

"Kalmin works for Kalmin. He just happens to be pointing in the right direction at the moment."

Still… I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask.

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
10:47 GMT

"YRAAGYH!"

I collapse, steam rising from-. No, that's carbonised flesh.

That's carbonised flesh that isn't repairing itself as quickly as it should.

"Was that necessary?"

Jade interposes herself, but she really shouldn't. Kalmin would think for a moment before killing me. He doesn't owe Jade a thing.

"It was insulting. I have already told him my price for forging a new yellow power ring. Sinestro's head!"

I bypass the healing-impairment by tearing off the damaged flesh, which is… Quite a lot, actually.

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed, Lantern Kalmin."

"This is more memorable. And no, there is nothing that you could offer me in its place. And if there were, the very fact that I have stated my requirement would prohibit it."

I nod, sidestepping so that I have a direct line of sight around Jade. "Nifty weapon. What do you call it?"

"This?" He taps a small amulet on his armour. "The scourer. It bypasses defences well but has no real penetration."

"A low lethality weapon? Was that an insult?"

"Yes."

"Okay. How are your students doing?"

Kalmin glowers. "Was that a threat?"

"No. I just thought that while I'm here I might as well get an update."

"Oh." He sounds mildly put out.

"Problem?"

"They are competent enough engineers and physicists, but I fear that the lack of mortal peril might take the edge off their mental sharpness. There's more to being a Weaponer than just making weapons."

"My homeworld has been Anti-Lifed. If you want to send them our way, I'm sure that we'll find ways to try to kill them that even you have scarcely envisioned."

"Bah. Anti-Life." He turns back to his forge. "Philosophical destruction does not interest me."

"Do you mind if I make the offer to them?"

"No. If the fools take you up on your offer, that's for them to survive."

"Okay. Well, unless there's anything else-" I glance at Jade, but she shakes her helmet. "-we'll leave you to it."

"Can I expect Sinestro's head, or was this just a waste of my time?

"We'll see. I need a yellow power ring, and there are only so many options."

I motion towards the door with my head and Jade takes the hint, heading that way while I keep Kalmin in full view-. I think he just smiled. Once she's out I follow her, trusting her to keep an eye on him.

I twitch as the outer door slams shut. Ow.

"Are you alright? That looked like it hurt."

"Yes, it did. But pain is transitory. It was more the surprise than anything else."

"Should you have left tissue samples in his workshop?"

"I doubt that it will matter. So, next option."

"You said that when you were at Vanishing Point, at least one other version of you had a yellow power ring."

"Right, and he was enlightened too. He'd be perfect if I had the slightest idea how to contact him." I shake my head. "If I could contact any of them. The Yellow, Indigo and Red Lanterns would complete the group."

"Evil Alan Scott?"

"It's possible, only I don't really want to risk owing him or giving him ideas about the Anti-Life. And… I don't know if he's got the skill, and I don't trust him."

"It's still worth asking him."

I exhale slowly.

"Yes. It is. But that still leaves red and indigo. I met an Indigo Lantern a year and a half ago, but he legged it after I freed him from captivity. And red…"

"We can't be that short on angry, hate-filled people."

"No, but we need angry, hate-filled people who are angry and hate-filled about things that we hate and get angry about. People who retain control of their faculties when they're angry."

I checked, and Ysmault is in a very clearly marked no-go area. Even Guy wouldn't tell me exactly who's being kept there, but if events line up with my expectations it's all five of the Five Inversions. Attacking a Guardian facility with the express intent of giving an inmate a novel power ring is… Even more of a last resort thing than asking Al Scott for help.

Who do I know who's heroic and angry enough to use a red ring?

Ah…

Yes..?

Scott Free is back in contact with his father, and if we have an actual plan then I.. think Orion would probably be willing to go along with it. We'd still need to actually get a red power ring, and those don't exist here yet. At least I don't have to explain how I know about them.

"I know a few people who might be able to do that."

"People on Earth?"

"Most of them. Do you have someone in mind?"

"Orion of New Genesis. Given all the New God-related stuff we've got going on, we've got a good reason to visit them. But first we'd need a red ring."

"Can the Controllers make one?"

"Controllers, no. Unaligned Maltusians, maybe. We'll have to ask Hinon if she can recommend anyone."

"What about the Qwardians?"

"I've never heard of them researching red rings, and… Kalmin said that he murdered a world to make Sinestro's ring. I don't… Really want to encourage them to do the same for someone else."

"He needed to kill a world to make Sinestro's ring?"

"Yes. Ah, that's what he said, and I doubt that he'd lie about it. It's not like it would have been something a Weaponer would have to hide."

"Which world?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
12:04 GMT

Jade's helmet turns around as we float in space near to the ruined world that still glows yellow to my empathic vision.

"So this is the anti-matter universe."

"From their point of view, it's the matter universe. Though Kalmin calls it anti-matter, because he likes the idea of being from somewhere that can innately destroy anything."

"Is it speciesist if I say he's acting like a comic book supervillain?"

"I think you've got s-word privileges. Besides, he'd be proud of it."

"Is this whole universe like that?"

"I don't know. I don't think so, but I haven't really done any exploring."

Earth. Is there an anti-matter Earth out there? I mentally assigned the parallel where Blue Me ended up to that position, but that isn't correct. That's Negative 14. Kalmin didn't say anything about this universe having an Earth, but I suppose that he wouldn't consider it significant.

"No, it wouldn't work. If everyone was evil to everyone else all the time, no one could build a civilization."

"I think the theory I saw was that things would either be completely anarchic, or a handful of individuals with the power to compel others to obey them would rule everyone else, because that would be the only way complex society could emerge. Want to go down?"

"Is there anything dangerous down there?"

"I doubt that Kalmin would have left any of his top tier weapons somewhere where someone might pick them up without paying for them. Scans don't show anything overtly dangerous."

"And the fear?"

"Did I ever show you the report of my encounter with the Terror Thing?"

"The fear elemental from Cornwall? Implanted ideas escalating to sensory hallucinations. But you won't be affected."

"That was a bit different. The Terror Thing was held together with magic. This is pure yellow light. At worst, you'll see your own fears."

"And you won't be affected."

"I don't know. I… Honestly, I'm not afraid of… Anything, these days. I used to be afraid of heights and death, and then I started flying everywhere and died twice. I suppose that the idea of total obliteration still bothers me, but I've looked into it and that's really hard to do."

"Should I take it as a compliment that you're not afraid of anything happening to me?"

"Why, do you think I'd let you stay dead? You still haven't told me which mythos you picked, and you grew up in a majority Christian country. I'm sure that Mammon would-."

"The Scouring Path."

Ah..?

I blink as the ring brings me up to speed on… A minor martial-focused Source-worshipping religion. One with… A strong emphasis on earning salvation through morally praiseworthy combat. And redemption through morally praiseworthy combat. They usually field a large number of penitents under arms in their military deployments, and they're fairly popular amongst soldiers in about seventy different systems around their world of origin.

"That's… A pretty good choice. I didn't.. know-."

"A couple of Darkstars I was stationed with are into it. Like you said, it's a good idea to pick something. And I get to earn redemption for something I was doing anyway."

Because one of the Scouring Path's beliefs is that someone who performs moral deeds will naturally come to identify with them, regardless of how pure their original motives were. Faults and weaknesses are scoured away as you walk towards the Source.

"Right, but it's Source-worshipping."

"Is that a problem?"

"Well… All Source religions… Except some of the really out there ones… Ah… Direct their adherents towards spiritual transcendence."

"So do most Earth religions."

Yeah. Most. Cyclic reincarnation leading to transcendence or bringing a soul that did its best closer to God to give it a better idea of what it's supposed to be. That's… What most modern religions do.

Ah, there we go.

"Jade, you picked a religion-. I won't necessarily be able to resurrect you."

"You couldn't guarantee that anyway. This lets me avoid the worst outcome when I die. And I checked; The Scouring Path lets souls keep fighting after they die if they want. You'll have time to work something out."

"I'm not in a position to fight the S-."

"There isn't a perfect choice. But this works for me."

…

It doesn't work for me.

…

That's the… Problem with letting people make their own choices.

"So… Are we… Going down?"

"I thought you'd be more happy about this."

I bring my left fist to my chest plate, power ring glowing.

"For me, the worst result isn't your soul going to hell. I can deal with hell. It's you transcending to the point where I can't-. Where you're permanently… Not there any more."

"And your plan is to keep going forever?"

"Yes."

"… Oh."

"Lord Hades is relatively generous, but being a shade is still worse than being alive. And even Erebos will die at some point. So it's not worth staying for any length of time, because the longer you're there the harder it is to leave. It's not worth getting trapped like that."

"And you're..? Worried about being alone?"

"No. I'll be able to make new friends. Meet… New people. Somewhere in the multiverse there's a problem I can fix, so I'll never be bored. Somewhere in the multiverse there's something new to see and do. I'm worried about not being with you anymore. Not… Seeing it with you"

"We can.. go sightseeing once the Reach stop existing."

"True. And… And yeah, I want to do that. And… This wasn't the sort of place I had in mind, but it will be interesting."

"Duck-foot-interesting?"

"Hu-eh. Hopefully not. Going down."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 568 938.M41

"Hah!"

Tsua'm does the double nasal cleft twitch that's the tau equivalent of an eye roll, as the Earth Caste engineer stands stock still staring at me for three seconds, then looks at her for confirmation that I'm supposed to be there but doesn't wait for it before going back to what he was doing before he spotted me.

Exactly like every tau we've encountered since entering the Eugenics Board headquarters on T'au.

I mean, I get it. Non-tau don't really have any reason for coming here. Aliens who might have something interesting to share concerning genetics would generally work with Earth Caste researchers on their own planets, or in specialist facilities. This is mostly an administrative and policy-making centre, rather than somewhere where actual research is conducted.

So I'm getting stares because I'm out of place, fair enough. But everyone has exactly the same response.

"Tau don't go in for mass cloning, right?"

"No. It was found to be detrimental to overall effectiveness."

I wait a moment to see if she-.

"It is the natural tau response to something strange within safe territory. They scent that I don't smell concerned, and decide that it is safe to ignore you. I am sure that humans do something similar."

"Oh, humans wouldn't even look at the escort. In my day you could put on a lab coat and walk through a hospital without anyone stopping you. And I heard a story about it being possible to just turn up in the staff areas of our oldest university if you had the right jacket on and pretend to belong there for free meals in the staff canteen." Hm. "I imagine that's changed now."

"Humans have not changed as much as you might think."

"No, I mean that university is now underneath the Imperial Palace. Or.. where it used to be is. A little way south east of the throne room. Or maybe inside it. I didn't bother trying to find out exactly how big it is while I was there."

Tsua'm looks slightly puzzled, and then uses her personal computer to pull up a file.

"You told me that you were born on 'a small island off the coast of Europe'."

I create a globe construct and have Eastbourne ping.

"Yes."

"Our records say that the Imperial Palace is not in Europe. Data mined from captured Imperial ships says that it is in 'Asia'."

"No, easy mistake to make. That's the location of the Astronomican. Where the Himalayan mountains use to be… Or are. For a ship that's probably far more important, because their on-board navigators can actually see it from just about anywhere."

"How do they stop other species making use of it?"

"They don't. They can't. That whole system is one of the reasons that tyranids are such a big problem for Imperial worlds. Normally they home in on the signal generated in the warp by populated worlds, but major Imperial worlds actively signal them."

"That doesn't-."

A plainly-dressed tau of the Earth Caste walks through a nearby door and heads towards us as Tsua'm cuts herself off to greet her.

"Fio'El Maka'm. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us."

"It is no trouble, but, I'm sorry, was I interrupting?"

I shake my head. "Oh, we were just talking about warp navigation."

"Ah, yes." Maka'm nods. "I cannot help but wonder at the progress we might make if we could gain access to human navigator genealogical records!"

"Oh, I wouldn't… If I remember correctly, navigators are horribly inbred and usually have a load of secondary mutations as a result."

"Then we will work to repair them. Though it may take time, I believe in the eventual triumph of the Greater Good."

"Huh." I smile. "I'm glad to hear it. Ever since that 'do not invite' list got created, I've heard a lot of tau embracing realism. I like your optimism."

"I would not say that there is such a sharp divide. Orks are incapable of joining the Greater Good as they are now; only a fool would argue with that. But the work the Eugenics Board undertakes could eventually be applied to other species just as easily-." She hunches her shoulders slightly. "Nearly as easily to other species. That is why I want to speak with you. Humans tend to be so superstitious about genealogy; your perspective is invaluable."

"I'm happy to help, but… Ah, there's something about 'superstition' that a lot of tau tend to dismiss out of hand when they… Really shouldn't."

"Obviously, the presence of the psyker gene complicates things, but once that is isolated-."

"No, no." Good job I'm here. As an 'El, Maka'm is in theory training under a 'o with a view to taking over an important project or facility. This sounds like a misapprehension that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. "Psyker… it isn't a trait that a human either has or doesn't have. The Imperium rates everyone on a scale from Rho to Alpha, but only routinely treats power levels of Iota or above as worth treating specially. They're… At least in theory, the ones who get handed over to the black ships. But large swaths of the population have power levels between Omicron and Kappa."

"So it is a combination of many genetic factors."

"It might not even be genetic." I think for a moment. "Alright, let's… A lot of tau think that human religiosity towards machines is stupid. And I did too, but… The part of the human population that has low level psychic abilities may not be able to manifest psychic phenomena individually, but if enough of them enact the same rituals and believe the same things over an area, their… Collective power is enough to alter reality and make it… 'True'. Whether it was originally true or not."

"Is that..?" A flex of scent receptors as she tries to get a read on me. That probably won't work unless she's familiar with human scents, but it's another instinctive response. "So?"

"Try looking up Imperial Guard Psyker Battle Squads if you want to see what networked Iota-level psykers can do when connected to each other. Or compare the processing power of a drone network to that of individual drones. Then consider the backlash when a billion Kappa level psykers think you need to hop in a circle three times before pulling a lever and you decide not to do it."

"But… But what does that have to do with biology?"

"Humans have decided that the human form is holy. This is a very common belief held across the Imperium. And it's partly reinforced by the link between overt warp phenomena and mutation. It isn't a problem with tau because your psychic presence is so weak, but with humans it isn't that simple."

"You mean that there would be… A collective response by… Warp-based reality deviations."

"I think it's something that you should consider very possible. Perhaps nothing overt, just a… Higher than probable number of minor accidents, problems…"

"And that affects-. Does that affect all human technology?"

"Oh, yes. But that's not the sole reason why human technology works as it does. You've got smart programs and AI fragments from before the Age of Isolation that no one knows about infecting things, organic brains being used for data processing which may or may not have their own personalities and derangements, and people generally not knowing what they're doing and failing to copy something a system needed in order to work properly and so turning a bypass procedure into part of the main procedure… And that's before you take into account actual daemons, who actually have an easier time getting in if the rituals aren't performed. Honestly, where humans are concerned, I'd recommend that you limit your ambitions a lot."

"I… Hear what you say, though.. I will need to confirm your claims."

I nod. "Of course."

"Why was it that you wanted to speak to me?"

"It occurred to me that you probably have data on just about every commonly-occurring gene in the tau species: what they look like and what they do."

"Yes, that is… The purpose of the Eugenics Board. Some… Recent mutations are not fully researched, but otherwise our records are quite complete."

"Excellent." I smile. "Mind if I take a look?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 568 938.M41

Thick orange cables attach the ring to the Eugenics Board's central server as I absorb everything the tau know about their own biology. It's nice that they don't consider me to be a security risk, though the somewhat unsteady Maka'm did check that I was authorised for secure data.

"That cannot be right."

She hasn't got less unsteady.

"Fio'el Maka'm, I was born thirty eight thousand years ago. I assure you that filing a protest against reality only serves to prevent you learning to deal with it as it actually is."

"But that is exactly the point. If you are correct, then there is no reality. It is a shared hallucination made real."

"No." Tsua'm shakes her head. "That would be to say that when you are on a boat on the ocean during a storm, land stops existing when you lose your bearings."

I nod. "Or perhaps… The difference between air pressure at sea level and air pressure at the top of a mountain. It's… Funny, because there are a small percentage of humans who enforce reality on the area around them. Do you want to know what their power classification is called?"

"Yes."

"Tau."

"That is the Imperium's assessment of our power level?"

"No, it's a pure coincidence that the words sound similar. They think it's the level most of the tau species is at, but… There's a Fire Caste chap on my team who is definitely higher than that. Maybe as high as Rho."

"And Rho is..?"

"An unusually unpsychic human. Someone who might be completely unaware of psychic phenomena." My construct cables retract theatrically. "Thank you. It's going to take months at the very least before I'll be able to best-fit human genes with their tau equivalents, but I'll send you whatever I learn."

"Hybridisation is quite impossible."

I don't say 'you kinky minx', because I don't think she'd get the joke.

"No, I-." / "Work placement."

Maka'm does a nasal twitch. Confusion, I think. I incline my head slightly towards Tsua'm to indicate that she should continue.

"I was curious as to whether it would be practical to assess the suitability of particular humans to particular types of occupation using their genes. It would simplify vocational training on fully incorporated human worlds."

"Do you think it would be possible to make human castes?"

"Perhaps, but that is for other people to decide. I can only make recommendations based on what Orange Lantern discovers."

I shake my head. "Probably not a good idea. That's the sort of thing that worlds that are culturally Imperial would take strong exception to."

"I doubt that they would concern themselves if we limited our initial efforts to small scale studies."

"Have you ever heard of the Plague of Unbelief?" I fabricate a small data pad loaded with pertinent data and offer it to her. "I suggest reading about what Dolan Chirosius managed to spur people into doing against Cardinal Bucharis."

She takes it from me. "I will study it and reflect upon its lessons."

"Short version: properly roused, every single human on a planet may turn out to be perfectly willing to throw themselves at you and every other tau and gue'vesa, no matter how compliant they'd been before or how they had benefited practically from their inclusion in the Empire."

"That is extremely irrational."

"No. It's extremely rational. The Tau Empire is an exception in the way it treats conquered populations. Orks and Dark Eldar and tyranids are the rule. Enslavement, torture, murder and consumption; that's what surrender gets you. The ability of a population to say 'yes, we're doomed, time to see how many we can take with us' is actually useful on a species wide scale. It denies the enemy resources. That fact that it's maladaptive in a tiny proportion of cases doesn't make it irrational."

"I… See."

Tsua'm steps forward, her body posture relaxes and open. "If I may ask an unrelated question?"

"Y-es?"

"I have not requested a pairing, but I am curious as to whether I am reaching the point where it will be considered appropriate for me to breed. Would it be acceptable for you to check for me?"

Maka'm presses a few buttons on a computer console. "Yes. Yes, you are authorised for that information. Due to the nature of your work, it has been judged that it is best not to assign you for breeding at this time."

"Is that unusual?"

"No, it is fairly common in relation to work in highly secure areas. Of course, that does not impact the chance of approval or rejection to any pairings you arrange for yourself. Those go through the same approval process as normal."

"Thank you. Then unless there is anything else you wish to hear from us, we will leave."

"Will you be on T'au for long?"

"That is up to the T'au Aun'ar'tol, but-" Maka'm responds with an expression of shock. "-it is likely that we will be on T'au for a kai'rotaa at least."

I nod. "I'm hoping that we'll have time to see Fio'taun, and maybe some of the pre-unification water tribe settlements."

"Then if there are any matters arising from this meeting, I will be able to send a message to you. I should consider what I have learned carefully before formulating policy."

I try to take a look-. Ah. I fabricate a bottle of fermented nectar and offer it to her. She takes the bottle, opens the cap and sniffs it, her nasal cleft spasming as the scent hits.

"Ah. Thank you."

"You're not the first tau I've culture-shocked." Right. I walk over to Tsua'm, bend and pick her up in a bridal carry. That prompts Maka'm to stare in shock again, though Tsua'm's expression is more one of surprise. Now, send a flight plan to air traffic control and transition.

Tsua'm eyes open wide as our surroundings vanish, being placed by the open skies over the ancestral home of the Fire Caste, and the ring translates her scent as an expression of fear.

"You're safe, Tsua'm. Perfectly safe."

"Everything that I have read about teleportation tells me that you are wrong."

"Oh, that wasn't teleportation. Teleportation involves travelling though the warp. If that happened to you… You probably wouldn't experience anything, due to your minimal warp presence. My method involves travelling between places in the material universe, and it's far safer. Here."

I create a platform and gently set her down.

"See? Perfectly safe."

She taps her right hoof against the platform a couple of times, her hands still on my shoulders.

"Yes. Did you get the data that you need?"

"Is it that urgent? Do you want to be pregnant that quickly?"

"No, but it is unlikely that we will have cause to-." She twitches. "Was that a..? Line?"

"Not a serious one." I lower my face slightly towards her, exhaling with a little more force that usual so that my scent covers her receptors. "Unless you want it to be."

"I, um. Not… Not yet. But humans have… Intimate gestures of affection that are not sex? I have a… Curiosity, about other species. About you. Beyond… What my job requires."

"Sure." I rest my forehead against hers. "Let me know if anything I do is unpleasantly weird."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
12:14 GMT

"The orbital fire doesn't look very accurate. Or was that-?"

"Deliberate."

"Herding people-. No. Introducing a random element. The people knew they could die at any moment, but Kalmin didn't want them to adapt to it."

I see the flakes of intent behind each crater and glass-bowl.

"Yes. And the strikes would wake people up, or would occur at times of day when different demographic groups were in different places."

I point north.

"There's a series of strikes a few miles that way, where he destroyed every major transport link to this city, knowing that there was no way they'd be able to get food here in large enough quantities to prevent starvation. And that the people here would know that."

"So they'd tear themselves apart without him needing to intervene directly."

"He didn't care exactly how they responded. So long as they were motivated by fear."

And there was a lot of fear here.

"You hired him in case the Controllers tried backstabbing you."

"Not 'backstabbing' exactly, just… Being people I couldn't work with."

"But now that you know that you can, why is he still alive?"

"I knew what he was when I offered him a place. Those ships L.E.G.I.O.N. is using? Those are about seventy percent his design work. Even the ones designed to be built by less technologically advanced planets. You can see the data on their performance versus other designs of ship on the N.E.M.O. database. They're… A lot better. He's very good at what he does. And he's not murdering planets any more. Yeah, he… Objectively… Probably deserves to be put down like a rabid dog, but… There's no practical reason to do it."

Also, I rather doubt that killing him would be easy.

"How long did it take?"

"I'm not sure. There's…"

I try scanning for intact pieces of computer equipment. Once the civilisation broke down to the point that people in one place didn't know what was happening elsewhere, the Qwardians-. Kalmin deployed some sort of pack-hunting robots, but they were only programmed to target people.

Ah.

"They used a virus of some sort on the computer systems. I'm not going to be able to get an exact timeline. Um. On a tangentially-related matter, I have a question about your father's training methods."

She turns her head away from a collection of burned skeletons which appear to have been flensed while seeking shelter in an alleyway.

"What?"

"'It is better to be feared than to be loved, if one cannot be both.'"

"Nice to know that Dad failed completely."

"Right… But I remember reading that… They did an experiment with dogs. If you're nice to a dog, then the dog remembers you and shows a bit more attention to you, but mostly does its own thing. If you're hostile to a dog, it avoids you. But the best way to make a dog attached to you is to mix the two. At random. It makes the dog insecure and so it-."

"I guess Dad never read a psychology textbook. There wasn't any variety. And there weren't any rewards."

"No, he didn't seem like the sort."

"Why are you bringing this up?"

"He's working with the Justice League at the moment. And… There's a good chance that when the current crisis is over, he'll-"

"Damn it."

"-get his sentence commuted. I doubt they'll just… Let him go, but he probably won't be in line for an execution anymore."

"How do I make them reconsider?"

"Defeat the Anti-Life-enhanced Bruno Mannheim yourself. Or… Otherwise minimise Sportsmaster's role in things. Or…"

She waits for me to spit it out.

"Or if he switches sides. Then he wouldn't be pardoned. But the world's governments accepted pardoning Doctor Sivana Senior, so…"

"Do you think I should try and get a leave of absence? I wouldn't mind a complete pardon myself."

"Not unless you've got a way to resist the Anti-Life Equation I don't know about. I don't care if Mister Crock gets brain damaged as a result of Anti-Life exposure, but I do care about you."

"I worked that out when you said that you wanted to wander the universe with me forever."

"I'd hoped that it didn't take quite that long."

"No, but I hadn't really thought through what you wanted. Out of us."

"Stable home environment, children, the opportunity to raise and nurture them, new professional challenges and opportunities and to do all that with you. Nothing particularly unique, except that it's us doing it."

"That sounds… Nice."

"You?"

"I never really thought I'd get the opportunity to step back like that. I don't think I'd do well being a home-maker."

"I'm pretty good at multi-tasking. I'm happy to take the majority of childcare responsibilities if you want to pursue a… Um, a legitimate career."

She folds her arms across her chest. "You didn't need to emphasise it like that."

"I think in this sort of conversation it's best to be as unambiguous as possible."

"Does the Justice League need a light recon-?"

A quiet noise, the scratch of metal on brick, draws our attention. Ring scans aren't producing clear results, which isn't too surprising given Qwardian technology.

The first… Predatory kangaroo-looking robot, stalks slowly into view. It looks like it's trying to give us a clear look while remaining too far away for us to immediately attack with weapons that this world would have had when Kalmin ended it.

Another clambers over the rubble a short distance from the first, joining it in watching us.

And then another.

That would be intimidating, if we were unarmed civilians.

"There might be something useful on their databases." Jade draws her sword. "Let's clean up Kalmin's work."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
12:18 GMT

Jade's maser hits one of the robots in the chest, melting through its control systems and causing it to collapse onto the rubble-strewn ground.

"They're trying to lead us somewhere, aren't they?"

I nod as my ring goes through the programming of one of the robots I grabbed intact. They clearly weren't designed with fighting Lanterns in mind.

"Their behaviour is emergent. The actual program is relatively simple."

Like a shoal of fish. Or a flock of birds. There's no program which requires them to communicate with one another, just a programmed behaviour which is slightly altered when they can see one another.

Jade pauses for a moment and checks behind her, spotting the flankers who are supposedly driving us forward. "You mean that they're leading us around without an actual direction?"

"They were probably only released once organised resistance had broken down. Even if they ran into a group of soldiers, harrying them until they started to break mentally would be a viable tactic."

Jade accelerates, using her exo-mantle's thrusters to charge after the flankers. Immediately, the main mass from the front of us starts to close in where before they had been falling back.

"Reminds me of a book I read once. A fortified base has flamethrowers set up around the perimeter, and because they thought that the dangerous animals-"

Jade fires, hitting one of the flankers in the head. It doesn't collapse, but denied its sight organs its behaviour changes. It attempts to burrow into the ground, presumably so that it can use its seismic sensors to carry out an ambush later.

"-might work out a regular pattern of firing, they had it fire on an irregular pattern with… I think it was four? Interval changes. Any human who found themself caught outside could wait for the longest interval before trying to pass, but animals would be stuck."

"What are they doing now?"

Scan.

"The flankers are spreading out slightly, and some from the edge of the main mass are being drawn off."

Which replaces the flankers without anyone being designated as 'flankers' by a control program. I generate a plasma initiator construct and turn the majority of the oncoming wave into energised plasma. They weren't designed to be particularly resilient; their survivability as a group comes from their numbers.

"And now they're falling back."

"Because their behaviour changes based on how many of them there are around." She uses her flight system to drift slowly back towards me, while keeping an eye on the remaining flankers as they fall back. "So they wait until they're back up to a critical mass, then their behaviour will change back."

"Yes."

"Do you think Kalmin put a factory on the planet, or just dropped a few billion robots off?"

"Having a drop off point sounds easier to control, and there would be a small chance that a factory could be located and destroyed."

"He could just replace it. They didn't have any defence against orbital strikes."

"Sinestro's been to Earth a few times, but he's never made use of Dr. Crane's fear chemical. With a power ring, he could have found out about it very easily."

"Does it work on aliens?"

"It's… Generally affective against humanoids, though less so than against humans. It's not exactly a subtle thing. Against non-humanoids it usually doesn't do much."

"Space-faring species usually have better atmosphere purification technology than Earth. It wouldn't be as effective. And it wouldn't fit his strategy."

"Being a dick to Jordan doesn't require gas attacks, I agree."

"He hasn't done that for years. Supervillains can bear personal grudges while still pursuing a wider agenda."

"So he's got it, but he isn't going to use it until he thinks it's time to make large-scale attacks. And he's handing out replica rings because he's trying to find good recruits."

"Or he's trying to work out what makes a good recruit. Clarissi Dox is still doing that for the Orange Lantern Corps."

"Dox is trying to find out what makes an ideal recruit. We already know what makes good recruits."

Comic Sinestro had… Fear lodges? Recruits were exposed to their greatest fears, and then had to make a powerless ring spark, something like that? There was a significant die-off rate, and… That was on Qward, with Weaponers forging new rings for the recruits and presumably building other equipment as well. Because the Green Lantern Corps weren't watching Qward despite Sinestro's repeated involvement with them it came as a complete surprise. And that's not the case with us. While Qward's weakened state means that he probably could conquer it… No. There's no organisational structure to put himself at the top of. He'd need an army to actually take and hold the place while he upgunned his recruits and created a new power structure.

"Do you really think that Dox thinks that 'good' is good enough?"

"Oh, I know he won't settle for it, but he's recruited people who are just 'good' without having an aneurysm."

"Impressive."

"I thought so."

Hm. The robots are still falling back, still too clumped up for their 'stalk' program to activate.

"Jade-. I realise that your first try put you off the idea of using an orange power ring, but…"

"Do I want to try a yellow one?" She pointedly looks around at the devastation surrounding us. And then back at me to make sure that I was following her line of sight. "I'll pass."

"This.. is a Kalmin way of creating a yellow ring. I don't believe for a moment that this was actually essential."

In the comic, they ended up mass producing them in factories, so they must have worked out a way to avoid needing mass murder each time. If only because the Weaponers would have been much more cheerful if it was still required.

"If I had one, would seeing this start feeling good?"

"I… Don't know. Several Yellow Lanterns have responded positively to seeing fear, but they were probably the sort of person who would like that anyway."

"And Kalmin would see it as a feature."

"Almost certainly. Or he wouldn't realise that there was another way to respond to it. H-?"

"How about another colour?"

"I met a parallel universe version of you who used a green ring. She was pretty good with it."

"I doubt our lives were that similar."

"Almost identical until you ran away from home."

"So do I kill Stewart or Savenlovich?"

"I could ask Malvolio? I don't think he's made any rings, but it should be well within his abilities."

Jade considers that for a moment. "I… Wouldn't mind a green ring. Depending on what the conditions were."

"Then I'll ask him. Now, let's try this world's rural areas."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 569 938.M41

"I… I was not expecting you to be here."

Bo'ohk looks decidedly unsteady on his feet as he exits the domed temple where the T'au Aun'ar'tol meets, his honour blade strapped to his back. I can see cuts, bruises and… At least they let him bandage the worse ones. I turn so that I'm alongside him and offer him my arm to lean on.

"Ah-. Thank you, but I should not. I have allowed my physical conditioning to weaken. My seniors were unimpressed by my skill with the blade."

He scents something and then looks straight at Tsua'm, noting her distress at seeing a visibly ailing Aun. Next to her Kais is looking a little sympathetic, but he's been worked to exhaustion during both training and field assignments too often to worry about Bo'ohk being a bit banged up.

"Be at peace, Envoy. This was a necessary test of my beliefs and resolve. And since no other Ethereals are assigned to our group, it is helpful for my seniors to review my actions at times like this."

"Huh." I frown. "We don't really have a hand-to-hand specialist for you to train with."

Gremlin grins toothily. "I could have a go, boss. Build yah a real noice tinboy ta scrap with. Learn yah real good, it would."

"Thank you, Grem'len, but I have too many uses for my arms."

Kais draws himself up slightly. "We would welcome your participation during our training, Prince Bo'ohk."

"I thank you for your kind offer, Shas'Ui, but I think that I will focus on physical conditioning first. While I suspect that your team would be a little more gentle than the blade masters of the T'au Aun'ar'tol, at my current skill level it would only be a difference of slight degrees."

I hold out the ring slightly.

"Do you want me to fix you up?"

"No. These wounds are mine to bear. Ah. Perhaps that bench?"

Tucked away on the grounds of the temple are a number of small gardens set aside for contemplation. Or… Perhaps so that young Ethereals can be assigned to care for them as punishment duty. Tall bushes give the illusion of privacy, richly scented plants calm the visiting tau-

Gremlin wrinkles his nose.

"Bit wiffy, innit?"

-but don't necessarily have that effect on aliens, and wind chimes add to the air of peace. I hover as Bo'ohk leads us through the entrance and then over to the stone-wrought bench, where he gingerly sits down.

Kais takes up position just inside the entrance, out of sight from external observers. Tsua'm drops into a cross-legged position on the ground in front of Bo'ohk, and I can't help but wince slightly when I try following where she's folding her legs. With the robes she normally wears it's easy to forget that her ankle is a sort of second backwards knee. I sit down next to her, mirroring her posture, while Gremlin wonders over to sniff a flower, watching Bo'ohk out of the corner of one eye.

Bo'ohk opens his mouth to speak.

"Ow."

The way he immediately makes eye contact with me indicates that he meant it as a joke, which is good because otherwise I'd feel bad about chuckling. Tsua'm also relaxes a little, though seeing Bo'ohk battered is clearly not something she's comfortable with.

"I have spoken with the T'au Aun'ar'tol, and while they are clearly of the opinion that I would benefit from more oversight, they accept the utility of our research group and the substantial benefit of our actions."

I nod. "So..?"

"So we do not need to fear being turned into soylent caerulus. Tsua'm, the T'au Por'ar'tol wish to speak to you at length concerning your viewpoint on humans. It will not be adversarial; they believe that your interactions at close quarters for a prolonged period of time with P'ol may have given you an insight that others lack."

"I.. have.. not learned anything worthy of changing the Empire's entire policy."

"No, but you have learned a great deal that will help future generations of the Water Caste improve their interpersonal dealing with humans. There is a much lower threshold for changing training methods than there is rewriting our entire diplomatic relationship with the Imperium of Man."

Tsua'm's legs twitch as they instinctively try to adopt a mildly submissive posture, but her face is… Relieved?

I look away from her.

"Could make for very interesting lessons if they start teaching classes about-."

Ah!

Turns out that that shifted ankle makes tau mean kickers, even if their aim isn't that good. I smile at her as I rub the impact site on my left thigh.

"Kais, Shas'O Eur'tus will speak with you regarding the treatment of those suffering from war madness."

"I stand ready to assist."

"It is likely that the discussion will also involve her asking for advice on integrating those of the Fire Caste who struggle to master conventional doctrines into units in the field."

"She wants to know how to best use other Fire Warriors who think like me?"

"I suspect that the result will be several of those considered to be problematic joining our mission."

"The wisdom of the Shas'O is beyond reproach."

I wiggle my right forefinger at him. "Come on, Kais, this isn't the Imperium. No one's wisdom is beyond reproach, for we are all imperfect beings in the service of the Greater Good."

"Very well. It is beyond my reproach, being much greater than mine."

"P'ol, it…" Bo'ohk appears to ponder how to put something. "While what you just said is correct and orthodox… It is generally considered impolite to call Aun'Va an imperfect being to his face."

"Aun'Va wants to talk to me in person?"

"I am to present you to the T'au Aun'chiagor in three days."

That's… The senior most leaders of the five castes on T'au. Aun'Va will just be chairing the meeting, while the other four ask me…

"What do they..? Want to know?"

"To ascertain whether you are being utilised as effectively as you could be. With your strategic manoeuvrability being so much greater than that of our fastest ships, there are roles other than slow expansion and investigation which you could serve in. I believe that they also want to… Get a feel for your character. You are, after all, quite unusual."

"Isn't that unusual..?" I look around, but I suppose it's not like anyone here has been up before the T'au Aun'chiagor before. Bo'ohk and I were interviewed by the Lar'shi Aun'chiagor a grand total of once, when they needed to hear our team concept because that cut across normal caste organisational lines. Tsua'm pats my leg with her right hand while Kais just looks blank. "I thought that was the body which coordinated between castes, and they'd just… Assign interviewing me to someone and then discuss the result."

"It is not my place to speak for Aun'Va… But if I had to guess, it is because they wish to look you in the eyes. To confirm some of the strange things that our reports have relayed for themselves. And because much of what you might say impacts so many areas of life in the Tau Empire."

"Have any humans been questioned like this before?"

"No."

"Tsua'm, would you mind showing me to a tau tailor?"

She nods. "I will ensure that you are fully prepared."

"And…" Bo'ohk half-turns. "Grem'len. Por'O Choan'ah wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience concerning ork behaviour. It seems that we were unduly concerned about your reception."

"That's a relief, boss. But what about Faultless Boy?"

"They gave no indication. I suspect that they wish to assess the rest of us before even beginning to address that matter."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
12:48 GMT

Jade holds up a book. It looks like it was bound by an amateur, and the paper quality appears to be variable.

"My translator doesn't recognise the language."

I nod and take it from her, carefully opening the first page so as to not damage it. A date at the top of the page, and…

"A journal." I turn the pages, skimming the text. "Short entries about farm work done, a couple of things about local events… And then a gap, and…"

And a description of Kalmin's work, not that he ever introduced himself. Hm. Now that I think about it, Sinestro would have had to be here, wouldn't he? Or… Did he create the ring blank first, and then alter it based on Sinestro's mentality?

"The end of the world."

"There wasn't any sign of the robots coming here, was there?"

"Your ring has better sensors than my exo-mantle."

"Yes, but you're actually trained to track things. You're reconnaissance, I'm brute force."

"I didn't see anything. You said that the robots are programmed to wander a certain distance from each other?"

"Effectively."

"The mountains would make that difficult, and the lack of people would mean there wasn't anything to draw them closer. You saw the barricade and armory; they were prepared for an attack. Does it say what they thought was happening?"

"Whoever wrote this was convinced that it was aliens. It's not entirely clear, but I think they were ancestor worshippers."

"So no fire and brimstone preachers calling on sinners to repent?"

"No." I point to the page I'm on now. "'The Eldest has openly said what we had accepted in our lungs: that we will die with none left to watch over in our turn. No one cried out to deny it. Every action is undertaken with solemnity, and no one even postures violently. If we are all the ancestors will have to see, should we not ensure that they can have pride in us?'"

"I don't suppose you can resurrect them, can you?"

"Thaumically dead world. Their ancestors almost certainly aren't actually watching over them." I sigh as I read the description of people starting to sleep in their village's crypt. "I can mark this world for the Controllers to eventually resettle. There are plenty of genetic records, and quite a lot of cultural relics. Compared to some places, it'll be.. easy."

I frown.

"It's odd. Kalmin had ships in orbit. He'd definitely have known they were here, but all I can see from the writing is that they were becoming resigned and.. apathetic, rather than afraid."

"What else could they do?"

"Nothing, but-. Ah."

"There weren't any bodies outside. Let me guess: they went to the crypts and shot themselves."

I close the journal, then lay in on a nearby table. "The author did, though they note that there were several others still alive at the time."

"I suppose resignation is a way some people respond to fear."

I nod. "Rallying to old certainties, because if they limit their thoughts then they don't have to think about how doomed the situation is."

She turns her helmet to look at me for a moment, then shakes her head and walks out of the building.

I follow her. "What?"

"You recruited Kalmin. You knew he'd.. done this, but you recruited him because you were worried about the Controllers."

"Not that it would have altered my decision, but I didn't know exactly what it had involved. And the Controllers used to destroy planets by using Sun Eaters to send their suns nova. With Kalmin, the choice was between killing him out of hand and keeping him where we could see him. Don't think that I think he's a good person just because I can stomach working with him."

She stops, looking at the entrance to the crypt. It's decorated with images of… I think those are farm tools, but I don't have cultural context for the rest. I'd guess that it's scenes from their history.

"You sounded dismissive of them."

"I'd respect them more if they'd kept fighting, even if it wasn't possible to beat Kalmin. Even just bunkering down to try and outlast him. But I don't-. I don't know how I'd-. How I would have acted before getting my ring if this had happened on my Earth." I snort. "The same, probably. Is there a reason why this is affecting you so much?"

"They let me into their archives. The Citizenry keep records of every world they recruit from. Every world that they decide to eat. And anyone can go in and have a look; actually, they like it when the new recruits do that, so they know what they're a part of now. Seeing empty homes in person brings home just how many people they killed, and even they memorialised their victims better than Kalmin did."

I walk over to the crypt entrance and kneel, bowing my head.

"Honoured dead. I do not know your people, your world or your culture. I well understand if you hate me for my alliance with your murderer, and I will not gainsay it. I can only pray that your end was as peaceful as it could be under the circumstances, and that your ancestors greet you in whatever fashion you hope for."

"You said that they wouldn't."

I nod as I stand.

"The thaumosphere is too thin to sustain individual consciousnesses. But it's not impossible that there's a weak gestalt embodying all their ancestors. Even worlds with weak thaumospheres can sometimes generate a weak god."

She nods once. "I don't think the Scouring Path has a set funeral tradition." She turns to face the crypt entrance and puts her hands together in prayer.

She doesn't say anything out loud, so I give her a moment to finish.

"Just in case any of them didn't die, we should check the crypt."

I nod. "I didn't pick up anything, but Kalmin is perfectly capable of blocking ring scans if he wanted to."

I switch to my heavy armour and make sure that the force fields are active, because I wouldn't want to walk into Kalmin's booby traps with anything less than my best.

The doors aren't locked or latched, opening easily to a construct-push. No trip wires or mines on the inside. I push on inside. Looks like a museum, with relics… I check the description plates. Yes, relics from the village's history. A plough blade, a… Newspaper? A shoe and a brick. No remains from living creatures. We more or less skipped over this sort of building in the other settlements we visited, but this isn't a unique thing. This is part of their culture. Probably not worldwide, as their transportation networks weren't advanced enough to enable that level of cultural uniformity. But certainly over a good chunk of this contin-

"Yaaaaaaaaghuh!"

-ent.

"I'm not detecting anyone, but that wasn't a recording."

"You have point."

Let's… See. The entrances to the crypt proper appear to be marked in terms of date ranges. I can't tell where the voice came from using sonic scans alone. Solid rock conveys sound too well. Most recent remains are interred through there, and we wanted to check there anyway.

I fly through the entrance and into the crypt.

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
12:52 GMT

Desiccated corpses with small cups next to their shelves are arrayed near the entrance. Then there's a gap before the older remains, probably because they were sleeping here and didn't see the point in walking further than they had to. Several of the shelves had bits of bedding in with them, blankets or pillows or wind-up clocks. There's a residue of poison in the cups, and after calculating the likely result on the natives' physiology I find myself agreeing with my golden alter-ego: carbon monoxide really is the way to go.

The crypt is built into the stone of the mountain, and while the outer museum was a relatively normal room the crypt itself is bare stone. No decoration, but it does have oil lanterns hanging from the ceiling to light the way. They've long since gone out, reservoirs expended. For a moment I wonder where they got the oil from, but I suppose that it wouldn't be strange for communities like this to ship in a barrel a year or so.

I move deeper, Jade watching the flanks. Side passages are more crypts, but they don't have any markings so I've got no idea if they're for families or years or professions or… Whatever they considered most significant. Further in and the passages-.

"Stop."

I stop, attack constructs ready to go at a moment's notice.

"The walls. They weren't made with the same tools."

I take a closer look… Yes. This continent was early to mid twentieth century equivalent in terms of technology. This was done with something else, something they couldn't have built, either a plasma cutter or a matter disruptor.

"Kalmin wouldn't have left a test subject alive. But it's not that hard to come here if you know where you're going. There's no reason to assume that we're the first ones here."

I continue deeper. Something else that stands out: Kalmin wouldn't have bothered to copy local styles, whereas whoever did this clearly has. There are empty shelves, their design similar to but not quite the same as the ones the locals use. And there are bodies, but they're placed sporadically while the locals filled up spaces before moving on.

Alert.

Standard scan didn't spot it, but sonic and electrical sensors working together detected a spatial fracture system. Nasty if you walk into it, but the generator node… Should be…

I release the Colin Thornton construct lantern and send it onward. It marches into the fracture zone, which triggers and begins altering the relationship between spatial dimensions in its radius. Colin returns to my ring instantly, but I'm braced and prepared for the storm of horrifying images that come with seeing his memories and behaviours. I release and dispatch him again to the same result, and again-.

The spatial fracture generator stutters, a problem with hiding a power hungry system from a sufficiently capable attacker. Colin flies through during the flux with only some damage, and tears apart the generator with his bare hands.

"Dismissed."

He vanishes, and after another scan I advance into the area it was covering.

"Would that send an alert?"

"Probably. Nothing I can detect, so we're dealing with someone clever rather than opportunistic looters."

Scanners and mental acceleration on full I move forward, alert for-

"Nurnnurnnurnnurn…"

-any sign of danger to us. Nothing, and we're in a crypt cul-de-sac-. And from the way that dust cloud is moving I can tell that's a hologram.

I short it out, and-.

Plasma fire from a device built into the ceiling hits my force field and achieves precisely nothing, while my spear construct punches through its weak armour and cuts off its power supply. Hm. So far it looks like the technology here is advanced, but the application is a little slapdash. Someone with little field experience?

Other force fields or guns? Looks like no. I push on-

Scan available.

-into the room, construct tentacles snaking out and seizing control of the main computer system. Sadly it's not tied into anything other than the… Containment unit? But I stop the automatic subject purge countdown anyway.

The subject-. A dishevelled humanoid. Male. He's wearing a plug suit-. No, a bio-monitor suit, but his hair and beard are scraggly and I can see blood around his mouth.

And fear. So much fear.

The other equipment… Some of it looks a little like Kalmin's forge. Other parts look like the more mundane parts of his workshop. A Weaponer, then. Someone out of favour with Varnathon? Or just trying to hide a secret workshop away from prying eyes.

The computer doesn't have records on it. Because what sort of Weaponer wouldn't be able to just remember things like that?

The containment chamber is a custom job, and I don't think that it's designed to let things pass in or out easily. I could break through with a little effort, but I think it's best to get a better idea of what's going on first. The man inside doesn't look bound in any way, he's just sort of curled up against the side of the chamber.

And there's the speak-.

Wait. I know that face. DNA scan-.

I activate the speaker.

"Orange Lantern Illustres here." His head doesn't come up. "Can you hear me?"

"Eh-heh-heh-huuuu…"

Cowering and gibbering. Okay. If I understand this machine correctly, then pulling this lever and turning these dials should reduce the focus on the chamber interior.

"I think the Weaponer who set this place up was trying to focus the residual fear energy through this man."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps they were trying to make him into an ideal Yellow Lantern? Or just to see what would happen."

"Where did they get a human?" … "Don't tell me-."

"There's an anti-matter Earth. I mean an Earth Negative Sixteen. I don't actually know if he's from there."

"But you don't think he's from our Earth. You've scanned him."

"Yes. Hello in there! Are you feeling any better?"

"Hu-ur-huh?"

His head comes up slightly, his mind still filled with fear but regaining the capacity for coherent thought.

"I'm happy to remove you from this planet just as soon as we can get some idea how safe that is for you. Can you tell me your name, sir?"

He manages to make eye contact for a moment, then they drop back down again. I'm not sure if all that I'm seeing in him is fear because it's so strong that it's overwhelming, or because that's all there is left.

"W-where is she?"

"I don't know who you're talking about, sir. As far as I know, the three of us are the only people on the planet."

"No-no-no-no-no."

"Can you tell me your name?"

He manages to get up on his hands and knees, still cringing and unwilling to meet my eyes.

"Joseph. Joseph Harrolds."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
12:56 GMT

"Thank you."

So, either the local version of Harold Jordan, or… I mean, Qward's had access to parallel universes for decades at least. He could have come from just about anywhere-.

Jade makes a small jerking motion with her head, and I take my hand off the intercom.

"Am I supposed to pretend that I don't know who Harold Jordan is, or can we have a sensible conversation?"

"It's probably best that you pretend when you're back on Earth."

"Neither of us detected any spaceships anywhere on this planet, or any residue from one flying in."

"There's no interdiction system up. If they knew the area, there's no reason why they couldn't fly right up to the atmosphere."

"Or a yellow power ring."

She's right. All this yellow light, there's a good chance that I wouldn't be able to distinguish between the planet and a ring's output.

"Yes. But this doesn't feel like Sinestro. He's intelligent, but he's not an expert scientist. He was an archaeologist before he joined the Green Lantern Corps, and he certainly didn't have time for getting a second doctorate afterwards."

"He could have gone back to school after he left."

"Yes, but this is Qwardian equipment. They sell weapons, not the tools to make weapons."

"Varnathon was happy selling to aliens. And Sinestro was the reason why Kalmin lost his job."

"You think they were in touch beforehand?"

"Sinestro wants a Lantern Corps… Or at least some minions with power rings. Kalmin hasn't made another yellow ring since the one he made Sinestro."

"Varnathon could barely make qwa-matter."

"He had all of Kalmin's records and Kalmin's apprentices. He wouldn't need to make the rings himself. And we haven't seen any evidence that Sinestro has extra power rings yet. He might just be trying to learn to make them himself."

And the knowledge that I can make power rings is relatively common amongst N.E.M.O. personnel. Not sure how many people know in N.E.M.O.-affiliated space, but I doubt that it would be hard for Sinestro to find out. Or maybe he decided that he could do it after watching Kalmin. Here-.

He and Arin married after he joined the Green Lantern Corps, when he was well into his middle years. And given that Green Lantern medical aid isn't anything like as good as you might expect, I imagine that he's feeling his old injuries. Korugari tend to live a little longer than humans, but not by much. Sinestro's an old man. Learning a new trick that big..?

"Maybe, but I.. don't think it's likely."

Though I suppose there's an easy way to find out. I activate the intercom once more.

"Can you tell me who put you in there?"

Mr. Harrolds is sitting up a little. He's still clearly not happy with his situation, but that suggests that we're going to get a more helpful answer this time.

"Bald… Chick. Big… Robot eyes, like a bug."

Qwardian, but that doesn't exactly narrow it down.

"Did she give you a name?"

"H-human test meat."

Um. "I meant, did she tell you her name?"

"No. No."

"Are you from Earth?"

"Yeah. W-why?"

"Well, we need some information from you, but afterwards we're happy to take you back."

"H-happy?"

"Um. Well, I do feel mildly uplifted when I help someone do something they couldn't have done for themselves, so-."

"Why?"

I'm.. puzzled by the sheer bewilderment in his-. Oh. It's one of those negative Earths.

"Troop instinct. Most people get positive feedback from being around other happy people."

"You're..? You mean, you're Human?"

Right, Jade and I are both wearing all-encompassing armour. He can't see our faces.

"Yes, from a parallel universe. This is ar-. Mour."

Wait.

I take a hologram projector out of subspace, and use it to project an image of Kalmin's female students.

"Was it one of these?"

"Ah..?"

His eyes jump from the image to me, back and forth. Why-?

He's trying to work out the 'right' answer.

"The right answer is an accurate answer. It's either one of them or it isn't, and I need to know either way."

"… No." He braces himself for my wrath, but I don't respond. After a moment he collects himself. "They look similar. I guess they're the same species. It's the same… Same technology."

I send the projector back into subspace.

"Did the woman who put you here use a ring at any point?"

"Use..? What?"

"A ring. A small glowing ring."

"Ah… No. I didn't.. see one."

"Did she say what she was doing with you in here?"

"Something about… Learning to control absolute fear. I'm… I'm feeling better… Now."

"Yes, I turned off the machine."

"She… She said not to do that."

"Did she say why?" He shakes his head. "Then I won't worry until something catches fire. Let me just break you out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
13:06 GMT

Mister Harrolds is taking the opportunity to walk around the empty village, apparently not at all interested in the buildings, just enjoying the fact that it's not his cage.

"You know this is a trick, right?"

I'm wearing heavy armour, so the withering look I flash her way passes unnoticed.

"No, Jade, I'm actually fairly stupid."

"No, but you're a superhero. I want to make sure we're on the same page."

"The question is, what sort of trick is it."

"He was genuinely afraid. Either that or he's the greatest actor on Earth."

"I saw yellow and little else, but that doesn't mean much here."

"Wouldn't you see it if he felt other emotions?"

"Maybe. But with this much yellow… The mind can adapt to it. It's not true avarice, or… Other things, but it looks a bit like it. He can function without avarice while still having a sort of motivation."

"The simplest trap is that the Qwardian who was experimenting on him is coming back."

"But he said there was just one. Weaponers aren't subtle people. If she had support, she'd have had them here."

"Maybe he helped her?"

"Possible. I can see someone from an anti-Earth volunteering for experimentation if the result was that they got more power. And the Qwardians are happy to augment people; that's where a lot of our Earth's Jordan's early supervillains came from."

"So why didn't he just tell us?"

"We've both got equipment. If he can keep us here, he still gets augmented and he gets to offer us to the Qwardian."

"It's a risk if she's on her own."

"Or we kill her and he gets her stuff. Worst case scenario, we take him back to Earth Negative Sixteen and he's got a location to sell to anyone with faster than light travel there."

"Or he started helping her, but it got too much for him and she didn't want to stop the experiment."

"Plausible, but he'll feel vengeful enough to put us in the loop once he's recovered."

"Or he was lying, and this was all Sinestro."

"Or he got a new deputy, and it's them. We don't have any way to know for sure. What happens if we just ask him directly?"

"He acts like he doesn't know what we're talking about."

"How about if we make it clear that we don't care, and we'll pay him for his help?"

"Why would he trust us?"

"We let him out in an act of altruism. Even if he's not altruistic himself, he'll make assumptions about our likely behaviour based on that."

"How bad is his Earth?"

"No idea."

I try feeling it from here, but the yellow light is obscuring even that.

"Shouldn't be hard to find out."

"Lead with that. Offer to take him back right away. See what he says."

"Armour on or off?"

"What's the chance of Sinestro blindsiding us?"

"There's no obvious reason for him to kill me, and he can't stop our backup coming here later and creating a clone for me to inhabit."

"How about me?"

"They could create a clone for you, too."

If they're fast enough and you haven't begun your ascension.

"Does he have a reason to kill me?"

"I… Don't know. I don't know how much contact he has with Earth supervillains."

"I didn't meet him while I was a Shadow."

"No, I was thinking that he might kill you as a favour to the Light, or someone like that. There are all sorts of useful things on Earth that he could trade a favour for."

"The League of Shadows doesn't exist anymore, and I'd be surprised if anyone else with anything to offer even knows my name. Besides, they're all either working for the Justice League or Mannheim. I'm just concerned that he'd think we knew what was going on and kill us just in case."

"Could happen." I walk towards the ex-lab rat. "But I think it'll be okay. Mister Harrolds!"

I switch back to my light armour as he turns around, seeing my face for the first time. There's a moment of focus as he takes in my features, but no recognition. I guess there isn't an alternate me on his Earth. Any longer, at least.

"Would you like to go home now? There isn't anything here except pack-hunting robot drones. We can drop you off anywhere on Earth. And if there's anyone you want us to contact, we can do that too."

"They're all dead, huh?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. The Weaponer who did it was quite thorough."

"And they all… Died afraid."

"Most of them. The ones who died in the first attack might not have had time to feel afraid."

He shakes his head. "Imagine having that kind of power…"

I shake my head. "It's not about power. Honestly, the robots aren't that complicated, dropping rocks would work nearly as well as his orbital strikes did, and social manipulation… That's a matter of patience."

"If it's not power, what is it?"

"Intent. Will? The Weaponer decided that he needed a world to die in terror, so he made it so. I don't even think he cared much about these poor people one way or the other. There's a… Book, called Nineteen Eighty Four, where… The final torture they use to break prisoners is customised to their particular psychology. They expose them to something they can't withstand and then let them out only if they betray everything and everyone they care about rather than endure it. Of course, at that point anyone they put in there is so broken down by regular torture that it's not much of a gamble."

I look around at the homes of people who chose to die in their tombs rather than try and go on.

"There's nothing here that I couldn't find on Earth, or on a hundred other humanoid-inhabited worlds. Our fears aren't all that different to one another really."

"I fear… And they fear…"

I nod. "It really-."

"I understand."

His eyes glow yellow, his pupils turning into yellow sigils.

"No." His body glows with yellow light as he lifts off the ground. "We understand."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
13:10 GMT

A yellow sigil burns on his forehead.

Parallax.

I guess that's why the green rings back home can affect yellow objects: he was never imprisoned.

Behind me Jade shudders, her soul flaring yellow in my sight. She can fight it to a degree, but much like the Ophidian affecting a person's desires you can't completely fight Parallax when it tries to influence you. The fears are already there.

"Parallax."

"Is that your name for this?" His mouth… Extends further into his cheeks than it should, and I'm getting flashes of unusually sharp teeth. "What we… I… Ah."

He doesn't understand what it is. Parallax might not even understand. I knew in advance… Roughly what was happening, and so Ophidime knew as well.

"She wasn't lying. We find that extremely strange. And…" His glowing eyes refocus on me. "You. You know what.. we are."

"I had a similar joining with the Embodiment of Avarice."

"And we are… Fear. It is…" He looks up, at-. At the universe. "A glorious music. We.. can hear… So much…"

"It's the same for me. Even without the Ophidian I can unfocus my mind and feel the interlocking networks of desires, thwarted and fulfilled. I didn't hear it as music, more like a… Picture, or an abstract sculpture."

"And that is why we can hear you hardly at all. The part of you that is the Ophidian does not have fears."

"That's probably a part of it. Do you mind me asking what the Weaponer offered the part of you that is Joseph Harrolds?"

"She fears her own worthlessness, and that worthlessness being known to her peers. It motivates everything she does and doesn't do."

"It might just look like that to you because you can see-. Hear her fear and can't hear other things."

"No. No. We can hear it ringing clearly."

"I'll take your word for it, then. Ah. Where was the Parallax part of you hanging out before coming here?"

"We don't… Remember. We remember… Everything… Fading. But it did not concern us. Concern-. Why do you call it Parallax?"

"It once demonstrated the ability to use multiple power rings simultaneously."

"That's 'parallel'."

"I'm sorry?"

"Using multiple power rings. That's 'in parallel', like bulbs in a high school science class circuit. Parallax means 'the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object'."

"Oh. Then perhaps I misunderstood the explanation. Do you have another name you'd prefer?"

"We..." He looks puzzled. "No. Though… Joseph Harrolds' memories and feelings are more vibrant than what our other half thought and felt. We are happy to be addressed by his name."

"Alright, Mister Harrolds: what's next for you?"

"I want to hear more of the song. I want it to play everywhere in a glorious symphony of terror!"

Ah.

"Are you sure?"

"More sure than we have been of anything that we can remember."

"But have you considered the value of subtlety and differentiation?"

His eyes dim slightly as he turns his attention on me. That's a little creepy.

"Explain."

"The Ophidian wants to possess everything all of the time. But that means that one thing is as good as any other, there's no difference between one desire and another. Whose fear would mean the most to you?"

"No... Hm." Mr. Harrolds frowns thoughtfully. "We admit that some of those against whom Joe had a personal grudge… The idea of them with their faces twisted in a rictus of terror before we kill them… That does have a greater appeal."

"That's what happens when you bond with a mortal creature. It affects your perspective, the way you understand the universe. To a being of pure fear, all fear is fear and there's nothing else to say. To you…"

"We feel different. We aren't sure that you don't have an angle-."

"Of course I have an angle. That doesn't mean that I'm not telling the truth."

"What is your angle?"

"I want a yellow power ring, a lead on Sinestro and to speak with the Weaponer who put you in there. I'd also like to stop you going on a rampage and terrorising everyone to death."

"Your perspective is helpful, but we find ourselves curious as to what you fear."

"Personal annihilation."

"Hm." He peers closer. "True. But there's something else."

"Heights?"

"No." He smiles, his mouth extending up his face in an open display of inhumanity. "You fear… Getting it wrong. You change things, risk things, and the idea that you might be wrong and that you've misled everyone makes everything resonate with a constant unease."

It's… Not as intense, but I suppose that he's right. Comic-Parallax… After the 'no-Jordan-wasn't-just-crazy' retcon, exposed people to their fears in order to possess them. This Parallax doesn't need a new host, so it's probably just being a dick.

"Okay, well, thank you for pointing that out. I also get a bit self-conscious in social situations, and you might be able to pick that out-."

"You embrace chaos but you still fear to misstep."

"Follow a rule someone else came up with and everyone expects you to follow and it's as much everyone else's fault as yours. If you do your own thing, that's all on you."

"How compassionate of you." He takes a step back, and then rises into the air. His outline shimmers for a moment as armour appears around his body-. Armour that looks a lot like mine, secondary colour and sigil notwithstanding. "We genuinely have no idea where the Weaponer is, we have no idea how to forge a ring and we have a home to return to. We wish you the best of luck."

He turns to face this universe's anti-Earth and then accelerates into the sky.

…

Guess this is a bust, then.

 

[Mr Zoat]

21st January 2013
17:49 GMT

"How did this happen?"

I look down at the smouldering world beneath me. Sereaven is… Cooked. Barring Controller involvement, the world is now uninhabitable.

"A reserve fleet, Illustres." The senior surviving L.E.G.I.O.N. officer pulls his forelegs into his body in a show of shame and guilt. "With a hunting pack of Scarab Warriors. We were outgunned, and the Lanterns were overwhelmed. I only survived because I was on patrol on the opposite side of the system."

"But how did they get close enough-?"

"A boom tube."

Oh dear.

"Their own, or did Grayven open it for them?"

"I did not see. We were at the wrong angle, and our sensors-."

"It's fine."

Or, rather, it's not. Looks like the Reach have decided that now is the time to take this seriously. And with Grayven not running interference and forcing them to keep a lot of their navy to their inner systems…

"Link up with the closest L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet and request new orders. There's no reason to stay here when there's nothing to hold. Or rescue."

"Yes, Illustres."

I find myself… Looking at exactly where the egg bunker for the north western continent was. The place I-.

My ring blinks, though there is no attempt at conversation as a set of coordinates appear in my consciousness. A heartbeat and I'm there, already too late as Reach dreadnoughts obliterate the L.E.G.I.O.N. capital ships with-.

A purple beam lashes out from a Reach battleship, striking a Lantern who had been dogfighting with three Scarab Warriors and… Completely annihilating them. They're a small and agile target, how did it-?

That Scarab, they're carrying a target designator. They aim it and fire and the battleship weapon fires where it's told to. The weapon is new, and appears to work like a phaser array: able to fire in any direction without build-up.

Good design.

Thaumically dead system, so there's no point in letting Colin out.

Construct railguns and cold guns appear around me, crumbler rounds blasting out and cold beams strobing across the intervening space. The closest battleship shudders as my attack hits home-.

BOOM!

A boom tube opens directly behind it, my shots being intercepted and…

Wait.

That's… Not how boom tubes w-.

"Illustres!" A Lantern I don't immediately recognise flies up to me. "We're getting slaughtered and they've broken through! What do we do?!"

"Watch my back as I remove these ships."

And don't think I didn't notice that. My last clear memory was Parallax 'returning to his home planet' after identifying that I was afraid of failing to live up to my obligations. A being of Parallax's power should be more than capable of influencing my mind, and-. I didn't step out. I just appeared at my new location, because Parallax can't cope with the Honden of Avarice.

Looks like realising that doesn't get me out. I'm a little worried about what I'm actually doing while this is going on, but… My guess is that I'm still back on that planet and this is a pure illusion. Parallax likes fear, not other forms of emotional damage.

So I'll go along with it, because completely accurate images of my friends, allies and dependents dying en masse aren't things I particularly want to see because Parallax was completely right about that. I fly towards the Reach fleet, construct shield ahead of me and guns still firing. I doubt that anything here can actually kill me, but I imagine that a low level fear of being powerless to affect the universe would allow them to score crippling hits. I need to watch out for-.

I spot a tiny shift in stellar debris clouds and I roll and fire. A purple energy beam punches through where I was a moment ago just as the stealthy Scarab Warrior freezes and then shatters.

Okay, so why was I allowed to-?

I turn my head aside as the remains of the Lantern who requested my direction drifts away, the beam having punched through their defences and vaporised most of their lower body along with their ring hand, leaving their fear-chilled face staring at me.

Playing off my sense of responsibility, or trying to personalise the tragedy unfolding in front of me? Irrelevant. Other than giving Parallax the idea that I'm a psychopath, I can't have an emotional response to something I know perfectly well isn't happening.

Realising hasn't freed me. What might? Overcoming my own fear, maybe. But I think it would require enlightenment-type overcoming. And honestly I don't think stopping being at least a bit afraid of making a mess of things would be a good idea. Quite aside from the fact that I'd end up with a tendency to look down on the burning remains of a world I failed to save and shrug 'Oh well, plenty of other worlds', I know that other people started seeing me as a little inhuman after I attained avarice enlightenment. Manage a second form and I'll probably be unrecognisable.

Of course, if Parallax can't make me think that I've stepped out, that should work.

I finally get an angle to another battleship and open fire, breaking its shield and shutting down its main drive system. No boom tube defence, so perhaps Parallax is trying to keep it plausible. I look to the fore, to see where the Reach Fleet is actually going-. Tillettit, because Parallax is trying to show me the death of worlds in which I have an emotional investment.

Enough of this.

We step out, the comforting structures of the Honden of Avarice surrounding us at once. A little disconcerting as these desires belong to a people long since dead, but their place here is as if they were still alive. We take a moment to try to feel the desires of the Weaponer, but… There is nothing immediately obvious as belonging to her. With a better lead it should be possible to find a thread to follow, but in the presence of so much yellow light…

Mildly frustrating, but-. Jade! We

step back in, the yellow-washed mountainside of the village appearing in my visual field for a moment before the image of a burning world reasserts itself.

"Clarissi to Illustres. Where were you?!"

I wave the image away.

"I know this isn't real. You're not going to make me afraid like this."

We step out again, but just for a moment before

reappearing on the mountainside.

"You see? We can't play with each other. You can't make me afraid with illusions."

Harrolds is glowering at me, a construct… A giant construct pseudo insectoid standing behind him. Parallax's default form.

"No. We don't suppose that we can."

He glows brilliantly for a moment-

Anti-matter transition-

-and then vanishes.

-detected.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Ring, time.

20th January 2013
18:19 GMT

Ugh.

General broadcast.

"Jade?!"

Scan everything.

Compliance.

The air around me turns orange as scanners and sensors of every type in my database appears, the air seeming to hum with a dozen types of energetic emissions.

And message Dox.

Compliance.

Okay, I didn't move while I was here. Jade has moved, and I've got no idea-.

My ring shimmers. Darn-.

"Answer."

A face-. That's not Dox. That's Weaponer Lysis.

"I see that my test subject has left. Are you still in possession of your mental faculties?"

"Yes. What are you doing here?"

"Did you know that your species has a remarkable facility for surviving emotional stress?"

"I haven't seen research that demonstrates that. And having access to a wealth of human psychiatric literature, I-."

"You deform but you don't crack. If my former master had tried something like this on Earth it would never have worked."

I don't remember anything about her working with Sinestro in the comics, but I don't think they continued the characters from the Earth 2 series into the War of Light era.

"Shouldn't you be on Qward? As a Council-Member-."

"I was a Council-Member, but that's become an empty position now. Q'ardajin civilisation has collapsed. If I want to restore Qward then I need something new and powerful."

"Where's Jade?"

"In a spatial vacuole. I imagine that her armour has life-preservation systems, so the lack of fresh air won't be a problem so long as she isn't troubled by not being able to move. But as I said, your species are psychologically resilient."

I can sense spatial vacuoles, but she will probably notice and certainly will have a way to kill Jade if I don't play along.

"Are you simply tormenting me, or-?"

"Of course I'm not! You are the one who unleashed the Parallax Entity on the universe!"

"You had him in a box. I had no idea Parallax had a-."

"It didn't, fool! I was endeavouring to lure it here in a controlled environment so that I could use it to create new power rings!"

Her head jerks as she starts to rant. I think she's pacing.

"And it didn't work! A world with fear in the air and a strong-willing human to break, and nothing happened! And then you were here for less than a day-tenth and this happened." She steadies herself and stares at me. "What did you say to him?"

"Nothing much. Just a little about how fear works. As far as I can tell, once he had the space to organise his thoughts, he attained enlightenment. And then Parallax entered him. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was on or watching this planet already. I think Mister Harrolds just needed a little time alone in his own head to achieve that result."

"And now I have to wait until Parallax burns out its host and then hunt it down again."

"Ah, what? Why wouldn't it just stay in its current host?"

"Mortal flesh is a poor container for an Entity. Without a ring to focus its power, the flesh will fall apart in a few tenths."

"For a possession?"

"Yes." … "What?"

"I merged with the Avarice Entity a while ago, and I showed no sign of physical decay at the end of it. Merged. I wasn't possessed."

"He still has his original motivations?"

"Partially. He locked my mind in an illusion to try and make me feel fear. I broke out. I suspect that he's going to the matter universe to make it happen for real."

"That-. Why does he care about you?"

"I don't know. A point of comparison, perhaps? Merging with Entities isn't something that happens very often. But that isn't important."

"Oh?"

"You want Parallax contained somewhere where you can use it to make more rings. I want Parallax out of the way and not trying to do things that will terrify me, on the grounds that it's going to set back my work immensely. I have no particular objection to you making rings, on the grounds that Qwardian society is too messed up to use them in a concerted fashion."

She stares at me for a moment.

"What do you suggest?"

"Do you have a way to contain Parallax?"

"I… Might. But if what you say about its relationship with the host is true, it would be easier for me to disrupt that bond."

"Good. And since our objectives don't contradict each other, what do you say to working together? If you object to the fact that I'm an alien, you can just coordinate with Kalmin. The Maltusians have contained Entities before. This is doable."

"I will keep your aide as collateral."

"Don't be ridiculous. I've already sent a report home. Physicist-Lanterns will be sent to pick her up, and you'll need your full concentration on handling Parallax and making sure that we're not betraying you. And of course if I don't know that she's safe then I'll be focusing on other things as well."

"True. And you want nothing else?"

"I need to borrow a yellow ring, afterwards. Kalmin refuses to make one until I give him Sinestro's head, and…" I look around. "Between the two of them, I'm not sure that Sinestro's worse, morally speaking."

"Borrow?"

"I'd prefer to own it, but I only really need it for a little while."

"I will agree, in exchange for ring telemetry. I want test data."

"And I'm happy to supply it. Isn't it amazing what can happen when you negotiate rather than limiting yourself to threats?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
18:26 GMT

"It's not damaged." The Weaponer performs checks on her equipment, but it's just as untouched as I left it. I guess that Parallax was having too much fun playing with my brain. "Good."

Jade shudders again, and I tighten my arms around her. Normally she'd hate looking weak, but I feel her need and see her reassurance. I haven't asked what it showed her yet, but I will, later.

"That's a ring forge. Have you forged rings before?"

"Yes. Eight Earth years ago. It was probably the pinnacle of my career."

Eight years… Not Sinestro, then. His fall from grace-. His getting booted out of the Corps, happened twelve years ago. Jordan had had his ring for a little over a year. Eight years… That was when Jordan fought St'nlli, so it's-.

"You made the Anti-. The antithesis rings."

"I was one of the Weaponers who worked on that project. Does Kalmin talk about it?"

"No. Wait, that was after Sinestro got his ring. I thought that Kalmin was deposed shortly after that."

"He was. The Antithesis Ring project was started before he met Sinestro. Varnathon let us continue it, probably so that he could arrange for us to die when the Green Lantern Corps made their counterattack."

"You appear to be alive."

"I ran a little faster. When you're surrounded by people who think with their thunderbolts, it pays to plan ahead."

"So the plan was… Have Parallax possess him, use that power to help you forge a ring.. by using them to bypass the focus requirement."

"Forge rings and personal lanterns. Parallax was irrelevant. And I would have given one to Harrolds, as per our agreement. And if his mind survived intact, he could have gone home to use it."

"Where did Parallax come in?"

"Why are you calling it that? 'Parallax' doesn't-."

"Yes, I-. Yes, I know. What do your people call the Fear Entity?"

"Qpwkohinaugvreau. The insect that drinks minds through a fear-proboscis."

"'Parallax' might be nonsense, but at least it's pronounceable. But where did it come in?"

"It wasn't supposed to. The tank I had Harrolds in was designed to prevent it seeing him as I increased the amount of yellow light passing through him. When you broke containment, it would have been like a beacon going off."

"Beacon… Okay, but where was it?"

"I don't know. Kalmin kept most of his research into the yellow light to himself." The rim of the hole I made in the tank glows for a moment, then starts to close. "I'm surprised that you don't know."

"I thought that the Guardians had it. But if they kept it locked up for millennia, I doubt that one person achieving enlightenment would break it out."

"No. But it might wake it up."

"Be-cause… The easiest way to keep someone imprisoned is if they don't try to escape. That also matches how confused he sounded about it."

The Guardians are just about the only people who could trap Parallax. Or another maltusian faction. Or-. No. They're not the only ones who could. They're just the only ones who would without immediately trying to weaponize it.

The tank finishes resealing itself and Weaponer Lysis turns back to me.

"Once he is inside, 'Parallax' will not be able to merge with him."

"Are you sure? A central power battery might be a better vessel."

"Perhaps. And if I had one, I would test it as a solution. Has it been used in that way before?"

"Ah… No. Ion and Ophidian are both in theirs willingly. Ophidian was trapped in a sort of proto-central power battery, but that had an insane Orange Lantern to be next to it at all times. I don't know if that was required, and I don't know about the others."

"Do you know anything useful?"

"Based on the visions it made me have, I can predict that it will travel into Reach territory, attempt to ally with them and then attack Sereaven. It wants me to be afraid. Now, what was that about a way to disrupt its connection with Harrolds? Because I've already got the device Controller Hinon made for me to render Larfleeze unable to focus."

"Was he merged with an Entity at the time?"

"No."

"Then you're welcome to try it, but I doubt that it will do anything. We can depart. I'll need to work with Kalmin or your Controllers to complete my work."

"So you don't have a disruptor, or-?"

She reaches into one of her pouches and pulls out… A green power ring, with the-

"I am entity Volthoom. Baseline universal substrate anomaly detected. Predicting-."

-strange double-loop Power Ring symbol on the bezel.

"Silence!" The ring doesn't stop muttering to itself, but the volume drops to barely audible. "It's unusually talkative. If you put it on, it talks constantly in your head. Harrolds was using it, but he found it extremely aggravating. Having tried putting up with it myself, I am sympathetic to his decision. Putting it on him should disrupt his connection to Parallax as the green light invades his psyche."

I nod. "Where's his personal lantern?"

"According to him, he doesn't have one. Whatever 'Volthoom' is, it provides power on its own. I would have preferred to make something similar, but Parallax is far too strong and I don't know of any other lifeforms that would work."

"Alright. I'll-."

Jade's right hand shoots out as she steps away from me, fingers pointing to-.

"Darling, I'm not sure that's-."

She pulls away from me, hand still reaching. "I'll risk it."

Weaponer Lysis holds it in Jade's direction, an expression of mild curiosity on her face as the ring flies in Jade's direction and lands on her right middle finger.

"I am entity Volthoom. New wearer detected. Manual activated. Control processes available. Playing manual."

Jade winces as her armour reformats into Power Ring's colours or green and white with the Power Ring logo on the chest.

"I'll take this as a try-out. What's our next-." She winces, the barely audible droning of the ring continuing. "Next step?"

"We travel to the anti-matter universe and I discuss things with my former teacher." She looks at me. "Bring everything, damage nothing."

I nod, orange light flowing out and enveloping her entire workshop.

"Transition in three, two, one."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 573 938.M41

Bo'okh looks over my clothing as we approach the doorway leading to the meeting room where the T'au Aun'chiagor is held. The building itself actually makes me feel right at home; it's clearly an older structure that's been modernised on several occasions.

"That is not something you would usually wear."

Tau of all five castes pass along the corridors or lurk in corners, conversing amongst themselves. Tau have a lot more lateral communication than, say, the minbari, but a lot of jobs are one-caste affairs. Seeing them mix like this in a work setting is a little unusual.

"It's from designs proposed but never realised for gue'vesa clothing during the Second Expansion Sphere. I think there are… Two planets that actually got issued with it, then the T'au Aun'chiagor found out how many humans actually live on Hive Worlds and gave up. This is the 'saal version, as I've never technically been promoted."

"Haven't you?" He looks as puzzled as he sounds. "I am.. sure… Oh."

"Yes. Promotions must come from a caste superior -and I hardy ever work with other humans- or by the collective-."

"The collective will of the Lar'shi Aun'chiagor and no one raised the issue, because it is unusual to use rank designations with auxiliary species outside of the military. I apologise. I will see that corrected."

"Thank you."

"Por'Ul Lar'shi Tsua'm Raard was able to properly brief you?"

"Hope so. She was able to explain the process, at least. Answer questions fully to the best of my ability, ask for clarification if I don't understand something, and don't throw shit at them."

He winces. "And don't joke about it when you are about to go in and the person you are speaking to may find themselves picturing it at an inappropriate juncture."

"I'll try. I was wondering, why is it called the T'au Aun'chiagor, rather than jus the T'au'chiagor?"

"During the mont'au period, the syllable before 'chiagor was to indicate who had called a meeting. If the Earth Tribe of Fio'taun invited the Fire Tribe to a meeting, it would be called the Fio'taun Fio'chiagor. In this age, all meetings are 'called' by the Aun, so they are all called by that name."

"Huh. Makes sense."

And there's the door, and a couple of Fire Caste Ethereal Guards in what I hope are traditional uniforms. I mean, the security of the Houses of Parliament are handled by a man called Black Rod, so I'm not going to knock them for wearing something that answers any questions I had on whether tau females have mammaries.

One takes half a step closer, a data pad in one hand. They're a last line of security in case someone charges this chamber, but we were checking in at the entrance and have been monitored constantly since then. They know that we're supposed to be here, so this is more of a double check.

"Aun'ul Lar'shi Bo'ohk Ben'ii. Gue'vesa Earth P'ol Lantern. You are expected, and the previous meeting has already concluded."

"Thank you, Shas'Vre. We are ready to enter."

She presses a button on the pad, and after a moment a purple light appears. She steps back, and the door opens to allow us inside. We walk forward, and… Huh. It's actually more or less the same set-up as the Lar'shi Aun'chiagor. A horseshoe table with a senior member of the Fire, Earth, Water and Air Castes seated around it. Huddled around them are their aides, while…

I make momentary eye contact with Aun'Va. He doesn't look particularly expressive, though I imagine that a senior Ethereal can go from completely stony-faced to impassioned at the drop of a hat as the need arises. He's sitting in his flying chair a little back from and above the table, the staff Paradox of Duality serving as his gavel. On Lar'shi, Aun'O Ven'gral prefers to walk around the table just in case she needs to calm someone down. It seems that Aun'Va prefers a more authoritarian approach, and there's a reason why Aun'O Ven'gral doesn't do that.

He taps the butt of his staff on the floor twice as we stop at the designated interviewee desks, decorated only by a small personal computer in case we need to bring up something to reference.

"Aun'Ul Bo'ohk and Gue'vesa P'ol, you have been called here to answer questions regarding your irregular operational methodology."

Tau don't like 'irregular'. The word technically means the same as it does in English, but the implication is more 'chaotic mess likely to cause harm' rather than 'innovative solution'. And here's the reason why Aun'O Ven'gral doesn't take the lead during meetings: other tau hesitate to contradict an Aun. And they know that, so they generally have their arguments in private and speak in the passive voice in public. If Aun'Va says something is 'irregular', then he's not keen. If Aun'Va is not keen, everyone else is not keen.

Bo'ohk makes an expression of contrite acknowledgement.

"As the Most High directs."

Ah…

As the senior party, Bo'ohk makes the acknowledgement for both of us, but the guard at the door didn't use a rank reference for me. So I'm not sure if I'm supposed to acknowledge it as well because they're treating us as having the same rank, or-.

"Your report on the mon'he 'Faultless One' is greatly concerning. Every incident on record of the Tau Empire dealing with such creatures has shown that they only speak to more effectively manifest their particular madness in the universe. What decision making process did you use to determine it was correct to enable it?"

Bo'ohk can answer, or he can pass it to me. Passing it on me wouldn't be like him dropping me in it, as advising him in this sort of situation is my job.

"The Faultless One expressed a desire to do something that was in the interests of the Greater Good. As such, I enabled it, though it was monitored by forces allied to the Tau Empire at all times. In addition, both gue'vesa P'ol and a stealth suit team were on standby to intervene if he was being dishonest. We have accumulated a good deal of information on mon'he from our own observations and the records of the Imperium, but as P'ol indicated, that only applies to certain types of mon'he. Faced with one with an unfamiliar configuration, I decided that it was best to attempt peaceful cooperation."

Then he taps my arm, just under the desk. I smile faintly.

"Most High, the forms of daemons express their nature in a predictable and reliable fashion. Once I saw that the Faultless One did not match the appearance of a daemon of the four, the only alternative was him being a daemon of chaos undivided. The Inquisition's records indicated no prior involvement in a proscribed cult or other unorthodox behaviour. That left a very limited range of possibilities for what he could be. The lack of a response to his presence from local sanctioned psykers was also an indicative factor. And… He's not any less obsessive or manic than other types of daemon, it's just that his interests are much more pro-social."

"Your report states that his core personality engram-"

Soul, for non-tau. Except when it's not and actually refers to a mind recording.

"-is derived from a human who prayed to the human Emperor. Who was faithful to the Imperial religion."

The pedant in me twitches, but by face remains calm. Aun'Va probably doesn't need to know the history of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor or the Confederacy of Light. Out of curiosity I make eye contact with the Por'O-. No, the woman behind the Por'O who is quietly passing caste-relevant on information to him.

"A religion that is uniformly hostile to other intelligent species."

"A religion that tortured him and lied to him for his entire life and then horribly murdered him. In my era there was an expression 'the zeal of the convert'. It refers to a person who doesn't merely accept the ideology they grew up with but rather adopts a new ideology with unusual intensity because they're having to recreate their entire identity. I don't think that he's abandoned the idea of the Emperor -though it will be interesting to see what happens if he encounters somewhere marked by the Emperor's power- but he has certainly abandoned the structure of the religion. He's reduced the idea to purely material terms: the Tau Empire provides a better life for its human citizens, and therefore it is a better institution."

Which isn't far off why I'm here.

I dimly remember something in the Horus Heresy series about extermination not becoming the Imperial policy until after the Heresy. But I don't have any actual evidence I could present.

Aun'Va doesn't look happy, but he taps his staff and the Por'O straightens up slightly.

"Aun'ul Bo'ohk, please describe in your own terms the social rituals which you and gue'vesa P'ol have engaged in."

Oh. No.

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
19:02 GMT

There's a thump-clatter as Hinon drops a large personal lantern shaped object on the floor next to me.

"Just… Why?"

"I had no idea that would attract Parallax. I'd have thought that giving Dame Carol the Star Sapphire was more likely to summon Predator, and that didn't happen."

"The Predator is firmly under Zamaron control."

"And I thought the Guardians had Parallax. Wasn't that part of why they let Larfleeze keep the Orange Light Fountain?"

"I thought that as well. And then I thought, 'if any man in the universe could break their prison by accident, who would it be?'."

"Sinestro? He's been using a yellow ring for a while, and he would have been told about the Entities when he was First Lantern."

She adopts a thoughtful expression.

"You think he's been planning this since he would have had access to Parallax's containment vessel? While he was still a serving Green Lantern?"

"I'm suggesting it as a possibility. I've got no real idea what draws Entities still in the wild to a particular location. It's a big universe."

"No, seven galaxies is not a big universe."

"An evasion? My Lady Controller, I thought better of you."

"They're usually perfectly content to exist within their… Honden, you call it? Because that's the view of the universe that they understand. Parallax moving to a place would flare that portion of the Honden, but the observable effect wouldn't be larger than those fears flaring for the people in the affected region."

"Or of the affected type."

"Yes, quite. Parallax was first brought into the material universe by Krona's experiment. Though, I… I would have done the same. At the time, such things were quite a curiosity."

"Did he bring it out just to study it?"

"Partially that. It was also… The few other intelligences that existed at the time were socially and technologically primitive. They were one of the few sophont beings around that had a power of any real significance. It was the first time we could talk to something that was… Not like us, but…"

"In your league."

"As it turned out, no, but yes. And as we learned more of their nature we were naturally disappointed. The Zamarons-. Proto-Zamarons, in particular. For them, love was community. Family. They didn't expect the Predator to be quite so possessive as it is."

"And since then?"

"The Ophidian was on Okaara. The Guardians kept Ion, and eventually moved it to the Green Central Power Battery once their Corps was established. The Proselyte travelled to a world that resonated with its colour and returned to its Honden. Parallax was kept contained by the Guardians due to its intensely malicious nature."

"The Butcher? Adara?"

"We rather lost track of them while containing Krona. We assumed that they copied the Proselyte, and given that we haven't seen them since that appears to be a reasonable conclusion."

"Nekron?"

"Oh, we know exactly where he is."

"Any advice on fighting Parallax?"

"Yes. It relishes fear, but it's not much given to physical aggression. It will fight and wound to make people afraid, but it won't want to have to work for a victory against someone who doesn't fear it."

"That's awkward, because I am afraid. There's a hugely powerful creature out there that wants to undo all my work, to ruin the lives of people I've helped just to make me afraid that it will keep going."

"Feeling fear will give it power. I suggest that you stop."

"That's the stupid thing. If Parallax just learned to take joy in little fears, there wouldn't be a problem. But if it rampages around slaughtering people so it can feel their fear as they die, it'll eventually run out."

"Logical, but wrong. You're underestimating the area involved. Even with a mere seven galaxies to work with, even destroying an inhabited world's worth of people each day, there would still be more than enough time for the population to replenish itself."

"I.. suppose that-."

Green flames flare into being besides me, spreading out to reveal a heavy wooden door construct. A moment later it opens and Lord Malvolio strides through, Lantern Priest a little behind him.

"Oh. Aren't you impressive."

Lord Malvolio looks at me for a moment, then turns towards Hinon, arms crossed. "What manner of mischief has this ungovernable Lantern wrought?"

"Thank you for answering, my lord. Events have conspired to bond the Fear Entity to a mortal man and he's planning on creating fear in me by threatening the worlds N.E.M.O. protects. I wouldn't ask you to fight the Reach with us; you have your own worlds to shepherd. But the Fear Entity is everyone's problem."

"Mine own fears are brought low and bound long since, unable to rise above their timorous and trembling station. Fear has its place, but not in the manner of a great and galloping beast, bringing rack and ruin as it runs. In this task, my blade is yours, 'til the brute is bested, beaten and banished."

"Thank you. Hinon, would it be possible to build a Yellow Light Fountain to-."

"No. That would take years of study at the very least, and it would need to be activated well away from Parallax. And I couldn't do it in any case. All this will do-" She indicates her lantern-prison. "-is contain Parallax if it is forced to leave its current host. And don't assume that it can keep it inside indefinitely."

Okay. I glance in the direction of Kalmin's laboratory. No large explosions, so I assume that he and Weaponer Lysis are getting on with things.

"In that case, Lord Malvolio, since we've got a little while before we need to depart, would you mind speaking with Jade about using green rings?"

"Doth your consort look with a covetous heart 'pon the rings of Oa?"

"No, she grasps with a determined hand 'pon the ring of Volthoom."

"And what manner of being is Volthoom?"

"A talkative one, who can power a ring without a personal lantern."

Lantern Priest shakes his head. "Personal lanterns are an unnecessary crutch, as both Lord Malvolio and I demonstrate."

"Alright, well, the training grounds are this way."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
19:06 GMT

Malvolio looks around Maltus with an air of puzzled curiosity. His response to the various warring stellar nations in his sector has been to send them to their corners, allowing only limited contact until tempers have cooled down a little. Here, we've got a community of over a hundred species all unified in their utter hatred of someone else.

Except for the dozen or so that we have to keep away from one another for various reasons. And it's not always pre-existing conflicts; some species get freaked out by people who look like things that ate their ancestors.

"Illustres to Lantern Ragnar. How's she doing?"

"I suspect that she would pass muster as a Green Lantern."

"Ragnar."

"I understand what you meant about the green light being more difficult to use in a complex manner. Against our rawest recruits she can hold her own, but against those with a little more experience they can outmanoeuvre her with little difficulty. The incessant nattering of her ring doesn't help. It just serves to enrage her."

"We're getting rid of that ring soon enough."

"There seems little point in training her to use a weapon she isn't going to keep."

"She got exposed to illusions created by the Embodiment of Fear."

"Ah. She seeks to master a ring to master her fears." He nods. "I would like to accompany you when you go to confront it."

"Why?"

"I don't fear simple things like violence, pain or death. I am not even afraid of losing. But there are things I fear. Parallax would make me confront them and either overcome them or perish."

"From what I've seen, he'd just leave you in a state of fear indefinitely, unless killing you made someone else afraid."

"It is close enough."

"Alright then. You're welcome to come along, but I can't make any promises about Parallax's behaviour."

Our party descends into the Orange Lantern training area, various Lanterns making gestures of respect towards me and Hinon. The Green Lanterns get a few odd looks, but I guess they just assume that it's a diplomatic party of some sort. I recognise a number of Lanterns from N.E.M.O.'s newer member worlds, and one from Sereaven who is practicing basic shield constructs in a training area.

I link my ring to her with an orange arc.

"You. Come with us."

"Huh? Oh, yes, Ill-. Ah!"

The training plasma gun nails her with a low-energy bolt, causing a mild shock through her environmental shield.

"Illustres!"

Her personnel file flashes through my mind as we head towards the sparring area. Recent inductee, signed up because she genuinely believes that it's better to be with N.E.M.O. than wait for the Reach to exterminate them. Okay, and we gave her a ring because… Because Dox wanted a baseline for her species and it wasn't worth incorporating a single individual into L.E.G.I.O.N. or training someone as a Darkstar when they have no prior military experience. She's going to be working with their planetary defence force once she reaches the vaunted heights of 'basically competent'.

She falls in behind us, and Lantern Priest drifts over to her to make conversation.

"For what reason is the comic fool joining the mission?"

"Parallax will probably be targetting her homeworld. One of the policies of the Green Lantern Corps I firmly agree with is that a Lantern can't be ordered not to defend their homeworld."

"I trust that the Earth fares hearty and hale?"

Oh.

"No. Earth's been infected with something called 'Anti-Life' while an emissary of Darkseid tries to conquer it. I'm here because the Reach launched a major offensive and then this happened, but I'm going right back once we're done."

"Darkseid. A vile and vainglorious alien auto-idolater."

"A very powerful vile auto-idolater. I'm sorry, I should have sent you a message, but I thought that you were fully occupied and there's no solution you could enact more easily than people who were already there."

"Will the Earth fall?"

"Civilisation already fell. We had to divide the world into superhuman-ruled fiefs to shield the people from Darkseid's magic, and wherever Darkseid's avatar goes people are compelled to obey. The only mercy is that he has trouble projecting it."

"Dire tidings indeed."

He's probably the most powerful option for green, but I suspect that a balance of power in all seven would be more important that the raw power of each individually. He might be able to force the Anti-Life out on his own, but I remember what Priest was saying about one will overriding others, and while he'd be a better master than Mannheim I'd rather avoid that problem.

"I am entity Volthoom. Opponent is attempting to hit you."

"What..? Manner of strangeness..?"

Malvolio frowns as he strides forwards towards a viewing platform.

"I am entity Volthoom. Opponent has hit you."

"I know."

"It's either a bug in the auto-charge system, or the constant irritation is designed to train the user to ignore distractions."

In the arena below us two Orange Lanterns spar with Jade, one with construct armour and a construct hammer while the other has a construct railgun and is taking shots at her. Rubber-tipped rounds, but they'll still hurt if they hit.

Jade's got construct barriers, one moving to block shots and the other holding back in case of sudden surprises. The melee Lantern she's avoiding by using her exo-mantle's flight system, maser shots causing ripples across the construct armour covering his face.

Ring? Ah. Not powerful enough to penetrate. But Jade's doing well to stay out of his reach.

"An assassin, trained to evade and sneak. Those lessons will not serve her well with a emerald ring."

"Feel free to step in. We can-."

My ring blinks.

"Excuse me. Yes?"

Dox's face appears. "Parallax has appeared."

I nod. "Sereaven? Or-?"

"Yaolsan."

I frown, needing the ring to tell me where that world is.

"Ah…" Nothing really sticks out about it. "What's on Yaolsan?"

"A regional fleet base, and our new media relations headquarters. I can't tell for certain why he's prioritising it-."

"It doesn't matter. He's here, we have to defend. I'll get going right away."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 573 938.M41

"…the faster than light system, as well as basic defensive and offensive constructs. But…"

But Kais might be a natural monat, but that doesn't necessarily translate into the sort of mental attitude that using a power ring requires. But he doesn't have the avaricious attitude that an orange ring requires.

"But he struggles to go beyond the basics, especially under stress. Last time he attempted to tow a ship at faster than light speed, it… It didn't work. He flat out can't use the assimilation feature. At the moment we've eased off because it was getting self-defeating. And he.. has become an excellent stealth suit pilot."

The Shas'O looks imperiously unimpressed.

"That is not his role. If Shas'ul Kais is unable to learn the techniques required, why have you not requested a new student?"

"Because the-" I gesture to the horseshoe with my right hand. "-tau are very good at cultural indoctrination. Which is a good thing most of the time, but means that when you encounter a situation that requires a different mindset, it doesn't exist. Kais's focus on monat style fighting -even without a battlesuit- means that he has the independent mindset required. I have briefly experimented with other tau, and they can barely make the ring glimmer. If Kais doesn't work out then I'll have to try fire warriors suffering from battlesuit psychosis, and I don't think that will go well for anyone."

"Explain."

"The ring requires-. Power rings require a particular emotion in order to make them work. Orange rings require avarice, and… For self-evident reasons, selfish desires don't mesh well with the tau'va. I manage it by… Essentially, feeling very possessive of the individuals around me and the Empire in general. Tau are encouraged from birth not to do that. With Kais, Tsua'm, Bo'ohk and I are having to help him unlearn his entire indoctrination."

"Who designed this weapon?"

"I am sorry, Shas'O, but I have no idea. The design appears to match that of a device that appeared in the fiction of my era, but no species I have on record have built anything like it in reality. It isn't impossible that it was built by the pre-Age of Isolation human civilisation, and that there's a… Planet-sized machine somewhere doing the heavy lifting because someone wanted a real version of a tool they read about…"

The Fio'O twitches. "Human civilisation was that advanced?"

"I don't know. There aren't that many examples of technology from that era left around the place, and there aren't even good records of what the civilisation was like. From the examples there are… Maybe. I'm suggesting it as a possibility, not suggesting that it's likely. We were never as advanced as, say, the eldar. But… For example, we only needed to create the Astronomican after the Age of Isolation."

"Before that, there was another system?"

"That is the logical deduction, though I have no direct knowledge of it. Navigators and Gellar fields are older, which suggests that we used warp travel with some sort of beacon system, but that's supposition on my part."

Aun'Va taps his staff on the ground. "Shas'O, continue your questioning."

The Fio'O makes a gesture of apology to his colleague for the diversion, who makes the smallest gesture of acceptance he can manage.

"What other alternatives have you considered for finding alternate ring users?"

"A member of the Water Caste might have the necessary flexibility to more easily learn a new way of thinking, but they would lack the instincts to use it in combat. A member of the Air Caste might have an easier time towing a fleet, but… The Air Caste approach to combat is mathematical. Which is perfect for warships, but will not serve for a tool that requires an emotion. The other alternative would be a 'vesa of some sort, but I've got no idea where I'd find an outstanding candidate who could be trusted with it. As-."

I suppose he might not be able to understand. But he's sitting within staff range of Aun'Va, who I'm sure can explain it to him.

"As I'm sure that you can understand, selfless devotion to the Greater Good and a burning desire to acquire things for yourself are usually mutually contradictory drives."

A Shas'El comes forward at a gesture from the Shas'O, and a whispered conversation takes place. The Shas'El then makes a gesture of acknowledgement before turning and leaving the room by the rear exit.

"We have undertaken detailed psychological screening of senior members of the T'au Fire Caste population. This will be made available to you."

"I will of course examine whatever you make available to me and, if I find anyone appropriate, interview them. My concern is that a field 'O or 'El won't really be able to spare the time from their usual duties in order to learn to use a tool as specific as a power ring. And… That if they're a borderline case on their psychological assessments already then trying to use the ring is only going to make things worse."

He briefly displays a disgruntled expression. "With only a single ring known to exist, it is impractical to perform wide scale tests in the efficacy of your methods. And removing you from the field for long enough to perform standardised tests over a significant part of the population would represent an unacceptable loss of performance."

I've seen the casualty figures in operations involving me when compared to equivalents. My peak damage output is greater and more precise than that of a medium sized fleet, and I'm a heck of a lot more agile. And I do like this line of reasoning, because I really don't want to give up the ring. It makes my life so much easier. I mean, sure, Tsua'm can speak reasonable English and I know that she's working on a translation program, but those things are so awkward compared to just… Not needing it. On the other hand, being able to take time off by handing it over to someone else definitely has advantages.

"My last subject of enquiry, then. Aun'Ul Bo'ohk. You have been exposed to a great deal of combat during your time working with P'ol, including an unusual number of-." His nasal cleft wrinkles. "-'reality deviations'. Our experience with young Ethereals shows that this is difficult for them to come to terms with. Similarly, the Fire Warriors that serve as part of your team are in the top one percent for repeated exposure to exotic phenomena. Have you noticed any additional examples of war madness, or other psychological disturbances?"

Bo'ohk hesitates for a moment.

"… No. As you ask, I realise how surprising that is. I think… Perhaps, it is the wider view that our Fire Warriors receive, the ability to… Instantly know the outcome of their action. Often, casualties are greatest when we simply do not understand the thing that the Tau Empire is fighting. With P'ol's knowledge, that is seldom the case. We… Once spoke of the Greater Good as an inevitable enlightenment that all intelligent life would naturally strive towards. I think that it is commonly acknowledged now that we overestimated the appeal of reason."

I find myself nodding. To put it mildly.

"It can be emotionally difficult to remember the difference between eventual victory and imminent victory. It is not reasonable to expect Fire Warriors constantly exposed to confusing and disorientating combat situations to maintain their equanimity, whereas Fire Warriors attached to our unit have more focused tasks, and spend proportionally smaller amounts of time in the field and are better informed of the nature of the exotic threats they may face. In the Imperium, gue'la soldiers are not informed of the nature of reality deviant threats, and face mental alteration or execution should they learn too much. For tau, with our lower affinity for warp phenomena, we decided that ensuring that our stealth teams are as informed as possible was likely to result in a superior outcome."

"Are these procedures something that can be implemented over a wider scale?"

"Education can be expanded. There has been a desire amongst my Caste-" He doesn't look at Aun'Va. "-to reduce the universe to purely physical, material processes. Orderly processes. While this has worked to banish superstition, it has meant that when we encounter 'magic' and 'daemons' as they really exist, our instinct is to look for another explanation. It has been apparent for some time that the existence of the warp and its associated phenomena demonstrates that this approach is lacking, and our reaction to that… Inconvenient truth, has been slow. I think it is because it is an idea contrary to our epistemology, an almost 'heretical' idea."

"Our belief in the Greater Good is not the same as the gue'la's faith in their Emperor."

"No. The Greater Good is a philosophical ideal, not a man or psyker or god who physically exists in the universe or as energy in the warp. But it serves the same role in our lives, in that it gives us a purpose beyond them. I believe that it would be possible to expand our instructional practices to reflect our knowledge about warp creatures without creating a moral hazard."

The Shas'O makes a gesture of acknowledgement and dismissal, and it's the Fio'O's turn.