Vantavendi (part 14)
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
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21st October 2012
15:04 GMT
The Pax Romana very visibly tracks the retreating starships with its primary weapons, though it makes no move to accelerate after them. The trio of ships in question don't look anything special; small freighters with a light armament, more focused on speed than armour. None of them have any alert flags, but at the same time Marcus isn't the sort to go around picking fights. Not picking up any weapon fire and none of the ships look damaged in any way…
Not sure what's happened there.
"Orange Lantern Illustres to Pax Romana."
"Alpha Centurion responding. Were they friends of yours?"
"I have no information on those ships. Where were they flagged as coming from?"
"Timaron. A dead world."
"I know it. Commodore Amalak is one of my.. contacts in Vega. Useful fellow. If they're looking for more of their species I could send them his coordinates and contact details."
"They're not. They're looking for revenge."
"Ah."
"Did they hear of Superman from your lips?"
"No. That would have been an obvious mistake… But I didn't ask Koriand'r to avoid mentioning him. Or Adam Blake. Did they ask after him specifically?"
"No. They visited the Rao system and noticed that one of the moons had moved."
"Oh."
"They will not be the last. Krypton was known for its technological sophistication and military might. People have tried raiding the system before."
"And, what? They think that now someone has succeeded that must mean that the defences are off?"
"I suspect that they reached the conclusion that surviving kryptonians must be the ones who recovered their planetoid."
"So their plan is to visit every space-faring civilisation in the region to see who's putting them up?"
"Or perhaps see where they have established a colony. I don't believe that they have visited Earth, but it is possibly to decipher radio waves from the edge of a system. Superman's face is widely known. In theory, they could have heard of him over a substantial area."
"Not easily. Assembling an actual picture or coherent speech from outside the Sol system would require huge amounts of processing power and detection equipment. That's not something that a random group of freebooters could put together. But I… Take your point."
I look around.
"Just the Pax out here, then?"
"You sent your ships to the Alignment."
"Yes, but the Russians have that launch cannon and Starfire's ship, and the US must be working on something by now. I know that someone got hold of Doctor Knight's cosmic converter technology from somewhere."
"Disappointing, is it not?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. I don't suppose that the virmiru are likely to pass comment?"
"I imagine that you could get a message to them more swiftly than I could. They are a people given to making long term plans. Their emissary to this region would have left long before I began my return journey, and I have had no contact with them since."
"I don't suppose anyone in the Alliance of the Just has a spaceship, do they?"
"Not as far as I know. Most are 'street level', as you might say. Those that aren't usually limit their interest to terrestrial events. Does the Justice League not have spacecraft?"
"Martian Manhunter has one, but it's effectively an upgunned civilian ship. The Hawks have another, but it's not designed for deep space operations. Batman has a glorified rocket plane. Then it's just the Lanterns."
"Then it's a mercy that we haven't been invaded before now."
"Thanagar and the Alignment were heading this way, if it makes you feel any better."
"Do you have the matter in hand?"
"That's a long way down the 'plan' list. To my mind, raising a interstellar navy on Earth would be a pretty clear sign that I'd decided to take over the world."
"But bringing an external navy across the Rubicon was not?"
"That was just something I had laying around. There's a difference between riding to an ally's aid and taking over the mechanisms of their state."
"True, I suppose. Might it be advantageous for me to coordinate my patrols with the Justice League? I have been working under the assumption that they would have acquired a long range detection system of some kind, but if that is not so then the sensor system of the Pax Romana could serve."
"The Hawks were kind enough to volunteer some Thanagarian monitoring devices."
Because the League are still pretending that the Watchtower doesn't exist, despite the fact that knowing there was a neutral station which could serve as space traffic control and somewhere to get a general alert from could serve as an excellent bypass to 'who owns space' arguments. The sort of thing that most spacefaring civilisations have above their homeworld, even the ones that never unified politically.
"As well as their interdiction equipment. The very bare bones are covered, but that's about all. I'll pass your comments along, and give Batman a bit of a nudge about it."
"Thank you. Are there other matters you wish to discuss?"
"Yesterday, a woman named Jill Carlyle attempted to kill the first Wildcat. That brought to light the fact that she was almost certainly responsible for a large number of deaths, and the League is investigating those. Three didn't appear to fit the pattern; they were Alliance members."
"And you want access to our records?"
"Records, personal recollections, anything that we could use to work out what is going on."
"I can arrange that. Who were they?"
"Vigilante, White Dragon and Black Orchid."
"Orchid?"
"Did you know her?"
"Yes, we worked together on several occasions. The other two I remember as short-sighted and violent, but she was intelligent and subtle. Has this Jill Carlyle killed a great many people?"
"Dozens of superheroes. We're not sure whether she's killed other people as well. We think she might be being controlled to an extent by evil spirits in her guns, but that's about as far as we've got."
"I see. Well then, let us return to the bosom of Tellus and I will gather the information that you seek."
15:04 GMT
The Pax Romana very visibly tracks the retreating starships with its primary weapons, though it makes no move to accelerate after them. The trio of ships in question don't look anything special; small freighters with a light armament, more focused on speed than armour. None of them have any alert flags, but at the same time Marcus isn't the sort to go around picking fights. Not picking up any weapon fire and none of the ships look damaged in any way…
Not sure what's happened there.
"Orange Lantern Illustres to Pax Romana."
"Alpha Centurion responding. Were they friends of yours?"
"I have no information on those ships. Where were they flagged as coming from?"
"Timaron. A dead world."
"I know it. Commodore Amalak is one of my.. contacts in Vega. Useful fellow. If they're looking for more of their species I could send them his coordinates and contact details."
"They're not. They're looking for revenge."
"Ah."
"Did they hear of Superman from your lips?"
"No. That would have been an obvious mistake… But I didn't ask Koriand'r to avoid mentioning him. Or Adam Blake. Did they ask after him specifically?"
"No. They visited the Rao system and noticed that one of the moons had moved."
"Oh."
"They will not be the last. Krypton was known for its technological sophistication and military might. People have tried raiding the system before."
"And, what? They think that now someone has succeeded that must mean that the defences are off?"
"I suspect that they reached the conclusion that surviving kryptonians must be the ones who recovered their planetoid."
"So their plan is to visit every space-faring civilisation in the region to see who's putting them up?"
"Or perhaps see where they have established a colony. I don't believe that they have visited Earth, but it is possibly to decipher radio waves from the edge of a system. Superman's face is widely known. In theory, they could have heard of him over a substantial area."
"Not easily. Assembling an actual picture or coherent speech from outside the Sol system would require huge amounts of processing power and detection equipment. That's not something that a random group of freebooters could put together. But I… Take your point."
I look around.
"Just the Pax out here, then?"
"You sent your ships to the Alignment."
"Yes, but the Russians have that launch cannon and Starfire's ship, and the US must be working on something by now. I know that someone got hold of Doctor Knight's cosmic converter technology from somewhere."
"Disappointing, is it not?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. I don't suppose that the virmiru are likely to pass comment?"
"I imagine that you could get a message to them more swiftly than I could. They are a people given to making long term plans. Their emissary to this region would have left long before I began my return journey, and I have had no contact with them since."
"I don't suppose anyone in the Alliance of the Just has a spaceship, do they?"
"Not as far as I know. Most are 'street level', as you might say. Those that aren't usually limit their interest to terrestrial events. Does the Justice League not have spacecraft?"
"Martian Manhunter has one, but it's effectively an upgunned civilian ship. The Hawks have another, but it's not designed for deep space operations. Batman has a glorified rocket plane. Then it's just the Lanterns."
"Then it's a mercy that we haven't been invaded before now."
"Thanagar and the Alignment were heading this way, if it makes you feel any better."
"Do you have the matter in hand?"
"That's a long way down the 'plan' list. To my mind, raising a interstellar navy on Earth would be a pretty clear sign that I'd decided to take over the world."
"But bringing an external navy across the Rubicon was not?"
"That was just something I had laying around. There's a difference between riding to an ally's aid and taking over the mechanisms of their state."
"True, I suppose. Might it be advantageous for me to coordinate my patrols with the Justice League? I have been working under the assumption that they would have acquired a long range detection system of some kind, but if that is not so then the sensor system of the Pax Romana could serve."
"The Hawks were kind enough to volunteer some Thanagarian monitoring devices."
Because the League are still pretending that the Watchtower doesn't exist, despite the fact that knowing there was a neutral station which could serve as space traffic control and somewhere to get a general alert from could serve as an excellent bypass to 'who owns space' arguments. The sort of thing that most spacefaring civilisations have above their homeworld, even the ones that never unified politically.
"As well as their interdiction equipment. The very bare bones are covered, but that's about all. I'll pass your comments along, and give Batman a bit of a nudge about it."
"Thank you. Are there other matters you wish to discuss?"
"Yesterday, a woman named Jill Carlyle attempted to kill the first Wildcat. That brought to light the fact that she was almost certainly responsible for a large number of deaths, and the League is investigating those. Three didn't appear to fit the pattern; they were Alliance members."
"And you want access to our records?"
"Records, personal recollections, anything that we could use to work out what is going on."
"I can arrange that. Who were they?"
"Vigilante, White Dragon and Black Orchid."
"Orchid?"
"Did you know her?"
"Yes, we worked together on several occasions. The other two I remember as short-sighted and violent, but she was intelligent and subtle. Has this Jill Carlyle killed a great many people?"
"Dozens of superheroes. We're not sure whether she's killed other people as well. We think she might be being controlled to an extent by evil spirits in her guns, but that's about as far as we've got."
"I see. Well then, let us return to the bosom of Tellus and I will gather the information that you seek."
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