Marshal Koli turned off the projector. "As you can see, the Germans are in disarray, my Emperor."
The young man with piercing eyes turned to the Marshal. He had scandalised the Japanese imperial court through his adoption of Western dress. They would be scandalised still more were they listening in to his current conversation. "As are our old allies, the English," he noted.
"The Satanazi blue men took the Europeans by surprise," Koli conceded.
"And you're proposing we do the same to them," said the Emperor. He mused, "Nearly a century ago, when the British government requested assistance in destroying the German raiders of the Kaiserliche Marine in and around Chinese waters, we made the mistake of allying with them ... but the peace has held despite our diminished ambitions. What you say risks much."
Koli nodded. "Sun Koh is a hugely destabilising influence, and I consider it likely he will set his eyes to our island next."
In quiet tones, the Emperor murmured, "I never thought I would live to see the legend of the 'Kingdom of the Sea King' enacted in real life."
"Sun Koh is not the Sea King, however he may style himself. And his Gentlemen of the Air are no match for our own Big Hero Six."
"And if they prove you wrong? Very well then, Marshal. I will roll the dice and attempt your pre-emption upon the Germans. Proceed with your plan: activate Valisystem A."
Kommandant Englander scanned the land below her, but the changes that weather and war had wrought in the landscape prevented her from recapturing the joy of flight which might have dulled the ache in her gut. Even her uniform had changed: the blue and the red both in darker tones and no longer lined with gold.
She might have loved the shapechanger Morgan, though he was a Gypsy. She might have considered the mutant Katerina the daughter she'd never had, though she was a Jewess. Their loss from her team at the hands of Sun Koh had broken her heart. And the changes wrought in her country ... and the rest of Europe ... seemed as twisted to her as the stylised iron cross which had once adorned her heart now was twisted into a swastika.
The events which led to Sun Koh's reshaping of her team into the New Gentlemen of the Air, had also created an emotional distance between her and her old ally, the swashbuckling Blackbird, which ended the easy banter which had characterised their interactions for years. The affiliation of the criminal Sea Spider with the Gentlemen, under Sun Koh's directive, had not eased her sense of isolation.
Even the pale blue of the skies only brought to mind the blue-skinned Atlanteans from which Sun Koh had forged his conquering army.
For once, she wished for some simple battle to fight, a villain to defeat ... even her old foe Hannibal Blunt's brutality would be a welcome distraction at this point. As she mused, a darkness fell across her face.
She didn't notice at first, thinking it a shadow, but as she felt a chill she turned her face upwards to peer at the sun. "A total eclipse?" she thought, surprised as she hadn't heard anything in the news about such an upcoming celestial phenomenon. The chill deepened as solar radiation seemed to be blocked from the Isles, and the air rasped cold in her throat.
Blackbird was grateful that his midnight-blue skin and his glittering gold eyes hid the tension in his facial expression. The spoiled, rich playboy act he maintained in his alter ego of Curtis Cadbury had served him well in the present difficulties. When his girlfriend Amanda Sefton's family background as a Gypsy came to light, his wealth and political innocuousness allowed him to grease enough wheels to keep her from one of his leader Sun Koh's 'resettlement' camps. He could have appealed through his position as one of the New Gentlemen of the Air, but following the man's abrupt execution of two of his teammates, he considered that option as a last resort. He refocused his attention on the matter at hand, as the bronze man standing before him began to speak.
In an office in Downing Street, in the heart of central London, four figures sat in darkness. "It's a system of satellites." Sun Koh displayed the results of his inquiry on the imageprojecting Kataskop. "Solar deflectors and some other technologies I can only guess at."
"Whatever it is, it's effective," Kommandant Englander noted. "It's blocking not just light, but solar radiation. Half the world is not only in perpetual darkness, but in winter."
Blackbird tapped the metallic handle of his sword cane thoughtfully. "Is it even human? Are you able to track where it came from?"
"I've been trying to figure that out, myself," Sun Koh replied. He focused the Kataskop into a tighter view of one of the satellites. "It certainly looks like human manufacture, though everything has the serial numbers filed off ... unsurprisingly. On the other hand, the ion trail seems to indicate that they were placed into orbit from Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite. No country has a base on Ganymede that we know of."
"So ... it could be an undeclared human base, a faked ion trail, an alien race which uses the same design principles as we do, or an alien race which is trying to set one human nation against the other," Blackbird said.
"It means we have to go and take a look at it, doesn't it?" Matthew Peters, the Sea Spider, sighed. "I have been working with some of your Atlantean scientists on Sky Spider designs ... maybe with a little extra power we can relabel it the Space Spider."
"I will make it so," Sun Koh nodded. "Fortunately, we have been preparing for a second Ice Age, so we're better prepared than we might have been otherwise to withstand this phenomenon ... but worldwide global cooling is a different phenomenon than this utter absence of heat and light."
"So why not use a missile to take it down," Kommandant Englander enquired.
"I don't necessarily need it destroyed," Sun Koh replied. "It could be a valuable resource for us, and could also possibly be modified to alleviate some of the worst symptoms of global cooling. In addition, if this does bespeak an attempt at a Ganymede takeover, you're exactly the people best qualified to investigate and excise an alien invasion."
The eight-nacelled Space Spider broke through the atmosphere and headed towards the spaceborne artifacts, hundreds of thousands of kilometers above the surface of the Earth. As they finally approached with visual range, they could observe perspectives that even the Kataskop could not reveal. "I had no idea how large it is," Kommandant Englander said, as they approached the mountain-like complex. "The system is almost elegant, in a way," she said, "though ... it looks like something I've seen before somehow ..."
Matthew Peters shrugged. "It's just another weapon."
"I recognise the design," Blackbird said. "It's not random; it resembles a human neuron. Could it be sentient?"
Kommandant Englander chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "Could it be reasoned with? Maybe we'll find out, and avoid destroying it if we can."
"Maybe not." Peters rotated the Spider closer to the base of the object. "Look at that," he pointed. "Looks like a viewing port. Someone's operating this thing. Or visiting it, at any rate."
Kommandant Englander walked towards the airlock, removing the space suit which had been tailored for her. "It's time for the New Gentlemen of the Air to pay a visit, then."
Later, the trio entered the dark silence of space. They floated closer to what could have been a bridge platform. Blackbird latched on to the hull of the main stem, and shone a miniature flashlight on to the surface connections.
Peters followed up behind him and peered over his shoulder. "That sure as hell looks like human manufacture to me," he said through their comlink, "but who would have built such a thing?"
Kommandant Englander gestured as she saw shadowy figures circling around from behind the circumference of the artifact. "There's your clue, detective," she said to Blackbird.
They saw a woman clad in gold, a smaller male clad in a mobile flight suit, a silver figure whose space suit resembled a samurai's armor, and what appeared to be a mechanical dragon. "The Japanese," Blackbird whispered, "how could ...?" As they approached, he withdrew his sword cane from the panel built into his 'suit, and stuck a posture with his knees bent, wrist straight, left arm back, and point for the advancing samurai. The other advanced with his own sword drawn, and the two clashed, recoil sending them drifting in opposite directions. They flipped around using their self-propelling backpacks, and their swords struck each other again noiselessly, as the two began a deadly to-and-fro dance.
The dragon swept around, aimed at Kommandant Englander. She flew forward to meet it, and found herself encompassed by its tail, which held her in place as the artificial creature's maw attempted to decapitate her. She grunted in pain, one free arm blocking the teeth which closed around her head, the other fighting for leverage inside its grip.
Peters braced himself as the figure in the flight suit swept past him at incredible speed, far quicker than his own self-propulsion unit allowed. He aimed his venom gun at his opponent, attempting to fire at close range, but a glancing blow sent him whirling uncontrollably. He struggled to correct his movement just in time to see it circling back.
The golden woman floated passively, watching the others battle. For a while the three combatants seemed evenly matched, until the dragon's grip on Kommandant Englander started to loosen. Her face barely visible beneath her helmet, she mouthed the words which acted as her personal mantra.
"GO ... GO ... TOMAGO!" Her armor began to glow, and then her body expanded into a whirling ball of golden energy. For a moment it hovered in place near the surface of the satellite, then it projected itself forward, directly at the Space Spider. The vehicle exploded noiselessly, shockwaves buffeting the two teams.
The samurai took advantage of his foe's confusion, hooking his sword into Blackbird's and sending it whirling off into space, and then slamming his sword into the other man's backpack, preventing him from controlling his movement as the shockwave flung him out into the depths of space. The dragon likewise, sunk his claws into Kommandant Englander's face shield, and she heard the hiss of air slowly escaping into the cold as it crystallised around the helmet of her space suit.
Then the four fled, leaving Matthew Peters, hands open in a gesture of helplessness, floating alone in the dark.
Down below, Sun Koh observed the events in the Kataskop. He ground his teeth in frustration as he saw his champions defeated by their lessers. He thumbed the intercom on his desk. "Ocar, get me Commander Khor-Nah," he said. "We need to expedite launch of the space fleet. This is Priority Gold."
From behind him, a figure armored in black moved silently through the room, out of visual range. As if possessed by some sort of 'danger sense,' Sun Koh turned to see the intruder's approach. He reached into one of the buttoned-down pockets of his vest and drew forth what appeared to be a small hand-weapon to point at the intruder. "Explain to me why I shouldn't kill you now."
The other man raised his empty hands. "My name is Mekkis. I have been a member of Big Hero Six under the name Ebon Samurai. I have come here to help you save your people."
Sun Koh narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
"I am a humanist," the other man said. "I argued against my team when they supported the Emperor of Japan in his plan to commit continental genocide. I believed there were more ... pragmatic ... schemes for suppressing the threat your Atlanteans posed to our safety, than activating the Valisystem A satellites."
"The Emperor of Japan. I see. Explain the trail from Ganymede."
"It's not a trail from; it's a trail to. Our scientists found a way to propel a rocket to Ganymede in such a way that it would appear the satellites were of alien source. It was an attempt at obfuscation."
Sun Koh activated the intercom once more. "Ocar, Commander Khor-Nah should be on his way to my office; I have someone who can supply him with valuable information." A curious trilling, which seemed to be emitted from the back of the bronze man's throat, filled the room. "And send me Joan Hiashi."
He was roused from his private reverie by the aerial alarm. He leapt to his feet, activating the Kataskop once more, just in time to see the humanoid missile as it careened towards the Thames, sparking gold as it struck. He clambered up to the roof through the skylight he'd had installed, and stepped aboard his flying platform.
He arrived on-site in enough time to see security forces pulling three figures from the river, white suits charred. He took hold of the largest of them, turning it over in time to see her eyelids twitch open. "Kommandant Englander," he said with surprise as he kneeled down to her level, "I thought you were dead."
After a long silence: "Me too," she choked out. "I thought I was dead, too."
"Welcome back to the world of the living, Kommandant." Sun Koh sat on the side of Wanda von Brannburg's hospital bed.
Her eyes opened fully, and she turned her head to look out the window. Sunlight shown in. "We won?"
He nodded. "I saw the battle on the Katascop. How did you get home?"
"They underestimated my force field," she said. "I was able to block the oxygen leakage, and partially extend it to cover Blackbird and Peters, enough that they were able to survive re-entry. They ... did survive, yes?"
"Yes. Big Hero Six should not have underestimated you."
She sighed. "So it was the Japanese, after all."
"They're not a threat any more. We've seen to that."
She furrowed her brow. "Oh?"
He reached out and squeezed her hand tenderly. "Once I knew the disposition of our opponents, it was easy to find a representative of such in our office staff. I found their common genetic marker and released a designer virus into the atmosphere. Their empire and people are no more."
Kommandant Englander closed her eyes, tightly. "Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall lie heavy, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets." She opened her eyes and looked again out the window at the cold, brilliant sky.