Part 18
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
The boys are marching
Cheer up comrades,
They will come.
And beneath the starry flag
We shall breathe the air again
Of the free land in our own beloved home.
-- George F. Root, 186213
Vic and Toni had been dating since they had returned to Earth after working together on the minefield project. To the amazement of themselves and their friends, the relationship seemed to work. They complemented each other very well: Toni reminded Vic that life didn't have to be such a serious thing all the time, and Vic gave Toni some stability and an outlet for the serious aspects of her nature she usually kept hidden. Vic knew Dick's death had hit Toni hard, so after Barbara and Dinah left the Tower, Vic's first stop was Toni's apartment. When he told her that it was possible Dick was alive, but they needed to go rescue him, she jumped up and immediately began throwing clothes into a suitcase.
"Of course, I'll come, idiot! You go fetch the others. I'll meet you at the Tower in thirty minutes!"
Vic was a little concerned that Jesse Quick, the Titans' current speedster, would be resentful that Dick's plan had specifically called for the Flash instead of her. When he got back to the Tower and called her to tell her what was going on, though, she seemed sincere when she offered them her best wishes.
"Look, Vic," she said, "Wally's five times faster than I am, plus he's had a lot more experience at working in outer space. D...Dick's inclusion of him makes perfect sense." Her voice hitched up a bit, but she managed to continue, "Just promise me you'll do everything you can to bring him back!"
Wally, though technically a member of the Justice League and not the Titans, immediately agreed to come when Vic called him next. Tempest, otherwise known as Garth, Atlantis' Ambassador to the UN, told his staff that he had to leave on Titans' business and to refer any emergencies to his wife or Arthur.
Vic hadn't been sure how he was going to contact Raven, but as it turned out, he need not have worried. Raven, or rather her translucent, glowing "soul self," appeared at the Tower as the others began arriving. She wouldn't explain how she knew they needed her, but Vic wasn't really surprised to see her there. Raven had always been closer to Dick than she was to any of the others.
The last two Titans on Dick's list weren't on Earth: Troia and Arsenal. Troia was Captain Donna Troy, USMC, a fighter pilot aboard the carrier Iwo Jima; while Petty Officer Roy Harper was chief gunner aboard the carrier escort Benjamin Franklin. By the time Vic had contacted and made arrangements with the other Titans, Barbara had "obtained" the locations of the two ships.
The Titans' starship, Jericho, was modeled upon the Vegan starship they had brought home the first time they had fought on Tamarran14. The original ship had served them well whenever they had journeyed into space, but when war was declared, Dick and Victor decided they needed to upgrade. WayneTech had constructed the basic ship, and then Vic had added all the extras. The ship represented an amalgamation of the best of Earth, Atlantean, Kryptonian, New Genesis, and Vegan technologies. And it even worked!
"Well, at least they aren't in completely opposite directions," said Vic, ruefully, as he sat down to chart their course. They would go to Iwo Jima first, then Franklin, then Ch'ton. Donna had informed the Marine Corps of her identity when she joined up, and Roy's identity as a Titan had already been public for years. Vic hoped that he wouldn't have any problems pulling them away from their current assignments.
"Okay, Garth -- prepare for takeoff!"
"Ready, Vic," Tempest replied.
"Let's go!"
~~~~~~~~~~
Two days later, Vic was being challenged by a very skeptical captain aboard Iwo Jima.
"You mean you can just come aboard my ship and spirit away one of my officers without so much as a 'by your leave'?" huffed Captain Howard Latham. The captain, the executive officer, and Donna had shown up on the flight deck right as Vic and the others came aboard the carrier.
"Only those officers who are members of the Justice League or the Titans, sir," replied Vic calmly, trying to hold onto his temper. "Such as Capt. Troy."
"Sir, that was one of the conditions under which I joined the Marines," added Donna. She was still in her flight suit, having just come back from a patrol.
"Conditions?" asked the captain querulously.
"Yes, sir," replied Donna. "In a sense, I've been serving in the Marines on 'detached duty' from the Titans. Now I'm being recalled."
"XO?" Latham glanced over at the other officer.
"I just checked her personnel file, sir," replied Commander Marcia McGinley, who wore an Australian naval uniform. "That's the way I read it as well. There's a note that Capt. Troy's primary duty area is the Titans. We are also requested and required to assist them or the Justice League in any way possible, sir."
"I know that, Marcia!" snorted the captain. "All right. Troy -- get your gear together. You've been a good officer. I hate to lose you, but I suppose it can't be helped."
After Donna had left, Latham turned back to Vic. "Is there any chance I'll get her back when you all get done with whatever it is you're doing?"
"It's not completely up to me, sir," Vic replied. "But I don't see why not. I'm not sure how long it'll be, though."
"I would appreciate anything you could do in that regard, Mr. Stone."
Less than ten minutes later, Donna came back, a large duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She exchanged snappy salutes with the captain and the XO, and then she boarded the Jericho with the other Titans.
"So what's the deal, guys?" Donna asked, as the ship got under way.
"We're going to pick up Harper in a few hours. I'd rather wait until then so I don't have to say everything twice, okay?"
Donna shrugged her shoulders. "Okay, I guess."
Pulling Roy Harper off the Franklin was considerably easier, once Vic convinced Roy's captain that the archer wasn't in any kind of trouble.
~~~~~~~~~~
Roy and Donna stared at the other Titans in shock. Vic had gathered them all in the Jericho's tiny briefing room before they started the final leg of their journey. Unfortunately, the first step in that briefing was informing the new arrivals of Dick's status.
"Dick's MIA? And presumed ..." Roy repeated blankly. Donna was speechless.
"Yeah," replied Vic. "I know we all want to hope he's alive, but I gotta level with you guys -- it doesn't look good. It's been almost two weeks since he landed on Ch'ton, and that's the last the Chaffee heard from him. On the other hand," he continued, trying to inject an optimistic note into his voice, "we know that Dick was suspicious of this mission -- with good reason -- so he would've been sure to take precautions."
"I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with this whole kidnapping scheme, though," said Wally. "It just doesn't seem ... right, somehow."
"I know what you mean, man, but if you look at the headshrinkers' notes on the mission, they make some good points. Nobody knows exactly how their society works, but we know how important the colonial queens are, so it makes sense the head honcho queen would be even more important," Vic replied earnestly.
"How effective is a peace gained at gunpoint, though?" asked Raven quietly. While she didn't have a body as such, she had "seated" her soul self around the table with the rest of the Titans.
"More effective than our efforts at getting them just to talk to us so far, I would imagine!" exclaimed Garth. As a Titan, the de facto Crown Prince of Atlantis, and the Atlantean ambassador, he had been a key member of the various unsuccessful attempts to enter into some kind of dialogue with the Ch'ton.
"So, Donna, Roy - you guys in or out?" Vic asked intently.
"I'm in!" both said almost simultaneously and then smiled.
"All right! Next stop -- Ch'ton!" exclaimed Vic. As he walked out the door, Vic turned back for a moment and saw Donna hugging Wally, while Roy must have said something to Garth because the Atlantean had Roy in a headlock. Donna casually released Wally and then knocked Roy's legs out from under him, which then pulled Garth to the ground on top of Roy. As he fell, Roy had snaked out an arm to grab Donna, and she fell as well. Wally stood there laughing. Toni and Raven just stood off to one side, looking on in resignation.
"Those Bugs aren't gonna know what hit 'em!" Vic said, smiling.
~~~~~~~~~~
After a tense three days' journey, Vic and Donna carefully put the Jericho into orbit around Ch'ton. The ship's shields were supposed to keep it from being detected by the Ch'ton, but they had never been put to this major a test.
Everyone tried to avoid staring at Raven as she slipped into a trancelike state. On the one hand, she was trying to find one person out of billions on the planet below them; on the other hand, she was trying to find a person she knew very well.
Suddenly, the ghostly outlines of her soul self flared, and her "eyes" opened wide. Then she vanished.
Vic and the others exchanged glances. None of them knew how they should respond to Raven's behavior -- was her disappearance a good thing? Had she found Dick? Was he still alive?
After several tense minutes had passed, Raven returned as abruptly as she had disappeared. The "folds" of her cloak opened, and a grubby Dick Grayson half-stumbled, half-fell out onto the floor. Wally and Roy picked him up and put him on top of the briefing table. Raven floated over to rest beside Dick. Her "hands" rested gently on his face and then moved down his body.
"I found him in a ventilation shaft in the queen's palace," she explained. "He was barely conscious. I sense ... anger, despair, burns, dehydration, cracked ribs, hunger, ..." As her hands moved, the others saw a burn mark disappear from his forehead, another from one of his arms. He had been breathing in shallow little gasps; now he was breathing normally. Finally, she removed her hands. Dick's eyes fluttered open. He looked at the familiar faces around him and smiled.
"Hi, guys," he said in a raspy voice. "Babs hasn't had the baby yet, has she?"
~~~~~~~~~~
Donna then laid down the law that Dick wasn't to do any more talking until he had something to eat. After several more glasses of water and some soup, Dick declared that he was fine and in desperate need of a shower and a shave. In his room, he discovered that Babs had been thoughtful (and hopeful) enough to send along several changes of clothes for both LCDR Richard Grayson and Nightwing. After a few moments' thought, he chose a flightsuit and got dressed. He found everyone still hanging around the briefing room, so he motioned for them to sit down around the table.
"I take it you all understand what our basic mission was?" he asked, a slight rasp still present in his voice.
Everyone nodded, and then Roy asked the question they were all wondering. "So what happened?"
"We were sold out, that's what!" Dick fumed. He looked around the table for their reactions. "And why doesn't that surprise you, I wonder?"
Vic answered, "'Cause Barbara found out that among Lex Luthor's many other possessions is included one Rear Admiral Samuel Mueller. When we were studying the plans you sent us, Barbara also realized that the palace layout didn't match the one Kory had sent."
"Ah, it fits. How nice," Dick replied sarcastically. "I thought that layout looked different, but I wasn't sure. I warned Capt. Howard not to accept the plans as gospel, but as it turned out, my warning didn't make any difference. The Bugs were waiting for them!" He paused for a few moments to gather his thoughts as he remembered.
The area around the queen's residence was pretty heavily forested and gave them a good choice of landing sites. All the stealth technology in the world wouldn't disguise the physical bulk of an assault shuttle if any of the enemy chanced upon it.
"Keep the motor running, Grayson," ordered Col. Marchant as they watched the marines leave the shuttle.
"Aye sir." Of course, Dick had no intention of actually staying with the shuttle. He had heard the discussion between Marchant and Capt. Howard and knew Marchant had insisted on taking point. Howard seemed like a good officer, but Dick didn't trust Marchant to lead them out of a paper sack. After a few minutes had passed, Dick left the shuttle to keep an eye on their back trail. They had landed less than two kilometers from the palace, so it shouldn't take very long for the marines to get into position.
Dick was only a few hundred feet from the shuttle when he felt the vibration caused by a very powerful ship operating very close to the ground. He looked up to see a Ch'ton assault craft hovering over his shuttle. Realizing what was about to happen, Dick ran to try to warn the others. Even as far away as he was, the blast from the explosion was still able to pick him up and throw him against a tree, stunning him.
By the time he was able to get his bearings and go after the marines, Dick arrived just in time to see the end of their firefight as the surviving marines were led away as prisoners. Instead of taking the enemy by surprise, a force of Ch'ton soldiers had obviously been waiting for the marines.
The next few days passed in a blur as Dick tried to find out what happened to the other men while still remaining hidden. These efforts were complicated by the headaches caused by the slight concussion he'd sustained and the pain from his injured ribs. He finally decided there was too much security in the section of the palace where the marines had been taken. That job would have to wait until the Titans arrived.
"So you managed to stay hidden for two weeks?" exclaimed Donna, when Dick paused in his account.
"Has it only been two weeks?" Dick asked wistfully. "It seemed longer, somehow." He continued in a more normal tone, "Using their ventilation system to maneuver throughout the palace, I did manage to plant some listening devices and do some spying on the queen and her court. I learned some very interesting things."
"You can understand what they're saying?" asked Toni in astonishment.
"Yeah. Back when the Titans first went to Tamarran, the Vegans gave each of us what they called an Instantaneous Language Translator15. I found out a little while back that it also works with the Ch'ton language."
Dick continued, "In her ... throne room, for lack of a better description, the queen is very authoritative, and everyone bows to her wishes. In her private chambers, though, one of her maids tells her what to do. I'm not sure whether the maid is in charge, or if she's just working for someone else."
"Are you sure it's not something like Bruce and Alfred?" asked Wally. "I mean, we all know who's really in charge at the Manor."
Dick laughed along with everyone else. "No, it's not like that, believe me. For one thing, Alfred usually maintains the illusion that Bruce is in charge. Everyone in the throne room acted as if the queen was the queen, but in private, the maid was the one making policy decisions."
"But what does all this have to do with our plan to kidnap the queen?" Donna asked.
"It means, I think we need to capture both of them," replied Dick.
**End Part 18 **
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13 Although these are Root's original lyrics, I, as a native Texan, feel I should point out these were not the lyrics I learned as a kid. The southern version ends, "And beneath the stars and bars We shall breathe the air again As free men in our own beloved home." :-)
14 New Teen Titans Annual #1
15 New Teen Titans #24. Changeling, Cyborg (Vic), Kid Flash (now Flash), Raven, Robin, and Wonder Girl (now Troia) each received this implant from the Omega Men.