CHAPTER THREE:
COMETH THE HOUR
"Blow winds and crack your cheeks.
Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanes,
spout 'til you have drenched our steeples,
drowned the cocks. You sulph'rous and
thought-executing fires, vaunt couriers
of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, singe my
white head!"
—"King Lear", Act Three, Scene Two
by William Shakespeare
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A streak of emerald light slashed the eternal obsidian night of space, tearing its way toward a vast structure. Twenty worlds joined together, a star at their centre.
If an observer were to study the light intently enough, they would have seen two dark silhouetted figures within it. A particularly keen-eyed observer would have noted too their grim and determined expressions.
As they entered the labyrinthine tunnels of the gargantuan structure, Trance turned to her companion. "Are you sure we're heading in the right direction?"
Rommie shrugged slightly as they penetrated the atmosphere of one of the planets and dove into a canyon. "As certain as I can be. They're approximately four kilometres almost straight down."
Trance grinned broadly. "Y'know, if we'd come in on the Maru, we'd have to proceed on foot through the tunnels—but with this," she nodded at her ring, "who needs tunnels?"
Rommie twitched an eyebrow appreciatively as Trance briefly closed her eyes and a beam of plasma emerged from the ring, burning through the rock. They soared through the new tunnel, passing the occasional pack of Magog. As fast as the broods of Magog pursued them, she knew that nothing, not even herself—her ship-self—could match Trance's imagination whilst the enigmatic alien bore the power ring.
"Twenty worlds joined into a single structure manipulated by artificial gravity and powered by a miniature sun. I guess it's true what they say:" Trance shot a sidelong glance at her. "'No matter how powerful you are, there's always someone bigger and stronger than you.' I just never thought it applied to me."
Trance smiled easily as they drew closer. "You scared?"
"Terrified," she admitted. "No offence intended, but..."
"Hey, it's okay. Me too. Just 'cause I've got the most powerful weapon in all the universe on my finger doesn't mean we can't fail. There's lots of things that could go wrong, Rommie," she sighed.
Rommie flinched. "I can't raise my...self—the ship. There's too much interference."
"Looks like we're on our own," Trance agreed. "How long until Beka launches the Nova bomb?"
"Two hours, forty-one minutes."
"Here's hoping it's enough." Things had turned around so very fast indeed since she'd regained consciousness.
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"Okay." Trance shivered involuntarily. "Okay, Trance, you can do this," she muttered to herself. "You know you can. There is a perfect possible future where everything will turn out just fine. And the odds of creating that future are only...one million, six hundred and seventy-one thousand to one less five thousand, two hundred and twenty-three, more or less."
Andromeda activated her hologram once more. "Trance, I'm bringing two androids to help you. We need to move Dylan and Beka now."
"You don't understand." Trance shivered again. "This is very, very bad."
"I can see that," the hologram replied, a little reproachful.
"No. No, you can't. That's the problem." Trance began to pace, and Rommie grew worried for her. "There may be a perfect possible future, but I can't see that right now, and nothing is going to make that better."
"Trance, I've been studying you for almost a year now. I know you have secrets, ways of seeing probabilities, maybe even influencing outcomes. Right now, Dylan and Beka need medical attention immediately. Even if you can't see any possible way to save them, we have to try."
Pounding came from outside of Command.
"Magog!" Trance cried.
"It's too late." Rommie felt cheated. Once again, she was about to be robbed of her crew, her friends, her family. Only this time it was all her fault!
Trance closed her eyes, focussing her mind as carefully and finely as she could. When she had responded to Andromeda's call of intruders earlier, she had been working in Medical whilst her ring had been in her quarters, and she hadn't thought to retrieve it first. And after Andromeda had press- ganged her into slipstreaming, she had been unable to focus properly to do this, despite her efforts.
Now, she had to succeed. She knew her friends would perish if she did not.
"Andromeda," she mumbled, "if you have any external defences remaining, you might want to activate them ...NOW."
Onwards it came, a streak of purest green light. Through walls, deck plates, doors and even Magog it phased, doing no harm or damage as it travelled.
Andromeda's hologram nodded approvingly. "You want a distraction. I think I know just the thing," she grinned, and winked at her.
She concentrated for a moment and elsewhere in the ship, the Tweedles activated.
"There," she smiled in satisfaction, "that should get their attention."
"And this should make things a lot easier," Trance whispered as she opened her eyes, a smile dancing upon her lips.
The glowing green ring spiralled through the air—
—and landed squarely on her finger.
She looked up at where the main viewscreen showed the Tweedles attacking the Magog ships on Andromeda's hull. Explosions lit up the star-filled sky as debris flew in all directions, the triumphant Tweedles continuing their charge.
"I forgot you had those," Trance nodded admiringly.
"We haven't exactly had a burning need for planetary-warfare-bots," Andromeda pointed out as the doors opened and two of her androids entered. "Are you ready? Go!"
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The Magog leapt out of nowhere to land in front of her.
"Ah! Oh! Hi. I am way more dangerous than I look, and I really don't want to hurt you, but if you push me, I will. I promise." She privately hoped that the Magog would believe her; although she had discussed the matter with Dylan and Kyle and had agreed it was likely she may well need to, she was extremely uncomfortable with using the ring as an instrument of death.
The Magog did not heed her warning and charged at her. She dodged him, dodged again, and the Magog ran into a loose power cable. The stench as the creature was electrocuted was unbearable. Beka had awoken during the exchange and saw another Magog approaching. "Trance!" she yelled, before collapsing back into unconsciousness.
Instinctively, she produced a shield between herself and the Magog, but before she could take further action Rommie appeared from another corridor and threw a pole—the very same pole upon which she had been skewered only minutes earlier—and killed the second Magog.
"Now we're even," she announced, with not a little satisfaction.
"Rommie!" Trance cried in relief.
"Run, Trance," Rommie urged her as she spotted the approaching swarms of Magog.
"I've got it covered," Trance assured her, as she established a barrier. "Come on! We can make it!"
They had fled through the corridors, pausing occasionally for Trance to seal off the way they had come or for Rommie to eliminate any Magog who crossed their paths.
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"COME ON!" Trance yelled. "What's wrong? Kyle! I need an update here!"
She forced her mind into the ring again and again, willing it with all her strength to cut through the rock wall before her. Behind, she could hear a heavy volley of effectors from Rommie's force lances, the screams and yowls of dying Magog.
What was so different about this wall? Why couldn't she cut through it like the others?
"I've never encountered anything like this before," the emerald spectre admitted as he materialised beside her. "At a guess...I'd say that whilst your willpower's focussed on getting through that rock, there's something behind it—something that doesn't want visitors in a hurry." He shivered instinctively at the prospect. "I don't know what, but it's got to be powerful, whatever it is, if it can counter your actions with the ring."
She turned and instinctively skewered a Magog that Rommie hadn't seen as he leapt from a precipice above them. She set her jaw grimly. She had killed. She had used the ring to kill—
"Enough!" she thought to herself. This was not a good time for such a moral debate.
"I'm doing the best I can, Mr. Will-To-Power." The memory floated, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind.
"Oh, where are you Tyr when I need you!" she groaned to herself. "A kilometre beyond this wall, that's where. Where else would you be?!"
A faint and bitter smile gently formed upon her lips as the glimmerings of an idea formed in her imagination. "Rommie!" she called. "Kyle! I know how we can get through!"
"Tell me what you need!" Rommie shouted over the cacophony of her force lances. "One hour ten minutes before Nova launch!"
"Kyle, you said that whatever's beyond that wall is more powerful than my willpower, right? What about Rommie's, yours and mine, all working together?"
"Well, theoretically it might work," he shrugged, "but it's something I've never seen or heard of being done."
"It's our only chance," Rommie nodded her consent to the plan. "What do we do?"
"Don't look at me," Kyle admitted, "I'm outta my depth here. This place makes Mageddon look like a popgun."
They stumbled at the sound of a muffled explosion, its vibrations shaking the rock beneath their feet. "What was that?" the deceased Green Lantern asked.
Rommie nodded gloomily. "Point singularity projector. It's firing."
"What's that? Never mind," he hastily added, "something for later."
"Each of you, place a hand on my ring hand," Trance suggested. "Rommie, we don't have time for the full training, so here goes with the short version. Focus your mind, focus your will and channel it into the ring as tightly as possible. Imagine all your resolve and feelings pouring out in one big blast, a plasma beam. Focus as hard as you can...and hope."
Rommie nodded confidently. She ignored the approaching Magog; they were unarmed and were no threat. She was not organic, Trance's ring would automatically protect her and Kyle Rayner was dead—there was, he had once assured them, very little that could hurt him as he was save for time itself.
She closed her eyes, shut out all her senses as she bent her mind inversely, diving deep into her own consciousness. She channelled all her emotions, her protectiveness of her crew and friends, her love for poor, lost Gabriel, her unspoken feelings for her captain, the unique love she shared with her engineer, her anger at being boarded and attacked by the Magog swarmships. Her rage at how she had been so casually dismissed by the Magog's leader, pierced upon the end of a pole and skewered against a bulkhead. Left for dead, an inconsequential detail. A nothing.
She was High Guard XMC A.I. Ten-Two-Eight-Four. She was Rommie, the incarnation of the most powerful vessel in all the Known Worlds. And she was far from being an 'inconsequential detail'. She would tear down this rock, blast it apart into its constituent atoms and rip them apart, split them completely.
She would fight on, and she! Would! Not! Be! Denied!
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Dylan had awoken with a splitting headache by the time she arrived. "The Magog?" she heard him groan.
"On the run, for now," she assured him. "I deployed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum."
He nodded, wincing in the pain that this caused him. "How are the lads?"
"Efficient, as usual." Despite their situation, she was proud of the assault bots' performance. "They drove off the first wave of the Magog assault ships."
"Yeah, but the Magog can always send more. Magog suck." Dylan grimaced as he tried to rise from the bed. "Aah!" he cried out, as raw, unfettered agony flooded through him from his injuries.
"Easy, easy," Trance soothed him, gently guiding him back down as gently as possible.
"Dylan, you're in no shape to get out of bed, never mind anything else," Beka shook her head at him.
"The others..." he gasped as he sank gratefully into the soft folds of the mattress and pillow beneath him. "...Harper, Rev, Tyr...where are they?"
Rommie and Beka exchanged glances. "Harper and Tyr have been taken to the worldship," the weary android admitted, "and Rev has gone after them. We have no idea what their current status is...I'm sorry Dylan." She smiled sadly and gently squeezed his hand as he covered his face with the other, blinking back tears of worry and frustration.
"Can the Maru launch?" he whispered.
"The hangar bay doors have taken external damage," she grimaced. "The Maru is intact, but we can't launch it."
"So we don't use the Maru," Trance put in. Her ring flared brightly in contrast to her dark uniform. "I've flown others through space before—I can do it again."
Dylan smiled in silent thanks. "Okay," he groaned, "here's the plan. Rommie and Trance will go down and retrieve Harper, Tyr, and Rev. Rommie, have the immune system nanobots we gave the crew built up to a level where you can track them?"
"Trance's don't seem to be working, but I'm getting a clear signal from Beka's."
Beka narrowed her eyes angrily. "You planted tracking devices on us?"
"Downloading signal parameters," Rommie mused aloud.
The blonde captain shook her head. "So while those two are playing hero, what am I supposed to do?"
"There's a Nova Bomb in the main armoury, weapons locker five," Dylan calmly announced. Beka and Trance looked stunned at this revelation; he seemed to fail to notice. "If they're not back here in three hours, I want you to launch it at the artificial sun in the middle of the Magog array and blow it to hell."
"You're still carrying Nova bombs?" Trance looked worried. "I thought..."
"...that I used them all up at Hephaestus?" he finished for her. "I did. But I scavenged one from GS92196, just in case."
Beka grinned. "There's been a Nova bomb on board for months and Tyr didn't know about it? Gosh, won't he be surprised."
Rommie nodded in agreement. "If he's still on that worldship when that bomb goes off, he'll be more than surprised. He'll be dead." She stared at her captain in an almost accusatory manner. "And so will we, Dylan."
Dylan nodded sadly. "I'm sorry you two, but that thing has to go down. We can't risk it reaching the Known Worlds if we can possibly help it. I'd go myself, but ah..." he gestured vaguely at his bandages. "You'll just have to get back here in time. I'm sorry, but there's no other way. Andromeda, release all Nova bomb controls to Beka Valentine, authorization ten-break- alpha."
"Authorisation released," Andromeda calmly announced.
He looked at Beka. "Three hours. Not a second more. Good luck to you all."
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The mood was a determined one as Rommie and Trance strode through Andromeda's corridors, shooting the occasional stray Magog along the way.
"Internal defences back on-line," Andromeda announced as they reached an airlock.
Rommie smiled sourly as they stepped inside. "Finally. Now tell me, what do I need to do Trance?"
"Nothing," Trance smiled. "Just relax and enjoy the ride."
So saying, a green light emerged from her ring, sheathing them both in emerald energy as the outer doors opened...
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In an explosion of shards of rock, an emerald beam shone through into a vast, round chamber, so great that it was impossible for the three intruders to see the opposite side. In its very centre stood a seemingly slender needle of stone, several kilometres high, standing like a lonely sentinel. A series of stone platforms led to it, floating above the immeasurable depths of the chasm that lay between the spire and the ledge the intruders now stood upon.
Upon the distant platform, they saw it. A tall and slender, somehow distorted humanoid shape, like a shadow formed of flames. Its surface seemed to ripple, blazing blood-red eyes burning into their very life essences, piercing their physical selves as surely as a lance-tip.
Snarls and cackles, bestial in the extremes echoed all about the chamber, as though in worship of the great being. The rank stench of equally clotted sweat and blood caught in the matted pelts of the Magog was sickeningly overwhelming, engulfing them.
Still the fiery being stared at them, boring deeper. Of the few intruders who had disturbed its rest over the brief millenniae it had rested in this chamber, all had thus far succumbed, bent to its will and reduced to little more than unresisting morsels of flesh for its Magog servants.
These intruders were different, very different. The entity had never before encountered the bearers of the ancient power, although upon its lengthy travels through dimensions and realities it had certainly learned legends of such warriors.
All three swiftly recovered from the assault, it felt an emotion it hadn't experienced in a very long time.
Curiosity.
Curiosity in how swiftly they would die.
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"If anyone's seen something like that before, speak now because I certainly haven't," Trance shouted over the noise of the Magog and Rommie's weapons' fire.
"It's way more powerful than Darkseid or anything I've even heard of..." Kyle breathed.
"Before we left, I accessed the unsealed memory files," Rommie shouted, blasting away with both force lances. "When...I...travelled to M86 under the command of Captain Perim and encountered the worldship..." she shook her head in slight confusion. "...after the Magog had killed my crew, I believe it boarded me. It was there for point-oh-five seconds, but it was there, staring around Command..." She shivered involuntarily. "I have no idea what it is or how to destroy it...but it's a safe bet that it's some kind of leader."
Trance focussed on her ring, bending her mind as she remembered the technique Kyle had once mentioned. It had to work...
Her right hand caught the newly-forged power ring before it could fall a complete inch.
"Rommie!" she yelled. "Here!"
The expression on the android's beautiful face as she snatched the ring out of the air was, despite their dire situation, priceless indeed to behold. "What are you doing Trance?" she asked warily.
"Use it! My ring responded to your thoughts, your imagination, your will, it accepted you—we wouldn't have got through otherwise! That ring should work for you, so take it! Find the others and get them out of here! I'll catch up later! Kyle, go with her, show Rommie how to use the ring to fly others through space on the way!"
"What about you?" Rommie asked, slipping the ring onto her left forefinger and shooting a swift glance down at herself as a Green Lantern uniform materialised about her. "What will you be doing?"
Trance grinned tightly as she leapt into flight from the ledge. "Hitting that thing with everything I've got!"
"Trance!" Kyle shouted. "Trance, don't do this! You can't be ready for this yet! Hell, Parallax wouldn't stand a chance against that thing and he could destroy an entire universe!"
"You're forgetting something," she assured her mentor. "This isn't just about raw power—it's about will as well. And right now mine's the most powerful around here!"
With that, she was gone, too far for them to talk even if they screamed at the tops of their lungs. Rommie smiled slightly as she reached up with her left hand to feel the slender mask upon her face. "This way," she told Kyle, leading the dead Lantern toward another tunnel as she readied a force lance in her right hand. "Rev was here a minute ago, I can feel it. We have to hurry! There's only twenty minutes until Beka launches the Nova bomb!"
He looked at her, distraught, as they rushed the tunnel entrance, a steady shower of effectors leading the way. "She's not ready," he whispered. "She...oh god, I've failed her. I thought I could help my successor...and now she's going to die because of me!"
"No she's not," Rommie grinned knowingly. "You may be an expert about Green Lanterns, but you've got a lot to learn about Trance. I've known her for about a year now, and trust me when I say she will survive. Even if she doesn't beat that thing, she'll be back. She was formidable and skilled in surviving impossible odds without the ring; with it, she's almost unstoppable." She halted and sighed in exasperation. "We're running out of time and I can't get the homing beacon any finer than a few hundred meters...I'm going to have to call them."
Her eyes closed as she accessed her communications array, a more powerful device than even High Guard sub-vocal transmitter implants—courtesy of a certain Seamus Harper. How ironic that today the upgrade could save his life.
Harper. Harper, do you hear me? she transmitted. Harper!
Rommie? Is that you? His response was clear, although he sounded slightly panicked.
Harper, listen to me carefully. I need you to start making noise—a lot of it.
Noise? But that'll attract Magog, he protested.
In twenty minutes, Beka's going to launch a Nova bomb at this place. If you wish to be elsewhere, I would start shouting.
Nova bo—"NOVA BOMB?!?" His shouts echoed confusingly within the tunnels. "NOISE! I'm with ya! Rommie! Over here! Rommie! Follow the sound of the voice! Rommie's looking for our voices! Make sound!"
Rommie winced in annoyance as Tyr started shouting as well, creating even more disorienting echoes. "This way," she shrugged, leading Kyle towards an aperture.
"It's a maze in here," he complained.
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"I know you!" Trance screamed as she charged the glowing figure. "Somehow ...long ago..." A little piece of her mind, separated from operating the ring for safety's sake, provided her with the memory of how she had learned so very long ago of this entity. The being who had given her hope when all she owned, all she had been and known, was despair. The being who had shown her what this entity was capable of. The one who had freely admitted that this entity was beyond his abilities, but not hers.
She understood now. This had been what he had referred to.
Ribbons of flame leapt forth from its fingers, scorching her grievously before her ring sparkled and shielded her. Her grimaced through the pain, forming an energy blast that shook the entity.
For an instant she dared hope that she might defeat it.
That hope was destroyed as the entity rallied itself, straightening as it seemed to absorb the power she was pouring at it.
Tricky, tricky, she winced as she dodged another ball of flames. Need to be trickier than it can.
She split her focus, shattered her mind, and hoped. Hoped this would work.
A glowing green sledgehammer passed harmlessly through the entity, dissipating slightly as the creature tried to feed upon it, then completely as she dismissed it. Conventional assault was out. An oversized tap appeared as she dehydrated the air, spraying the captured fluid onto flames to no avail.
If anything, it seemed almost amused.
Trance wasn't. She was only just getting started.
It was, she concluded as she looped another flickering tendril of flame, some form of energy being, which presumably accounted for how it could absorb her ring's blasts.
A memory materialised; the time of Zero Hour when Kyle had fought Parallax himself. A particular battle fought during that time that Kyle had heard about from another man who had carried the name of Green Lantern. How the renegade, Extant, had killed the time traveller Waverider and suffused his physical body with 'Rider's chronal energy, gaining his powers and skills.
Well, she grinned broadly, it worked on one energy being. Let's see if it works with this one.
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"Five minutes to launch, Kyle. We're not gonna make it." Her voice was calm despite her resignation.
Since Harper had created her, she had always had to consider that she—or her ship-self—would be destroyed, each part of her mind and physical form separate from the other as it died. Now, it seemed that today she would meet her end.
She vowed that she would not meet it meekly, that she would fight to survive to the very last of her abilities and beyond them.
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Using every last trick he'd learned on Earth Harper, still shouting, managed to pry a hand free of the goo. "Whoo. Rommie! I hope that bomb explodes soon, because I'm getting exhausted. Rommie!" He paused and gasped for air as he turned his attention to his other hand.
"Green Lantern!" Tyr roared.
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Rommie had taken to using the ring to fly quite well, and now she and Kyle made their way far more swiftly through the tunnels. Blazing away with her force lance and forming plasma beams with the ring, she fought on, tearing through the Magog positions. She homed in on her crew's cries, as the echoes lessened and their cries swam into focus—
"—seal off Command!"
(—Rommie, please, I beg you, oh please—)
(—the screams of Corporal Shimmering Sunlight as the Than Lancer was butchered shaking her, instilling fear into both her crew and herself—her, a warship and afraid!)
"—fall back, FALL BA—!"
(—they're breaking through the hull on all decks!—)
(—we have to get to slipstream!—)
"—this is impossible. Captain? Your orders—"
(—Andromeda—!)
(—she trembled within her matrix, striving desperately to disconnect her sensors in the slipstream core as her engineers were rendered limb from limb—)
"—KILL ME! OH GOD! PLEASE, ANDROMEDA, PLEASE KILL ME! KILL ME BEFORE THEY CAN!"
—with a start, she tumbled from her flight. Her reflexes enabled her to turn the tumble into a graceful roll followed off by a mighty leap upwards, maintaining the momentum of her path, but she was deeply shaken.
She remembered it all so very clearly now. Her crew's deaths. How she had been violated once before by these, these—
Anger surged through her. And that anger now fuelled her in battle.
A Magog pounced, his leap calculated to land upon her lower back and pitch her to the ground. An energy spike pierced him, vaporising his furry body even as life fled him. A dozen swarmed from another tunnel entrance only for a glittering energy beam to engulf them all, killing them in less than a second. Another armed with a gauss rifle had his skull crushed by an extended force lance.
Followed closely by her dead companion, Rommie fought on.
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"Rommie?" Harper hesitantly asked, as the sounds of running feet grew nearer. "Man, am I glad to see you..."
He gulped as a pair of Magog entered the chamber, snarling and hissing to one another. He followed their line-of-sight and realised that they'd seen his hand. His loose hand. "Hey, I can explain," he grinned weakly. "I just got one word for you guys: ROMMIE!"
As the leading Magog passed Tyr, a leather-clad leg shot out, connecting neatly with the creature's nose, driving the bones up and into its brain and killing it. A second rushed the former mercenary, claws extended, only to meet a flurry of blows that beat it back and culminated only when Tyr slammed his booted heel against its throat. There was a distinct click of crumpling tracheal bones.
Harper looked at him, a mixture of incredulity and amazement battling for supremacy of his facial features. "You never told me your feet were free!"
The Nietzschean sighed heavily as he relaxed slightly, returning to his struggle with the goo. "I wanted it to be a surprise."
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All too suddenly, Rommie found herself flying into a vast chamber, thousands of levels deep with thousands more passages that led into it.
"Oh, come on!" Kyle grumbled. "I mean, you'd think they'd have signs or something!"
He instinctively ducked, albeit to little avail, as a volley of gauss rounds tore through him. He sighed in defeat: sometimes there were advantages to being dead and composed of light. He floated closer to Rommie as he espied their attackers; a squad of Magog armed with rifles, sheltering in a little gully.
"Take cover!" Rommie shouted, forming a crude shield. Whilst she had often aided Trance in her training, what the purple alien seemed not to have realised was that she had learned a few things herself. "Go!"
Together they flew back, the former Lantern wincing in sympathy as Rommie created a suit of battle armour reminiscent of her planetary-warfare-bots.
"Just great," she growled as she stepped out into the open once again, obliterating the Magog position in a brief but intense hail of fire. "Magog with guns. This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? Come on!"
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"How much closer do we need to be to deploy the Nova bomb?" Beka asked, fingers dancing over the piloting controls.
Andromeda shrugged as she materialised her hologram beside her acting- captain. "We can fire it from here, but they'd have a lot of time to intercept it. I'd like to close at least another thirty LS."
"Am I really going to drop it?" she groaned, resting her chin in her hands. "I'm in way over my head here."
Andromeda smiled reassuringly from the screen. "Well, that's what happens in life. We keep going and going and going until we've gone too far, and then we have to deal with it."
"The important thing to remember is that Dylan trusted you with command. He believes in you, and so do I," her hologram continued.
"All of us do," her image on the viewscreen took over again. "Believe me, Beka, you are the right person at the right time in the right place. You're going to make the right decision."
Beka grinned at Andromeda's visages. "Is that a guess, or do you know something I don't?"
Andromeda laughed lightly as she shook her hologram's head. "No, Beka. It's not a guess. It's a leap of faith."
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Trance gritted her teeth as she plunged the emerald shard into the entity with all her might.
Gotta keep the surface area to a minimum...lose less power from the ring that way. Come on, suck it up, suck it up you little green beauty...
The entity wavered, stung by her attack. It studied the growing injury almost dispassionately, then turned to her once more.
Trance shrieked, once and only once, as it engulfed her completely in its fiery embrace.
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"Another squad of riflers," Kyle groaned as he flew for cover.
"Don't they have any respect for tradition?" Rommie shook her head despondently as she created the planetary-warfare-suit once again. It took her but a few seconds to reduce the offending party of Magog to a rapidly expanding mist of blood that drenched her as she dissipated the war suit once again. "Whatever happened to just mauling people to death?!"
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Beka seemed to reach a decision. "Andromeda, bring us in, maximum PSL. On my mark, I want you to fire everything we've got: missiles, drones, AP guns, lasers, everything."
"Beka, conventional weapons won't even dent that thing."
Andromeda's protests fell on deaf ears. "You have your orders. And... MARK."
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"What was that?" Kyle looked about nervously as the ground shook and stray boulders fell through him, rebounding harmlessly from Rommie's shield.
"A starter's gun," she realised as the pounding increased. "Go!"
She poured her mind and willpower into the ring, propelling herself onwards at an ever-increasing speed.
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With a final twist, Harper finally managed to free himself. He leapt down from the wall. "I can't believe it! I'm—"
"The word you're looking for is 'dead'," a gravelly Magog voice growled from the entrance, leaping into the cave and brandishing a gauss rifle.
Another snarl echoed from the shadows, another furry form leapt down from the tunnel's mouth. The faint light of the cave glittered dully from armour stained with Magog blood.
Harper's eyes grew wide. "Rev?"
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With a scream of rage and exultation, Trance tore her way out of the entity's grasp, impaling it upon a glowing spike of power. She smiled as the entity staggered as the ring fed upon it, draining its energy and absorbing it. She focussed her will even further, intensifying her attack.
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"We've gotten their attention," Andromeda's hologram coolly announced. "Swarmships are deploying. They're trying to intercept our missiles."
Beka nodded in satisfaction. "Good. That'll keep 'em busy. Now, Andromeda, I want you to vent your atmosphere. Dump your water tanks and toss every piece of crap you've got in the cargo holds out the hatches.
Andromeda frowned from the screen. "You're trying to confuse them?"
Beka shrugged. "What's one little bomb in a crowd?"
"Venting, dumping, and tossing, Captain." Andromeda's hologram smiled. "Incoming fire—point-singularity-projectors."
"Good for them. Andromeda, ready the Nova bomb. And, FIRE!"
"Nova bomb is away. Impact in Ten."
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"Nine. Eight."
"Rev, what are you doing?" Harper asked, backing up against a wall.
"Seven. Six. Five."
"My name," the Magog snarled, "is Red Plague, and I do what I must."
"Four. Three. Two. One. IMPACT!"
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In Andromeda's Command Centre, the viewscreens went completely white, momentarily blinded by the flash. Beka closed her eyes at the sight. "Trance. Rommie, I'm so sorry," she whispered.
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A wall of flames swept through the worldship's tunnels, incinerating anything it touched. Magog yowled and screeched as they writhed in a final dance of agony.
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Rommie tore through the rock wall and back into the vast chamber, leaping from the ledge and tumbling into the cavernous space's depths as a gout of flame burst forth from the hole she had blasted with her ring. The ring flashed as Kyle leapt into it.
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In a small cave, two Magog and a human staggered, fighting to keep from being pitched to the ground.
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Trance was flung backwards by the blast, and she fought to keep the flames from herself. The entity stumbled, down on one flaming knee as great waves of fire and raw, unfettered energy flowed into it.
Some of the energy flowed from the entity and into her ring, into her, and she cried out as it burned her hand. She fought desperately, but in vain. The power ring leapt from her hand, driven by the flames, and tumbled into the chasm below.
She looked down at herself in amazement as she took in the sight of the flames of shadows now being generated from her own body. Her outline rippled with them, and she blurred as she dived after the power ring. Dived into the darkness.
The entity ignored her, focusing instead upon continuing to absorb the power of the explosion. The wielder of the emerald power was gone and no longer attacked it. For now, it was content to allow the wielder to escape or die as she wished.
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As the screens cleared, Beka's jaw fell agape as the explosion collapsed inwards on itself and disappeared. The worldship, though battered, remained mostly intact.
"That's impossible! Tell me that's impossible!"
Andromeda looked confused to say the least. "I don't know. I just...don't know.
The former trader-captain sighed in defeat. "Andromeda, bring us back around."
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Kyle Rayner held up a translucent emerald digit as he emerged from the power ring. "Ah...what was that?"
Rommie heaved herself from a pile of rubble, dusting herself off as she activated her sensors. "Elevated radiation levels, EMP X-rays, gamma rays, oscillated neutrinos. It was a Nova. We lived through a Nova?"
The dead man's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I thought that was supposed to be impossible?"
"It is," she grinned. "but we have a habit of doing the impossible."
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Bloodmist grinned widely. "Fools!" he crowed triumphantly. "They thought they could defeat us so easily. You understand now, Red Plague? Everything is possible for the Harbingers of the Abyss."
The Reverend nodded respectfully. "Yes, I understand. But then, I understood all along." He snarled, deep in his throat, lightly spinning on his feet as he stabbed Bloodmist with his claws. "'Behold the fiery beast with razor tail that cuts through mountains, trampling castles down. Inhale the stench that makes the whole world wail.'"
Bloodmist growled weakly, defiant to the last. "But which of us is the beast?" he wheezed. "Me, my master, or you?"
With a roar of rage, Rev twisted his claws where they had pierced Bloodmist, ripping into his internal organs, killing him as he tore his claws out through his victim's chest.
Tyr sagged against the wall in exhaustion. "A Magog quoting Dante," he observed.
Rev nodded. "Canto Seventeen."
"Uh, guys," Harper yelled, as the cave shook under the force of a minor tremor, "can we save the poetry for later—get the hell out of here?"
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The Spirit of the Abyss howled in pain, still absorbing energy from the Nova bomb's explosion.
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Trance exhausted the last of the foul power that she had absorbed from the entity above, tumbling into an uncontrolled free-fall after the glowing ring. She reached out—
—she missed.
Unable to further control her descent, she fell past the ring, crying out in protest. She would not fail! She was the one chosen to bear the name and power ring of Green Lantern, and she would not allow that great legacy to die with her today!
She lashed out desperately in one last, doomed attempt.
The tip of her tail neatly snaked through the falling ring.
Panting in exhaustion, she regained control of the ring, hovering in mid- air.
To continue to fight that entity was futile. And—she shivered—she honestly did not relish the idea of battling it again, so soon, when she was weakened and the ring drained. The evil it had exuded...it would have to wait for another time.
She cut her way through the rock wall, homing in on Rommie's ring.
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Harper stumbled, sagging against a wall as the odd little party made their way through the worldship's tunnels. "Man, my guts are killing me," he groaned.
Rev tried to help him up again. "Harper. Quickly, we must go."
Tyr extended his bone blades as several Magog appeared out of nowhere—
—a mixed volley of force lance effectors and emerald plasma beams cut down the Magog before they knew they were even under attack.
Tyr snorted, shaking his head as he laid his bone blades flat once more. "I know but one person idiotic enough to try and rescue three dead men from a Magog hive."
"That would be me, I suppose," a familiar voice echoed throughout the cavern.
"R- Rommie?" Harper's eyes almost popped out of his head as the beauteous android floated through the entrance surrounded by an emerald aura, a power ring upon her finger and a ripped and battered Green Lantern uniform hanging in shreds from her body. "Wow."
"Rommie, where is Trance?" Rev asked, worried. "Why do you have her ring?"
"I don't—she made a new one so I could find you all whilst she took on this—creature, this being that seemed to be composed of flames."
"The Spirit of the Abyss," he breathed. "The god of the Magog itself. She- she is surely—"
"Right here?" They turned to see Trance, bloodied, battered and bruised, hovering in the cavern's entrance. "Hi guys. I don't know about you, but getting outta here—very, very good idea. Hold tight."
So saying, she and Rommie enshrouded the others in the same auras that surrounded themselves, flying as fast as they could toward the surface, blazing a fiery green trail as they did so.
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Andromeda's Command deck was wreathed in smoke and flames, trembling under the Magog swarmship assault.
"We've just lost the secondary missile battery," Andromeda reported. "Hull integrity is severely compromised. Beka, we have to break off."
"Like hell we do," Beka smiled grimly. "I promised you'd come back with your crew or not at all. I always keep my promises."
"We are out of offensive missiles, and the AP tanks are down to one-tenth full."
"I guess this is it. Andromeda, charge your slipstream cores to overload. Prepare to eject your EMG's at the world ship."
"Aye-aye, Captain," her hologram acknowledged. "Charging...WAIT! I'm detecting a launch from the surface. It's them!"
Beka whooped aloud as her fingers danced over the controls. "Plotting intercept course," she grinned victoriously. "Andromeda, lay down covering fire. Tell Dylan to hold on tight, 'cause we are goin' in. Keep it together, Trance," she added under her breath, "We're coming. Just keep that li'l ring of yours pumping its juice."
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Harper flinched instinctively as they rocketed past a Magog swarmship, putting the nimble little vicious vessel to shame as Trance and Rommie outmanoeuvred it. "Oh, man. Trance, ya mean to say this is what this is like for you all the time?! Whoo-hoo!"
Trance grinned happily as they outdistanced the Magog ships, dancing through their hail of fire. "It certainly is. Just gotta keep concentrating and we'll be just fine."
"Magnificent," Tyr whispered. "It's all so...so beautiful out here."
"Tyr, we could get blown outta space any second now and you're sightseeing?" Harper was incredulous.
The Nietzschean smiled. "The great philosopher—and indeed a great many others—urge us to take every advantage of each day, to admire things that are interesting and wonderful for you may never get such another chance to do so."
Trance exchanged a private, knowing glance with him, and he nodded respectfully to her as she returned his smile.
"Oh, Andromeda, am I glad to see me," Rommie sighed in relief as the pride of the Systems Commonwealth swam into view ahead.
"Ay-men to that," Harper agreed."
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"Got 'em," Andromeda beamed at Beka.
She gripped the slipstream controls firmly. "It's about time. Let's get out of here."
With that, she slammed them into slipstream.
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Harper slept fitfully, his dreams and nightmares merging. Within them he saw himself being attacked by Magog. He suddenly awoke, screaming.
He eventually realised he was on a bed in the Med Deck, and that Trance, Tyr, and Rev were present. Dylan lay in the next bed over, unconscious.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! It's okay!" Trance was instantly at his side. She gently took his hand in hers, soothing him tenderly.
He sighed in relief. "Oh, man. Talk about nightmares! I dreamt I was being infested by Magog eggs, and they were, uh..." Harper trailed off as he noticed the others were looking serious. "...not a dream?" he asked, his terror slowly, inexorably returning.
"I'm afraid not." Rev admitted.
"But everything turned out ok, right? I mean, we escaped, uh, the bad guys' worldship was destroyed, and you just took the eggs out with your magic ring and patented Trancer-doctoring skill, right?"
"We've escaped, at any rate," Tyr admitted.
Rev sighed. "The worldship was not destroyed, although we did cripple it somewhat. As for the eggs..." He trailed off, hesitant.
Trance cupped his hand in hers as she sat on the bed beside him. "Magog larvae, they kind of wrap themselves around things and when you try to take them out, they attack the host. I figured out a way to get them out, but I wasn't sure if it was going to work, so I tried it out on Tyr, and he survived—barely."
"But I'm not a Nietzschean." Harper pointed out, trying to hide his panic.
Rev held up a vial of a white substance. "This is a drug. It is a lukaprine variant. If you and Tyr take it religiously and remain in otherwise good health, it will keep the larvae dormant for a time." He passed it to Harper, who looked at it dubiously.
"And while you are taking it, we will try very hard to find another way to get them out," Trance added. "Everything will be just fine. We promise."
Harper snorted. "Gee, I feel better already. Just out of curiosity, what happens when you can't figure out a way to get the larvae out? We're supposed to take this forever?"
Rev shook his head slowly. Harper grew worried for him; his feelings for most Magog aside, he knew his friend must have gone through hell on the worldship. The sight of that thing, the 'Spirit of the Abyss'...that had to have been hard on him, and his faith. "No. Eventually, the medication will cease to be effective. If we have not found an alternative treatment by that time, the larvae will become active and you will die."
Harper groaned. "Why don't you just shoot me now?"
"Harper!" Trance exclaimed, releasing his hand.
"No, I mean it, Trance. I don't want to walk around life waiting for my stomach to burst open. You shoulda just left me to die. You shoulda..."
Tyr slammed his hand against the wall in his fury, interrupting the diminutive engineer.
He mimicked Harper in a whiny voice, "Kill me. I'm doomed. You shoulda just let me die." He abandoned the voice, and bellowed, "Listen to yourself! Child, if I can teach you one thing..."
Harper cut in. "If you're gonna give me anymore of that 'Where there's life, there's hope' crap...thanks. 'Cause I really need to hear it right about now."
Tyr seemed pleased, and faked a backhanded slap at Harper affectionately.
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Trance looked over to the bed and sighed in exasperation as Dylan slowly sat up, Lazarus-like. Harper was sleeping, peacefully now, in the next bed over and she didn't want a full-scale argument that would disturb him. "You have to rest," she chided the High Guard officer.
"I know, I know," he smiled through a faint flicker of pain. "It's just...I saw your flights from down here—Rommie patched them through to the monitors when I asked nicely—and I just wanted to say...great work. You succeeded magnificently, Trance. And thank you. I...I just wish I could have been there with you to help."
She smiled back at him, easing him back down into the pillows. "That's alright. And...thanks Dylan."
He chuckled lightly, eyelids flickering with encroaching sleep. "Thank you, Trance Gemini...Green Lantern."
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Author's Note: Wa-hoo! It's just gone midnight and I've just finished this! Hope you like it, 'cos I've worn a bloody great hole in the middle of my poor old keyboard and I can't read anything on the keys they've been so well used. I am so surfing the wave of Writer's High at the mo (the side- effect of writing for eight hours straight for you lucky lot!) See you in a week or two!