xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CHAPTER TWO –"…that you can't walk away from it." – Charles M. Schultz
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
"Sand fleas," Stewart said aloud to himself. "Sand fleas."
Well, private. Tell me, you scumbucket, what gives you the right to kill one of God's sand fleas? Parris Island is their home and you killed one cause he bit you. That flea had kids and you made them freaking orphans. Are you happy with yourself, private? You will never be a Marine because you lack self-discipline. You can't even stop yourself from killing a flea. Why did you do it private? Answer me, Private Stewart, why did you do it, private?"
John Stewart, the Green Lantern of sector 2814, smirked to himself at that confrontation being played out in his mind. He was always amazed at the things he would think of when he traveled in space alone if he let his mind wander. Sometimes he would think of his high school years. Other times he would think of his early Green Lantern training or like this time he would think of his Marine Corps recruit training days. He recalled that with his drill instructor's nose touching his, his response was a nervous, "SIR, the private doesn't know, SIR!!"Right now he wondered what his drill instructor would think of Stewart, the flea-killer, at this moment.
Normally, Stewart would be happy traveling through the cold void of space, getting a view of the universe that few humans got. But his teammates were in trouble and there was no joy in this mission.
When Stewart arrived at Rigel Nine, he found out J'onn had contacted the planet just ten minutes earlier and notified them that his vessel had been damaged, but he was not able to give coordinates to their position before communication with the Javelin had suddenly been cut off. Following standard procedures, Stewart backtracked toward Earth following what would have been the Javelin's arrival flight plan for Rigel Nine.
Stewart's blood ran cold as he came across the Javelin adrift in space. It was clear that the ship had been in a firefight and it did not look like the vessel had faired well. The hull appeared to be intact but the engines showed signs of substantial damage from laser fire. The starboard weapons array had been destroyed. The ship was dark with no lights and appeared dead. They couldn't have done a better job of taking this ship out if they had the blueprints. This is not good. Oh, God. Please don't let them be dead.
He swallowed hard, trying to suppress the rising anxiety in his voice and spoke into his commlink.
xxxxxxxx
J'onn wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out. Life support systems on the Javelin had been destroyed and he had changed into a mouse in order to conserve air. The darkness didn't bother him but the ship was starting to get cold, very cold. He was facing a dilemma of what could he change into that could survive in the cold vacuum of space and he was running out of options.
Suddenly over his commlink came a voice he was very glad to hear. But at this point he would have been happy to hear any voice.
"Javelin, come in. J'onn, Hawkgirl can you hear me?"
J'onn changed back to his humanoid form and answered. "John, come in. Can you hear me?"
"I hear you. Are you okay?"
"I am fine, but the Satzorians took Hawkgirl and destroyed the ship's life support."
J'onn moved to the front of ship, toward the large Plexiglas windshield so that Stewart could see him. Stewart created a large transport bubble over the windshield area and J'onn phased himself to pass through the windshield and into the bubble.
Once he was in the bubble, Stewart asked sharply, "Took her? Took her how?"
Because I failed to do what I should have done when I had an opportunity on their ship. J'onn's eyes glowed with anger as he spoke, "While she was determining what repairs were needed and I was on the radio notifying Rigel Nine of our situation, they transported her aboard their ship and then destroyed the Javelin's life support and communications systems so I couldn't follow or call for help."
Stewart's tone softened. "How long have they been gone?"
J'onn folded his arms across his chest, still angry with himself. "No more than four hours."
Stewart's eyes narrowed. "Do you know where?"
"No! I don't know where they went." The anger remained in J'onn's voice but now it was tinged with sadness.
"We'll find her, J'onn," Stewart said. J'onn didn't need to read Stewart's mind to know that Stewart was trying to convince himself as well.
"Something else you should know," J'onn said as he looked Stewart in the eyes. "They were most interested in whether or not she was… fertilized." He paused and then added, "Even offering to… impregnate her."
Stewart frowned and said nothing. He looked at his ring and then turned to J'onn. "I have two ion trails. One is larger than the other."
"Follow the larger trail. That's his ship," J'onn hissed literally splitting out the word his.
The bubble containing Stewart and J'onn started moving at a high rate of speed following the ion trail. "Tell me about the Satzorians," Stewart said abruptly. J'onn was puzzled by Stewart's question until he realized that Stewart was not talking to him but to his power ring.
"Standby. No information on Satzorian in sector 2814," the ring answered back in Stewart's voice. J'onn was amazed at this exchange between Stewart and his ring. He knew the ring was a powerful weapon but had no idea the ring was capable of providing information in an audio format back to the wearer.
"Consult the Central Power Battery. Tell me about the Satzorians."
"Standby…Standby. Satzorian. Native of Planet Satzor located in the star system Capella. This system is in sector 1417. The Green Lantern responsible for this sector is Katma Tui. Shall I contact the responsible Lantern?"
"No. Tell me about the mating habits of male Satzorian." Stewart looked at J'onn and shrugged his shoulders. "I just want to know what kind of …of trouble she may be in." Stewart paused and then added, "You know, who we're up against."
J'onn arched his eyebrows and said flatly. "Your mind I can read." Stewart averted his eyes and then looked back at J'onn.
The ring answered. "Standby. Current information on mating habits of male Satzorians is not available. Satzorians were hermaphroditic."
J'onn shook his head but didn't say anything to the Lantern. This makes no sense. If there is a ship full of Satzorians and if they have characteristics of both sexes, they don't need help from an outside species to reproduce so how does Hawkgirl help them? Why do they need her?
Stewart spoke to the ring again. "Why did you say they were hermaphroditic? Did they change their mating habits?"
The ring answered back. "The last known native Satzorian died 50 years ago when the planet exploded in circumstances similar to the destruction of the planet Krypton. The species is classified as extinct."
Stewart and J'onn looked at each but didn't say anything. J'onn thought to himself that they now seemed to be moving faster than before - faster than he thought possible.
xxxxxxxx
The floor was cold and metallic. She probably wouldn't have noticed under other circumstances, but she noticed now since she had apparently been lying on it for a while. She opened her eyes, slowly sat up and rubbed the side of her face that had been lying on the floor.
She could remember walking to the rear of the Javelin. A bright light had surrounded her before she could shout for help. When the light faded away, she was a small room. Was it this room? Then it became hard to breathe and she didn't remember anything else until she woke up on the floor. Was I gassed? Looking around she saw she was in a small windowless and empty room.
"So you're awake," she heard a voice say.
She gingerly stood up and took her bearings. On the other side of a bluish-tinged force field stood a red-hued being much as J'onn had described to her. Zedon No, Zevon.
Hol kept her eyes on the being and slid her hand down her right hip. He noticed her movement. "Are you looking for this?" he asked holding up her mace by its strap.
Remaining expressionless, she said flatly, "What do you want with me?" She paused and added "Zevon."
He set the mace on the floor, folded his arms across his chest and said, "I want to offer you an opportunity to be the mother of a race."
Her expression didn't change. "I decline."
He stopped smiling and checked his clipboard and came closer to the force field wall. "You should hear me out first."
"Speak. Then I'll decline."
Shaking his head, he stepped back from the force field. "I could force your compliance but I don't want to do that."
She stood in place but shifted her weight to her left leg and folded her arms across her chest. "I wish you would try."
He sighed. "I am not impressed by your display of false bravery. If I wanted to use force I could have done so while you were unconscious. I'd prefer your cooperation."
She walked up to the edge of the force field and pointed her finger at him. "You kidnap people but you want me to believe you have some moral boundary you won't cross. Give me back my mace and I'll show what I think of your boundary."
He smirked. "You have fight in you. Good. You will make an excellent incubator."
She folded her arms. "Suppose I am already with child. Then what?"
"But you're not," came the reply.
How would you know that unless…unless…you son of a bit… Hol screamed and charged the force field wall. She was brutally repelled by the energy wall upon contact and thrown rearward landing on her back. Startled, Zevon stepped back in response to her charge possibly frightened that she might get through. She quickly stood up again. Hitting that force field hurt, but she wasn't going to show her pain. She glared at him as she walked to the edge of the force field.
"Don't fret," he said tilting his head and speaking softly almost as if he were trying to console her. "You were not touched. We were able to do a bio-scan while you were unconscious. Something about your physiology prevented us from scanning you on your ship. Anyway, I would think you would be grateful that I saved your life."
I don't believe you for one minute about the not touching. Not one damn minute. "What do you mean you saved my life?" she snapped back at him, making no attempt to disguise her anger or disgust.
He checked his clipboard again. "Right after we transported you over here, your ship blew up. We must have damaged it more than we thought. I'm sorry. Your mate is dead." He stepped closer to the force field and appeared to study her reaction to his news.
Hol didn't say anything but suddenly stepped back unsteadily, turned away from Zevon and dropped down on one knee. Bringing her hands up to cover her ears, she shook her head violently as if she were in pain. A voice. J'onn's voice. She heard a voice call her name. She closed her eyes, concentrated and mentally answered the voice with one word. Here.
Hol slowly rose and turned around to face Zevon. She smiled and said, "Tell me about your people. Tell me about you."
Returning Hol's smile, Zevon said, "Ah. Cooperation? Excellent. My name is Zevon and my people…"
Hol smirked as he started talking about himself and his people. That's right. Keep talking. In a little while you will wish you hadn't met me.
xxxxxxxx
"I have contact with her," J'onn said.
"Good. How far?" There was a detectable quiver in Stewart voice J'onn noticed. But he understood the Lantern's concern. He was worried about her too.
"Maybe another three minutes at present speed," J'onn replied.
"Do you have a status on her condition?" Stewart asked. He paused and cleared his throat. "I mean is she okay?"
"I can't tell that," J'onn answered frustrated that he wasn't sure of her condition. "Her mind is closed to me. She was in pain but that may be from my contacting her and not from anything else. I can't tell."
Stewart was quiet, and then in a whisper he said: "J'onn, I don't intend to do a lot of talking with these folks when we get there."
Placing his hand on Stewart's shoulder, J'onn said without betraying any emotion, "Any conversation you have with them will be twice as long as the one I will have with Zevon." His eyes glowed as he spoke the captain's name.
Both men fell to their own silent contemplation. J'onn didn't need to read Stewart's mind to know that Hawkgirl was special to the Lantern. If anything happened to her; Stewart would be a very unhappy man and ultimately so would those who caused her harm.
For J'onn it was different. Actions had consequences. Zevon had kidnapped his teammate and friend, and had left him to die in space. Those were actions which would have severe consequences.
The silence was broken by Stewart's exclamation as he pointed at an object near them. "There's the ship. Can you pinpoint her location?"
J'onn concentrated for a second and then pointed. They were rapidly closing the distance. "Port side. Mid-ship. Twenty meters inside from the hull."
Stewart maneuvered the energy bubble carrying the Leaguers to the point on the ship J'onn specified. "Once you're inside, I'll create a diversion," Stewart said as the bubble made contact with the ship. J'onn nodded his acknowledgment and phased into the vessel.
xxxxxxxx
Hol was tired of listening to Zevon rattle on about how wonderful it would be to have her cooperation. She had wanted to keep him talking but his voice grated. The prattle made it difficult for her to concentrate on thinking her one word message for J'onn.
"Suppose I say okay, I will do what you want," she interrupted Zevon. Here. "What happens then?" Here.
Zevon was about to answer her when he suddenly looked at his clipboard and then back at her. Frowning he said, "I'll return." He hustled out of her sight and down the corridor.
A small smile came across her face. I think you have company, Zevon. Just then, J'onn materialized on other side of the force field rising up from the floor. Her smile broadened as J'onn approached the force field.
"Glad to see you, mate," Hol said.
"Glad to see the provider of the Oreos," J'onn answered apparently looking along the wall for the controls of the force field. She stepped back away from the force field wall opening just as he smashed a panel on the wall and the force field shut down.
Hol ran out of the room and grabbed her mace off the floor where Zevon had left it. Energizing her weapon, she looked at J'onn and snarled, "Let's find Zevon."
xxxxxxx
Zevon hurried to the bridge. His clipboard, streaming information from the ship's computer, informed him external forces were shutting down the Shadow Chaser's systems. He saw his five robot crewmen huddled at their stations trying to restore the failing systems. The room was filled with the sounds of clicks and clacks and the whirring of mechanical men focused on their tasks.
He ran to the center of the bridge and called out, "Report!" One by one the robots called out the ship status from their consoles.
"Dead stop."
"Port engine off-line. Port weapon system off-line."
"Hull breech near starboard engine. Starboard engine off-line."
Zevon put his head in his hands as another called out, "Starboard weapon system off-line. Communication link is inoperative. Transporters are off-line."
"What happened? What's doing this?" Zevon yelled out at no one in particular.
Pointing at the forward view screen, one of the robots answered, "He is."
Looking at the view screen, Zevon saw a man dressed in black and green pointing his hand at various parts of the Shadow Chaser. Wherever the man pointed, a green light sliced pieces of his ship away the way someone would slice meat with a knife.
"Repairs!" Zevon screamed at his crew. "Quickly make repairs! He's entering the airlock. Get my weapons back – now! Seal off the airlock. Get me a visual and stop him!"
"No one move," said a voice coming from the doorway entrance to the bridge. The voice belonged to the winged woman who was holding her weapon in her right hand and tapping it in her left hand. Next to her stood her mate. He looked …unhappy, Zevon thought.
"Attack!!!" Zevon yelled out to his crew.
xxxxxxx
Satisfied that he had disabled the ship enough so that it was no longer an offensive threat, Stewart cut an entry hole into the ship next to an airlock, and then cut a hole into the airlock itself.
Standing in the airlock and using his ring, he willed himself through the closed hatch and into the ship itself.
"Intruder," a silver-skinned being called out as Stewart entered the area on the other side of the airlock.
The area appeared to be a large cargo holding area. Four similar silver-skinned beings rushed at Stewart as he quickly levitated above them. Forming a giant hand, he grabbed the creature that had first sounded the intruder alert and swung him like a bat into the other four beings.
The figures landed in a heap at the rear of cargo area. Two of the beings broke with sparks flying from the broken bodies. Stewart threw the being he had used as a bat into a corner wall where it slumped.
"Homerun," he said knowing the broken figures wouldn't or couldn't appreciate his little joke.
Stewart set off to follow the homing signal of J'onn's commlink.
xxxxxxx
With Zevon's order for his robots to attack, Hawkgirl launched herself in the air and swiftly attacked the five robots at their stations. Her attack was efficient and fatal. One of the robots reached for her but instead caught the blow of her mace in the chest breaking him in half. Another pointed its arm at her as if it were about to fire a weapon of some sort. With one swing of her mace she hit and destroyed that robot's arm and head on the forward swing and smashed another robot in the head on the back swing. She then smashed a fourth robot in the head and broke the fifth machine in half with another angry swing of her weapon. Electrical sparks, smoke and wires flew in the carnage she unleashed.
Meanwhile J'onn moved at lightning speed and grabbed Zevon by his robe and lifted him up. The Martian made no attempt to conceal his anger, rising in height so that Zevon's feet no longer touched the floor.
"Wait," Zevon cried out, struggling in J'onn's grasp.
"Why?" J'onn asked, tightening his grip on Zevon. "Why do you deserve mercy after what you did? After what you tried to do?"
"Kill me and you will sentence a whole species to extinction!" Zevon screamed out. J'onn loosened his grip on the red-skinned alien and lowered him so that his toes just touched the floor. "Go on," J'onn hissed. Hawkgirl stood at his side.
"Fifty years ago," Zevon answered, "Satzor exploded but before it did, I was created to harvest the DNA material of the planet's highest life form and with the right host, I can recreate this lost race. I am positive the winged one is the right host. She scans much better than those on the other ship that escaped from us."
"You were created?" Hawkgirl gasped. "What are you? A robot? An android?"
Zevon's tone suddenly changed. "I am a harvester," he said flatly.
"You are a machine," J'onn corrected.
"This ship is a machine designed to save a civilization. I am the pilot of this machine," Zevon replied. J'onn noticed that Zevon seemed to be getting heavier in his grasp.
"You are the interface of a machine," Hawkgirl snapped back. "And this machine is a prison. You've ruined and terrorized countless lives over the last fifty years in an attempt to bring back a dead civilization. The dead should remain dead. This ends now."
Zevon suddenly enlarged himself until he was three times the size he was when the Leaguers first encountered him. He grabbed J'onn and threw him against the far wall. "It will not end now!" Zevon yelled.
Leaping in the air, Hawkgirl tried to hit Zevon with her mace but was swatted away like a fly before she could make contact with him. She landed in the lap of a half-crushed and still sparking robot she had destroyed just moments earlier. J'onn flew at Zevon and punched him in the head. The robot faltered but didn't fall. Almost as if in desperation Zevon grabbed J'onn by the throat. At first J'onn clutched at Zevon's hands as he tried to strangle him. Suddenly the Martian phased through Zevon's hand, stepped back and hit the surprised robot in the chest. Growling, Hawkgirl leaped back into the air and hit the robot in the back sending it forward into a crushing right hand blow from J'onn. The head of the giant robot flew across the room and the body of the machine interface called Zevon fell backward in a heap.
The lights on the bridge immediately clicked off as the gravity generator apparently shut down. With the loss of gravity, the two heroes --- and all the loose wreckage strewn about --- started floating.
xxxxxxxxx
At that moment the Green Lantern had made his way to the bridge and using his ring, cut an opening in the bridge door. As he entered the bridge, he saw Hawkgirl and J'onn floating among the wreckage. It's real easy to see her handiwork. He noticed she had a wide smile on her face when she apparently saw his green glow in the darkness.
Stewart formed an energy bubble around his floating teammates. Looking at J'onn, Stewart asked, "Are we finished here?"
"We're finished," came the curt reply.
Their bubble traveled down the passage way to the airlock. Stewart cut a hole in the airlock and they exited the destroyed ship.
Once they were clear of the ship she asked, "Now what?"
"We tow this ship to Rigel Nine and get our award," Stewart said as he formed a tow line and attached it to the bow of the ship. "Then we pick up the Javelin on our way back," he added.
They started moving at high speed toward Rigel Nine with the Shadow Chaser in tow.
"I had forgotten about the award," she said a few moments later. "Hopefully they will still be happy that we showed up." She paused for a moment and then asked, "What about the DNA specimens he had?"
J'onn sighed. "We'll ask Rigel Nine to take the ship apart and find the DNA specimens. We'll come back and retrieve them and ask Superman to store them in his Fortress of Solitude."
Stewart noticed that J'onn had appeared to be sad.
J'onn nodded at the unspoken question. "It's sad in a way. If I had an opportunity to recreate my world on Mars, I think I would."
Hawkgirl answered him. "I think we would all jump at a similar opportunity but I don't think we would destroy someone else's future so we could recreate the past and that's what Zevon was doing. If we had let him go he would have continued. We were right to stop him."
"Shakespeare?" Stewart offered.
"Huh?" she replied tilting her head toward him.
"Shakespeare said 'Nothing emboldens sin as much as mercy.'"
She didn't say anything but Stewart thought that she held his arm a little tighter at that moment.
J'onn looked at her and said, "I hope the cookies have not frozen into chucks of ice by the time we get back to the Javelin."
"If they have," she said, "I have another bag at the Watchtower that I'll share with you, mate." She put special emphasis on the word mate, Stewart noticed.
"Mate? Is there something I should know?" Stewart said as he looked at both of them one at a time.
"Nothing you should know," she answered looking at J'onn.
J'onn folded his arms across his chest, grinned back at her and said to John. "Nothing for you to know."
End