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CHAPTER THREE
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"All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be someplace else." - Capt. Rockwell Torrey (In Harm's Way -1965)
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Droxelle watched Stewart leave, the echoes of her hoarse scream still reverberating in the room. Her body was one large ache. Her throat was raw and it was painful just to swallow. Exhausted, she gingerly sat back down on the edge of her bed. She was angry with herself because she didn't do her homework and Stewart had made it clear he knew it.
She looked at the coin on the bed and then at the ring on her hand. "Tell me about Daan-Ro," she said.
Her ring glowed in response. "Standby," the ring answered back in Droxelle's own voice. "Standby. No additional information on Daan-Ro in sector 872 beyond initial contact nine point five hours ago,"
"Consult the Central Power Battery," she said. "Tell me about Daan-Ro."
"Standby…Standby. Daan-Ro. Native of the planet Baline located in the star system Capella. This system is in sector 674. The Green Lantern responsible for this sector is Kilowog. Shall I contact the responsible Lantern?"
"No. Continue." Then she quickly added, "Wait. Tell me about the inhabitants of Baline."
"Minimal data available. Natives of Baline," the ring answered, "are sentient, myopic, yellow colored shapeshifters. Natural state is gelatinous. Physiology is unknown. Mating habits are unknown. Natives prefer planets with temperate climate."
Droxelle lowered her head and moaned, "How stupid could I be?"
"Unable to answer that inquiry," the ring answered. Droxelle looked down at her ring hand and frowned. "End inquiry!"
The ring stopped glowing and she looked back to the coin on the bed. She picked it up, closed her eyes, squeezed the coin in her hand and cursed. She knew what she had to do.
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(9 A.M. the next morning)
Stewart's sleep had been uneasy. He had an unshakeable feeling of loss that he couldn't explain. He knew Droxelle didn't need his approval or concurrence to make decisions about her life, but he felt that he had failed her, that his training didn't equip her with the tools to successfully work through this ordeal.
He'd purposely given Droxelle the time he intended to move on Daan-Ro, in hopes that she would at least be there to back him up, but also, more importantly to 'get back on the horse,' as he'd said earlier to her. He could admit it now that it was clear she wasn't going to show up. He was disappointed. So much for reverse psychology.
He turned his attention back to Daan-Ro. He'd had the shapeshifter under surveillance since early morning and watched him enter the only bar in the settlement. Stewart thought the place reminded him of a saloon from an old western, with its wooden swinging half-doors and large glass front windows. In fact, the whole settlement seemed like a post-civil war western town to him with its dirt streets and wood-like buildings. There were nine or ten large animals, similar in appearance to horses, but as large as elephants, corralled behind one of the buildings at one end of the street. At the other end of the street was a small space port capable of handling three ships the size of the Javelin-7.
Stewart was just about to make his move when a green streak passed him and landed in the street in front of the bar. It was Droxelle. She looked up at Stewart, frowned and then called inside the bar from the street, "Daan-Ro! Step outside! Now!" Stewart thought her voice sounded stronger than it did the day before.
There was no response from inside the building and Droxelle moved to the center of the street. She ringed a giant hand and punched the bar door causing it to swing violently. Then she took what looked like the gold coin Stewart had given her the day before and threw it inside the bar. "Daan-Ro!" she called out again. "I said get out here. Now! I'm taking you to Oa to be punished for your crimes."
After a few moments, Daan-Ro slowly stepped through the doorway and onto the street. "I would have thought you'd learned by now that I just want to be left alone." He started to move toward her.
Droxelle backed away from him. "Stay where you're at," she called out. "Don't move!"
Daan-Ro held his arms away from his body. "Green Lantern, don't be afraid of me. I won't hurt you again if you leave me alone. That's all I want." He continued to walk toward her. "I just want to be left alone. Why can't you understand that?"
Droxelle hurriedly backed away again, keeping distance between Daan-Ro and herself. "I said stay where you're at!"
She leaped in the air and slowly rose skyward keeping her distance from the shapeshifter and keeping the morning sun at her back. She flashed a firm but disapproving look at Stewart and said, "He's mine." Stewart, still airborne, circled to Daan-Ro's side so that Droxelle could see him and he still had an angle on Daan-Ro.
"He's yours, Green Lantern," Stewart answered.
Daan-Ro looked off to his left at the hovering at Stewart, who matched Droxelle's altitudinal distance from him. Then he turned to face Droxelle who still had her back to the sun.
"Are you afraid of me Green Lantern?" Daan-Ro said, still holding his arms away from his body. "Is that why you retreating from me? I won't hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you the last time. I just want to talk to you --- just want to convince you to leave me alone."
Stewart wanted to tell Daan-Ro to shut up and that no one was afraid of him. He wanted to tell him that he was going to be taken down hard and personally punished by him for his treatment of his fellow Green Lantern.
But he said nothing. This was Droxelle's play.
Droxelle rose a little higher, maintaining her distance between herself and the shapeshifter, but keeping Daan-Ro constantly looking into the sun. "I'm not afraid of you," she said, shaking her head. "But I think you have to get much closer than you are so that you can't miss. And you won't get any closer than you are now." Stewart nodded to himself with the realization that she i knew /i the shapeshifter was nearsighted. Then to his surprise and horror, Droxelle started to drift closer to Daan-Ro.
The shapeshifter pointed his hands at her. "Lantern, I think you're close enough now. I asked you to leave me alone and you wouldn't. Now, you must die."
"You first," she growled back as she suddenly disappeared. Both Stewart and Daan-Ro were momentarily confused by her disappearance, then Stewart realized what she'd done when she reappeared directly over the head of the shapeshifter. She'd used her ring to bend the light waves around her, making her invisible.
Daan-Ro, on the other hand, never realized what she did until she formed a bell jar and dropped it on top of him. Then she instantly froze the air inside the jar, trapping Daan-Ro who had started to leap toward her. She rapidly turned the jar upside down as she landed and froze the air one foot above the top of the jar. She made the green jar disappear, leaving behind the alien in the bell shaped block of frozen gas.
Stewart joined her on the ground and made an impatient gesture with his hand. "Did you have to kill him?"
"He left me no choice," she answered flatly. "He wouldn't come peacefully. You saw that." She didn't look at Stewart, but seemed to be concentrating on the frozen alien and the subliming gases. She lifted the block of ice up and froze more air around it. "This criminal will never harm anyone in my sector again."
Stewart shook his head. "You were supposed to bring him to justice - not administer it."
Droxelle glared at Stewart. "No. My instructions were to bring him to the Guardians. The Guardians and justice are not the same --- even I know that. I offered him every opportunity to go peacefully. You seem to be forgetting that part. I offered him life and he chose death. It was always his choice." She paused and looked at the solidly frozen shapeshifter. "He made bad choices and I did what I needed to do."
Stewart glanced back at the ball of ice. A small crowd had started to gather around them. He ringed a pair of ice tongs, lifted the frozen ball and said, "Follow me." He took off toward the clearing near the edge of the settlement next to the space port without waiting for her acknowledgement. However, he did glance back to see if she was following.
She was.
Stewart set the ball down and she landed next to him. "Droxelle, this isn't about this criminal dying," he said looking at her. Her face had an eerie look of serenity about it; a look he'd seen before in the faces of men who had survived a firefight with the enemy. "It's about you killing," he continued. "After you've killed the first time, killing becomes easier to do. Soon you don't feel anything when you do it. No remorse. No regrets. Then one day, it becomes the first weapon in your toolkit instead of your last. It doesn't matter why you kill, but once you start you need less justification and less provocation for the next one. You …."
"Stop it, John!" Droxelle looked at the ice ball then back at him. "I'm not a trainee anymore and I don't need you to preach to me. He's not the first one I've killed nor am I stupid enough to think that he'll be the last. So don't tell me what I could have done or should have done. You seem less happy that I'm alive instead of he's dead. Well, you know what, John? I'm going to take his carcass to Oa because that was my mission. Then I'm going back to Altair IV so a friend of mine who is probably worried sick about me can remind me why I'm glad I'm alive."
Stewart stood there silently. Then he took a loud, deep breath and let it out slowly, "If you require nothing else from me, Green Lantern, I'll take my leave now." For the first time since he'd known her, he felt uncomfortable around her. He hovered in front of her, waiting for her to acknowledge his departure.
She floated toward him with the ice ball in tow. "For what it's worth, John, you were right," she said softly. "I was afraid of him. I was afraid he'd hurt me like he did before." She momentarily lowered her head then looked back at him. "But I'm not afraid of him now. I don't expect you to understand it, but know that I do understand what I did."
Stewart nodded at her, but said nothing. He turned and headed back to Earth.
He reflected that Droxelle was wrong. Stewart did understand what she did and why she did it. He just wasn't sure that she understood the consequences of her actions.
Not fully. Not completely.
And as he sped away, he couldn't shake the feeling that someday that would be her undoing.
END