Chapter 2
(The Alien)
An alarm sounded on T'Nalia's watch, she placed white earbuds in her ears, and listened to the head science officer, T'Rolo, about an unconscious alien they discovered, and once they brought it onboard, all the people within the quarantine with it suddenly died. She searched the crowded stadium for the quickest exit from the arena without making too much of a raucous, but didn't see a good path. She stood near the center of her classmates, and didn't want to make too much noise when she chose to leave.
"Dunak died trying to dress the alien," T'Rolo said, "T'Rauna will never understand." T'Nalia had a round face with large, black eyes, and trimmed eyebrows. Her eyelashes were large, and she looked rather young, even though she had received the highest level of education on her world. Her skin was a light, rich blue. Smooth. She had long hair, but it was in a prestigious looking bun, and she wore thin, studious looking glasses. Her athletic frame fit her trimmed waistline, but she kept her body hidden behind her pants suit Lantern uniform.
Dunak wasn't a T, but he was smarter than anybody she had ever met, and he spent a lot of his free time around her lab. He was one of the best researchers on T'Dank's team of scientist, and everybody would feel the loss, but in the public eye, nobody would celebrate his life. Doraxians venerated the educated, but discarded the people who weren't. Dunak had enough credit hours to become a T, but refused to write his thesis, take an apprenticeship, and even when the Council of Educators pleaded with him, he shrugged them off. He made so many gadgets through the years that benefited people in the medical field, but his hubris wouldn't let him take lessons from a T. He made a pain inhibitor that doctor's placed in the lower back of people with chronic pain, and saved a lot of people from a life of addiction. If not for his sister, T'Rauna, his contributions to Doraxia would have been lost.
The report on the alien was disconcerting to her because she hadn't ever heard of a being with that kind of power, but deep in the Lantern Corp archives, there was a listing of all kind of super beings with strange powers. Her heart sank into her chest as she received the message, and then she immediately exited the graduation ceremony with the rest of the active Lanterns. She felt the eyes of the crowd on her as she exited to the rear, but she wasn't much for the pomp and circumstance. If she had to help one of her world's science vessels, she realized it would be a long while before she would rest her feet in her home city of Glassco with its rows of Mountains. The mountains were a beautiful site, and she missed them every day that she spent on Oa. She grew up in an ascetic community in the mountains, and lived off Madi meat and berries. It was a simple life, but books and studying was paramount in her family. Oa, on the other hand, was a place she thought was horrid from the first day she set foot on the planet. She felt good about leaving the place.
At her fastest, it would take her two arduous weeks to meet up with her comrades, and from what she could tell, the science vessel picked up the alien about a day earlier. She calculated she could meet up with them about a light year from Earth, and she already advised them to put a lead base protective shield around the creature to shield the ship from his negative energy. She even suggested that the scientists jettison the specimen into deep space, but that was met with a staunch objection from the scientific community on the ship and her home world, and with the way her people cherished science and new discoveries, she completely understood their oppositions to her suggestion. In the report on the alien, they thought he was Kryptonian, but the scientist still couldn't penetrate the being's skin when not in the vicinity of a yellow sun.
T'Nalia loved the open space, the darkness, and simply being by herself to her thoughts. But because of her extensive studies, she hadn't had the opportunity to explore the galaxy like she wanted as a child. From the time she could walk, she wanted to travel to other worlds, and now that she was a Lantern, she planned on doing just that. With all her degrees and her T, she believed she had everything needed to absorb other languages and study other cultures throughout the universe.
Her parents—important people in her ascetic community—spent a lot of money sending her to the best schools. Her "T" came with a lot of weight behind it, but she never flaunted it. Now she was a Green Lantern, she felt a bit of adulation with that title because it carried a lot of weight too; it was an accomplishment that made her feel good on the inside. The last Lantern didn't live up to his position because he misused his ring, and the Lantern Corp stripped him of it after he was convicted of hijacking a freighter. Besides, he was getting long in the tooth, and barely had the strength to wield the ring. He was an embarrassment during ceremonies when he'd barely be able to stand because of his arthritic joints. He said that the ring, "Put the years on," but that was a lie. It was his black heart that did that in T'Nalia's opinion. It was the fact that he didn't have integrity, and when T'Nalia took the oath, she meant it. She didn't plan on going down his path, and made sure all of her finances were in order before she donned the uniform. Everybody said that a broke man was an untrustworthy man, and even though her parents had plenty of money, she never asked them to help her financially.
Even though her upbringing prepared her for the Lantern Corp, she still carried doubts in her heart about her abilities, and she hated having that doubt. She had done well in Lantern Basic, but now she was a vagabond in the universe, she had to play the game for real because misuse of the powerful ring could destroy an entire world like Jon Stewart did. He was a main topic of what not to do with the power ring. On top of that, she worried about her place in the Lantern Corp because T'Dank, one of her professors, pulled some strings so she'd be the next in line for the ring. It was easy since she had become a National hero, but T'Dank pulled those strings in the hope that they could rekindle their relationship. On some level, she hated him for using her like he did, but she knew the deal when she signed up for it. She saw the girls roaming around his flat, and leaving half dressed all the time; and even with her disgust of all that, she eventually found herself being one of the same girls she despised. He was notorious for having a litany of girlfriends, and she didn't enjoy being one of many. But at the same time, she knew the first time they laid together she was just his next notch, his next conquest, and to think she was anything more was ludicrous. She blamed herself for her naiveté. Her ascetic life never prepared her for college professors, but college professors prepared her for college professors. After T'Dank, she made sure never to travel down that road again, and to be honest, the idea of having another relationship with a professor never crossed her mind.
Suddenly, an alarm on the panel made her blood run cold, and she looked at it with fear in her eyes because she didn't expect to do any work as a reserve Lantern so soon. The alert was louder than it needed to be since she was sitting right next to it. Somebody was trying to communicate with her because they were in trouble, but she felt a little shaky about answering it. She didn't know if she was on or off duty in her reserve status, but she had an obligation to answer it nonetheless. The majority of active Lanterns were off on a faraway planet fighting against a powerful scourge. There were reports about the dire situation, but the Lantern Corp downplayed the Lantern casualties at first.
Her communications com blared so loudly that it caused her stress, and she almost lost her lunch. The alarm was a loud ring that drove her crazy. It started off too loud. Her heart sunk into her chest for a moment, and then she finally pushed the button.
"Our world is under attack by three Yellow Lanterns. If you hear this transmission, the people of Thoraxia need your help."
T'Nalia pulled up Thoraxia's payment history to the Lantern Corp, and they were delinquent over two years, and that came to the amount of fifty two million dollars in gold. One of her first lessons in Lantern Basic was to check if a world owed the Corp money, so she checked their record, and they did owe money. The Lantern Corp didn't make excuses for worlds that didn't pay because as far as they were concerned, there wasn't an excuse. If a world didn't pay its yearly fees, the Lantern Corp would assist them against a more powerful alien threat.
Every world had a stockpile of precious metals, and the planet of Thoraxia should have been using its people to extract the ore. She could tap into every planet's payment history, and know if they were delinquent or not, and if they were delinquent in payment, help came at a huge price. The Lantern Corp wouldn't move an inch to help out any planet who chose to stop payment, and T'Nalia knew that. There was a time in history that the Lantern Corp didn't care about money, but the universe changed over time, and every industry was for profit. The Lantern Corp demanded money up front, and the majority of the Lanterns were nothing more than escorts for expensive cargo ships.
She changed the channel to the Lantern's private secure channel, and spoke directly with Central Command. "Lantern Corp, this is T'Nalia The Blue Ghost. Over."
"Go ahead, Blue Ghost. Over."
"I'm receiving a distress call from Thoraxia," she said, "I find they're delinquent on payment. Can I assist them? Over."
"Hold on, Blue Ghost," Central Command said. She waited for what seemed like a long time, and then said, "That's a negative. Every world must be within compliance under Paragraph 561 of the SOP. Over."
"Yes, sir. They are invaded by three Yellow Lanterns. Over," she said. She thought to herself for a moment, and couldn't believe the Lantern Corp would let an entire planet succumb to the Yellow Lantern Corp.
"Under Paragraph 562, you can negotiate payment on the spot, but it's your choice. If they don't pay after you assist them, the penalty is enslavement of two million of its people. Over."
"I will try that method. Out."
She changed the channel back to an open frequency, and made a call. "Thoraxia, this is the Green Lantern of Doraxia, The Blue Ghost. Over."
She heard some pings on the frequency, and then a woman's voice. "We need you, GL. The Yellow Lanterns are ravishing my world. Over."
"Who are you, ma'am? " T'Nalia said, "Are you a person of importance? Over."
"The President of Ida City," she said, "I have the ability to make decisions on behalf of my world. Over."
"The GL Corp is missing two payments from your world," T'Nalia said, "This is very serious business, and will impede any help to your planet. Over."
"We have the payment, but only if you rid us of the Yellow Lanterns," she said, "Without your help, we won't have anything left. Over."
"Will do, but the amount of fifty two million is non-negotiable," she said, "Without payment, it will bring the wrath of the Lantern Corp down on your world. Over."
"We understand the deal. Please hurry. Out."
She hid her ship on the far side of the Thoraxian moon called Little Thor, and it was a beautiful red moon with an atmosphere. The moon had several satellites around it, and the ability to transmit information to the main planet. The population on the moon was said to be around twenty-two thousand people according to her palm computer, but the planet itself had a population of two billion. Her palm computer pinpointed the Yellow Lanterns in a city called Vlad, a peaceful city in the Northern Hempshire of the planet. The population size of the city was approximately ten million, and it was the seat of power for the Northern Hemisphere of Thoraxia. The entire planet experienced a plague that wiped out over half of their population nearly two years ago, and the city of Vlad had a worn infrastructure. The roads had potholes in them from what looked like bombing from the great war. Many of the buildings were dilapidated, and when she flew down to the city of Vlad, she could smell the dead bodies in the streets. The planet once had four billion people, but a plague called the phage killed two billion people. The government placed two thousand people on the moon for safety, and the population swelled to twenty two thousand. More likely than not, it was the phage that caused the Thoraxian people to stop payment to the Lantern Corp. It was unfortunate because the Lantern Corp had the medicines that could have stopped the phage, but since they stopped payment, the Lanterns weren't obligated to help them.
When T'Nalia landed in front of the Lantern Embassy, it was desolate. It looked like the building hadn't had any occupants in over twenty years, but the Lantern of their world would have been reassigned only two years earlier. She walked up to the fully reinforced door, and stuck her lantern ring into the slot, and the entire building activated. It allowed her to walk inside, and she saw a large portrait of their Lantern on the wall. His name was Sage, and he left Thoraxia, and served on the Oa Protection Force. The computer that controlled the building came online, and spoke to her.
"Welcome, T'Nalia, Lantern of Doraxia," the computer said, "I am Drea."
"Hi, Drea," T'Nalia said, "Can you analyze the Yellow Lanterns who are on this world?"
"Hold on. This will take a second," she said, "We have Brute Talon, Corbin Chase, and Throb Lex. They're killers."
"Can you ascertain their reason for being here?" She asked.
"They unleashed the plague on this world," she said, "They came to finish what the plague didn't do."
"Drea, send an alert to the Lantern Corp on these deviant's mission," she said, "If I'm not back in a day, alert the corp of my demise."
"Yes, ma'am. Good luck," Drea said.
T'Nalia took flight, and flew into the middle of the city where she saw two of the Yellow Lanterns randomly killing people on the street. It was nothing but chaos, and she could hear the screams of women and children begging for their lives. She charged the two Lanterns, and a strong knife like beam came out of her ring, and cut through the two Lanterns' yellow rays. She put so much force behind her beam that it took the two Yellow Lanterns off their feet. When they fell to the ground, T'Nalia hit them with a pancake shaped swatting device that smashed them into the middle of the street. There green blood flew in every direction, and she couldn't believe that she killed them so easily. That wasn't her first intention, but when she saw them targeting children, she lost all control of her powers.
Suddenly, she felt something heating up the air around her, and her ring automatically put up a protective shield, and it caused her to fly randomly into a far wall. She hit it hard, and fell to the ground. When the burly Lantern charged toward her, she hit him with a power saw beam, and it sliced him into two pieces.
T'Nalia collected the yellow power rings from the dead Yellow Lanterns, and stuffed them in her coat pocket. She knew they were young, untrained lanterns when she defeated them so easily, but the Green Lantern Corp demanded their deaths. When it came to the Yellow Lanterns, Green Lanterns were ordered to kill them at all cost. She felt somewhat relieved at the easy kills, but she had read all about Sinestro and the Yellow Lantern Corp, and they were a serious threat. The instructors on Oa called it the Sinestro Corp, but he disappeared nearly twenty years earlier, and now there was a new leader, but she didn't know his name. She referred to them as the Yellow Lanterns, and their power came from the amount of fear they instilled in others.
T'Nalia straightened out her overcoat, and she looked professional in her clothes. Her Lantern uniform wasn't the skin tight suit because of her ascetic lifestyle. She wore conservative clothing that broke up the outline of her body. The people of Ida, at least the ones on the street, slowly came out of their hiding spots, and greeted her. The Yellow Lanterns had killed hundreds of people in what appeared to be senseless carnage. The people who lived through the mess had blood dripping down their faces, and crying. She immediately noticed the Thoraxians had pointy ears with a bluish, almost glowing type of skin. It wasn't like her skin that was merely solid blue. Their eyes were large and black, but T'Nalia saw them as beautiful, and from what she saw in them, they were svelte frame people, and graceful.
She looked at her palm computer, and Drea asked, "Yes. What can I do for you, Lantern?"
"Locate the President of Ida," she said, "She owes the corp money."
"Sorry, ma'am," Drea said, "I can't detect her at all."
"Do you know if she's dead?" T'Nalia asked.
"I don't know. She's nowhere in the city or on the planet."
"Can you detect her presence on the moon?" T'Nalia asked.
"There she is," Drea said, "She's on the moon."
T'Nalia flew into space, and within minutes, she was on their moon, and it had its own gravity and breathable air. The weather was painful for her because she liked the temperature around one hundred and thirty degrees, but the temperature on the moon was around seventy-eight. She walked down a narrow section of town, and had the location of the President on her palm computer. She walked around a corner on the far side of the space base, and a group of soldiers tried to attack her. They hit her with a barrage of yellow plasma balls, but her green shield engulfed her body. The force of the plasma balls threw her against the wall, and the only way she could get away was roll on the ground, and in doing so, a green lasso came out of her ring, and tied all the soldiers up, and then slammed them into the walls of the buildings.
"Where's the President of Ida?" T'Nalia asked the soldiers struggling to climb to their feet. "I am the Lantern of Doraxia. I asked this with the weight of the Lantern Corp behind me." The soldiers stood strong in front of her, and they looked like they wanted to attack, and as soon as they leaped into action, a giant fish protruded out of her ring, and punched the soldiers into the ground. "We can do this all day." Easily, she flew into the air, and moved past the soldiers, and her palm computer pointed her to a cottage at the end of the block. It was a gentle looking building, unassuming in appearance, but when she moved closer to it, it transformed into a fortified, mechanized weapon. It launched a surface missile at her, and she grabbed it with a giant green hand, and tossed it into space. "You gotta do better than that." She hurled a missile out of her ring, and it hit the building, and caused it to collapse. She used the graphical hand in order to keep it from falling on the occupants, and tossed the walls to the side. The President of Ida stood in front of her with her top officials.
"Payment is due," T'Nalia said in a strong, feminine voice. "Please note the cost of fifty two million dollars worth of gold is non-negotiable."
"We don't have your money," the President said. She walked towards the Lantern, and then said, "You Lanterns are all the same."
"You asked for my help under the condition of payment," she said, "Are you reneging on your promise?" She walked directly in front of the President with her narrow forehead, and beady eyes that screamed with unbridle hubris and deception.
"Indeed," the President said, "We'll never pay the money."
She pushed a few buttons on her palm computer, and then said, "Drea, the President is refusing to pay." T'Nalia looked down at the ground for a moment, and then walked away.
"What's going to happen?" The President asked. She now looked befuddled.
T'Nalia looked back at her for a moment, and asked, "Don't you know?"
"Are you going to kill us all?" She asked.
"I wish it was that easy, but it's not. The Man Bots are on their way to put millions of your people into slavery. The fate of your world has been decided."
"You Lanterns are cruel," she said, "Savages."
"You think this is easy for me?" T'Nalia asked in a strong, loud voice. She walked up to the President, and her guards tried to intervene, but she knocked them to the side. "You think I'm happy with the fact your little girls will become sex slaves?"
"We're a poor people," she said, "We can't afford fifty two million dollars in gold because of the phage."
"The price is non-negotiable," T'Nalia said softly, "Did I not explain that?"
"So, you're taking millions of our girls?" She asked.
"Your boys too," she said, "Your people will know the cruelty of slavery." T'Nalia took flight, and then said, "If I knew you'd renege on your payment, I would have never stopped."
Angered, she took off in her ship, and thought deeply about what had taken place on Thoraxia. The entire mission only took six hours, but she lost part of her soul on that mission. She played an essential part in enslaving two million people, and that weighed heavy on her heart. The thought of enslaving people didn't sit well with her, but that was what happened when a country failed to pay for services, and she tried to justify it as being part of her job. It was hard for her. The Lantern Corp had a slave trading moon called Gynic, and she studied about it during her training, but she had hoped it wasn't active. The slaves will never see their home of Thoraxia again, and they will never know freedom. Many of them will pray for death because sex with some alien species was a different kind of hell. She found herself crying because she realized that some of them might end up as food. Humanoids were a delicacy in some parts of the Universe. She felt guilty, and that feeling burned her to her core.
She thought if she used more gravitas that maybe the President of Ida would have understood the consequences of not paying her dues. She thought her clothes gave the appearance of authority, and her hair was fixed in a dignified manner according to the Lantern Handbook. But she had to admit the audacity of that woman because she knew payment was due, and chose to act with in-your-face hubris. She should have arrested her because she attacked a Lantern, and put T'Nalia's life in danger. She was torn. Some tea, some food, and some sleep might make things much clearer because at the moment, she was full of confusion. "I miss Doraxia."
The next morning she awoke, and looked down at her ring for a moment, and had a feeling that one day her ring might become an anathema to her. She already felt the consequences of helping a world that couldn't pay, and now she'd have to live with putting millions of people into slavery. She had a hard time blaming the President because in the back of her mind, she knew the President couldn't pay the bill. She had such animus against slavery that it weighed on her soul. Doraxia hadn't practiced slavery in over one thousand years, and in her mind, the Lantern Corp should have moved past such an archaic institution.
She ate a small breakfast, and had only an ort of food left that she threw into the disposal. Standing in the middle of the ship, she worked on her comportment, and ensured her posture was correct. She didn't want to look too stiff, but at the same time, she wanted that dignified look, the kind of look that turned heads when she walked into a room. When representing Doraxia, she wanted to ensure she was near perfect, and that her words carried into the hearts of all the people who heard her.
She walked onto the bridge, and sat in her command chair, grabbed the bottle of lotion and embrocated it into her hands. There was something on her monitor approximately half a light year away, and it looked like a crippled freighter. It was too far out for her to display a clear picture, but it looked like a down ship. She opened up a com to the ship, and tried to hail it. "Unknown vessel, this is The Blue Ghost, Lantern of Doraxia. Do you need assistance? Over."
She waited for a moment, and watched for any activity from the ship. She notice some space debris around the ship that looked like another ship attacked it. Pulling out her palm computer, she said, "Analyze the ship." The small device took flight, disappeared in front of T'Nalia, and reappeared next to the ship. It sent back close up pictures of the ship, and she could now tell that the ship was hit by laser fire. The palm computer flew into the hole on the side of the ship, and illuminated it. She was able to see that the occupants were dead inside. The palm computer carefully scanned every deceased member of the crew, and T'Nalia thought they died as a result of the blast. It looked like the marauders who attacked the ship stole the cargo.
"Computer, check for any dead Lanterns," she ordered, "Freighters like this have two Lanterns."
The palm computer replied. "No Lanterns; however, it would appear a Lantern might be involved in the attack on this ship."
"What makes you say that?" She asked with a look of shock on her face.
"The scorch marks, ma'am. It's classic Lantern scorch marks."
"Return, Computer," she said, "We must hurry to our friends."
She sat back in her chair, and the thought of a rogue Lantern bothered her, but the money flowed so easily in space that Lanterns fell victim to their own greed. She thought the reason she'd make a good Lantern was because she was highly educated and lived an ascetic lifestyle. Although she needed money, the amount of two gold bars a month sufficed, and it was more than enough for her to have a nice living. It took her only a fraction of one bar to fuel her ship and food needed to survive in space. The rest of the gold she saved.
She called the Lantern Corp, and the vessel had gone missing a week earlier, and that she was to be on the lookout for rogue Lanterns. She knew of the possibility of Lanterns being mavericks, but the idea of one being a traitor disgust her.
She sat at the dinner table that was located in the rear of the bridge, and enjoyed some Madi meat, a tender delicacy on her world. She often filled her refrigerator with the stuff. If she had one weakness, it was her love of Madi meat. The taste of it was something she loved so much that she dreamed about it everyday during basic.
A status report from the Lantern Corp flashed across her palm computer, and it stated twenty Lanterns died fighting the Kryptonian threat, and they planned on losing more. In all the melee, the Kryptonian losses were negligible, and they would have to resort to using kryptonite based weapons if they had any chance of saving Earth. It was a grim report that worried her because the Lanterns always feared a rogue Kryptonian. In pure strength, the Lanterns didn't think any other race of beings compared to the power of the Kryptonian. Their powers were absolute.
The Guardians' notes on Krypton were highly redacted in the archives. T'Nalia tried her best to make sense of the documents, but she couldn't. She wanted to know more about them because they were so powerful, but names, places, and entire sections of the documents were redacted and marked classified. What she did find out was the Guardians and Kryptonian people were bitter enemies, and their resentment went back a long time, some one million years. It was a time of the Gorgons, when they were in charge of the council. In those days, the people of Krypton were no different than human beings as far as strength and lifespan, and even the Kryptonian star was a yellow one. Medusa lead the council of Guardians, and was a sagacious leader who sought guidance from all her council members in the betterment of humanoid species across the universe. She loved Krypton above all other worlds, and regaled them with the best fruit trees in the universe. All the other worlds with life had plenty of food, but Krypton had the best.
T'Nalia read on, but the name of the Guardian was redacted in the document that had to do with the phage that hit Krypton. The Kryptonian people were on the verge of developing an airplane that would allow for travel around their world, and make flying horses obsolete. In those days, nobody had ever traveled the entire planet because of the planet's size. It was thirty times larger than Earth, and in those days people existed on the planet that hadn't been discovered. The best scientist in a town called Apollon worked to build the first plane to explore the massive world, but one nameless Guardian was worried at the speed in which Kryptonian technology was developing. They feared if the species took flight that they would be considered gods to the lesser developed humanoids.
Medusa scoffed at such a notion, and berated the council for myopic thinking. She was under the idea that good nutrition was the reason for Kryptonian advancements in technology, and to interfere in their development was abhorrent and against the greater good. She ordered the council to rescind any actions to undermine the Kryptonian people, but it was too late. The council members worked in subterfuge to put a disease in the grapes and the melons of Apollon's richest harvest. When the plane took flight, nobody knew except for the evil council members what was about to happen to anybody who consumed the fruit. It wasn't merely a disease that infected the person eating the fruit, but it went airborne. It crept into the septic system, food supply, and animal kingdom. It permeated into the land, and the Kryptonian people were on the brink of destruction.
Medusa sent her loyal minions to Krypton to take soil samples, and she discovered the treachery. She knew the DNA patterns of the phage, and they were similar to what some of the council members worked on in the past. When she asked why the Kryptonian people were dying, they claimed it was nature's choice to remove them from the universe. It was such an indignant thing to say that she almost killed them, but chose a different path. Her powers were incredible, but she didn't hold enough power to kill all the Guardians at once. They were immortal, and existed on a plane that wasn't easily understood.
In any case, she felt they poisoned the Kryptonian people to hurt her, and to hurt her in such a way as to force her to step down from the council. She loved the people of Krypton. They were her most cherished species in the universe. She watched the pitiable Kryptonian people dying a slow, agonizing death, and her heart empathized with them. She watched them crawling for the lakes and streams to cool their burning palates but it didn't help, for the waters were all poisoned too. The sight of the Kryptonian people dying hurt her so badly that she descended to the planet, and turned the remaining thousand left to stone. For one thousand years, Krypton was a lifeless body, and Medusa walked among the statutes of her beloved Kryptonian people. The other council members had pushed their hateful actions against the planet of Krypton out of their memories, but not Medusa. For one thousand years, her soul burned for them, and she finally concocted a formula to not only save the Kryptonian people, but make them into a race of gods.
The formula permeated into the ground, cured the streams, and revitalized the planet. She un-stoned the thousand Kryptonian people, and the drug changed them on a molecular level. They had the power to defy gravity and leave their planet without the use of a ship, and in some cases,they had the ability to move mountains. Medusa was pleased with how fast the remaining Kryptonians recovered, and watched them for years develop their powers. But when an alien vessel crash landed to earth, they helped the aliens fix their ship, and helped them back to their home world. Medusa was pleased with how well the Kryptonians adjusted to their new powers.
Medusa peeped in on one of the Kryptonian men having coitus with an alien woman behind her house. At first, she thought the sex was consensual until the woman cried out for the gods to strike down the Kryptonian Medusa removed her goggles of reverence from her eyes and saw the Kryptonians in their true form, she cried. She had lost faith in her title as a sagacious leader, and the council asked her what she planned to do about the Kryptonians. They wanted to find a way to destroy them, but Medusa didn't agree. She said she had developed a cosmic ray that could change the yellow sun to a red one, and that would take away their powers. The council agreed as long as she stepped down from the council.
T'Nalia didn't know what to make of her newfound knowledge, but didn't think she could judge beings over a million years old. She hadn't ever met a Kryptonian, and didn't desire to do so, but according to her history classes, Krypton exploded nearly two thousand years ago. She had to accept the universe wasn't a beautiful place, and now that she worked for the Lantern Corp, she had to accept they weren't perfect. Every organization had its bad seeds, and the rogue Lanterns hijacking Freighters was just one example.
Finally, she met up with the science vessel from her home world, and she landed her ship in the bay. She felt good being with familiar faces, but her heart sank as she saw people she knew laying on the floor dead. She stood behind the security glass, and looked at the pitiable creatures rotting beside the alien. She knew safety was paramount in this case, and the dead had to stay put.
The young alien mumbled, "Don't kill me, Superman!" He twitched for a second, and screamed so loudly that it rocked the ship. He had been asleep for weeks, and T'Nalia wondered if he would awaken, and if he did awaken, would he threatened them.
She sat in the cafeteria with T'Rolo, the head scientist on the ship. They ate Madi meat together, and discussed the alien. He thought the alien was only a boy, but some kind of weapon of mass destruction.
"If he's but a boy, then what makes you think he's a killing machine?" She asked. She offered him the last piece of Madi meat, but he didn't want it.
"I took some of its hair, and the DNA was resequensed by a mind like none I've …"
The ship trembled for a second, and an alarm reverberated throughout the ship. T'Nalia charged down the hallway, and saw the alien standing in front of her. He was in his uniform with the mask on his face. She pointed her ring hand at him, and said, "Don't make me hurt you.
"Please tell the family members of the deceased that I'm sorry," he said, "As long as I wear my uniform and don't touch you, I can't hurt you."
"What kind of being are you?" She asked.
"I want to see your ship," he said.
They walked down the hallway together, and her ring generated a protective field around her body. "Why is my ring activating this shield?"
"To protect you," he said, "It senses danger before you can."
"You know about Lanterns?" T'Nalia asked.
"Yes," he said, "One tried to kill me once."
"Then how are you alive?" She asked.
He stopped in the middle of the hallway, and asked, "Your ring gives you just enough power to get you killed."
"What are you saying?" She asked.
"I'm saying you Lanterns are so full of hubris that you hurl your soft bodies into danger just to be ripped apart," He said, "What makes you think a Lantern could kill me?"
"What makes you think one can't?" T'Nalia asked.
"I'm design to kill gods," he said, "My mere presence without my hood would kill a Lantern, and I wouldn't even break a sweat."
"Isn't that a bit braggadocious?" T'Nalia asked.
"You're right. All I meant to say was my name is Jimmy," he said.
"T'Nalia, the Lantern of Doraxia," she said, "I apologize for getting off to a bad start."
"No. It's my fault. I'm just saddened that my world doesn't want me any more," he lamented, "They tried to kill me for the second time, and now I'm on a starship to become a pet in a zoo."
"That's not true," she said defensively, "My people are good, caring people."
"How could they not see my differences as monstrous?"
"Because we're advanced in our thinking and ideas," she said, "We will help you."