Space Battleship Agamemnon

by Calculonius

In another universe, a genius inventor born in future Japan would create the Space Battleship Yamato. In this universe, he was born in 1910 Britain. In 1927, HMS Agamemnon was sent to his family's scrapyard. He kept it and tinkered with it for fun for 60 years, resulting in the Space Battleship Agamemnon. This is the story of the Space Battleship Agamemnon and its crew.

33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

They landed in Brockton Bay, without their concealing mist cloud around them, and within a minute, Lisa had called them.

"Sprich mit Basil Snodgrass. Boz darling, how marvelous it is to have you back again. Did you miss me?" Lisa teased. "But nevermind the obvious, there is so much to tell you! I expect that first you want to know about the food you came to pick up. There is good news and bad news. One of your two boxcars of grain is here waiting for you. In addition, you also have a boxcar of pistachio nuts here waiting for you."

Boz started to speak but she cut him off, "yes you did order a hundred tons of pistachios - through me: remember when I said I would arrange some more food for you if you loaned me some repair robots for gathering my own coconuts? Well you did and I did and here it is. Pistachios were cheap, available quickly, and also provide a good bit of variety for all the grains you were getting. They store well too."

Again Boz started to speak and she cut him off, "you're welcome. And yes, the bad news is that the other boxcar of grain you ordered is delayed again. It is expected to arrive tomorrow The diesel engine pulling that train ran out of fuel - some got stolen while the train was in motion, by some very daring criminals with a siphon system - and it has taken until this morning to get it some more. But it is moving again - though slowly because the tracks are in poor repair - so tomorrow's predicted arrival is likely to actually happen. And you should be glad, since this presents us with a golden opportunity!"

Boz paused a moment, then asked, "OK, I'll bite: 'what golden opportunity is that'?"

"I'm so glad you asked," Lisa purred, "Wisconsin, like everywhere else, has been getting harder and harder to ship to and from, as society slowly breaks down under continual cape violence and the infrastructure crumbles from lack of maintenance due to the poor economy. But they haven't run out of cows or grass and such, so they've still been making a lot of milk. Milk doesn't store well, and the classic answer to that is to make cheese, which does store well."

"Yes," Boz chimed in, "historically they got nicknamed 'cheese-heads' for similar reasons. The land supports ranching better than farming..."

"Exactly," Lisa cut him off, "so they have warehouses full of cheese they are desperate to sell, but can't ship, and you and I are the solution. Loan me 200 more repair robots, and I will have two boxcars full of cheese for you. You won't even have to wait. I've checked the schedules and that train can catch up to the one pulling your grain. Just put my 200 robots in Chicago, next to the big white building in the center of the main railyard, and..."

Boz cut her off, "Lisa..."

She interrupted him in turn. "yes you do need cheese. You're storing an emergency food supply in case the crops fail on Mars, and you think you probably have enough. But you don't. And you don't have adequate nutrition either. The cheese helps with both those problems. A boxcar with 100 tons of food sounds like a lot, but for a colony of 5000 people, it's short rations for 40 days. Forty days is not enough to bring in a whole new crop, and even the 120 days you've got may not be enough if, for example, there needs to be some prep work - such as dome repair - before replanting can be done. This gives you a buffer against such things, and a much better diet while on these emergency rations."

"Lisa..."

She interrupted again, "OK, you're not sold. So I'll sweeten the deal. I've been talking with Dinah - lovely girl helps out here at CAPES after school, and her predictions have made a big difference. Anyway, during the time she spent there on the battleship with you, she observed that you're not getting the most out of your equipment. She said the controls are labeled with pictures not words, and you haven't got a manual, so you don't know what all the pictures do. I can help. You are already well familiar with the fact that I figure things out very well..."

"It's your super-power," Boz interrupted, "I figured that out long ago."

"Oh Boz honey, I'm so happy we're getting to know each-other so well!" Boz could practically hear the smirk in Lisa's sarcastic reply. "But seriously," she continued, "that's a secret - don't spread it around. A cape's secret identity is often life-or-death class information."

She paused, waiting to hear agreement.

"If you don't know by now that you can trust me, you're not paying attention. But for the record, I'll be good." Boz offered. "I won't share your secret with others."

"See that you don't," she huffed.

Then she was back to acting sweet and friendly again. "Just think Boz honey how much more fun you'd have playing with your equipment if you let me help! I can write manuals for you, detailing what all the controls do, what the options are, and so on. There are certainly some functions you're unaware of, and this will open that up. Further, if your grandfather left any notes, I could help sort those out and include any such information in the manuals."

Boz snorted. "Even Grandpa had trouble following his notes: he'd jot down ideas and partial ideas on whatever scrap of paper was handy at the moment, even if it already had other unrelated notes on it. I think it'd be a challenge even for you."

"But," Lisa purred,knowing she had him, "if I succeed, even partially, think how incredibly useful that would be to you."

"OK, you've got me, and you know you do. Deal"

"No, we have a start to a deal." Lisa countered. "I'll get you the two boxcars of cheese and write your manuals - you realize that may take me a couple days' work, right? And in exchange you loan me 200 repair robots, plus some other favors we will negotiate - nothing objectionable to you, and all things that your ship and it's equipment can do for me which won't cost you anything during the time you're already here. Deal?".

"Deal" Boz would have agreed even if the price had been almost unbearable - those manuals would make a huge difference,and he didn't even know anybody but Lisa who could make a meaningful attempt at writing them. With her super-power - which he thought of as "Sherlock Holmes on steroids, supported by the internet" - she might even manage to figure out things that even Grandpa had forgotten, like which note referred to what.

"Excellent!" Lisa chortled. "Oh Boz honey, I'm so happy to see you participate in our baby's growth and development like this! CAPES would not have been born without your help, and because of your help,it has been growing up quickly and well. This'll help a lot with that too. Chicago was once a rail hub and I can see why. With just the little effort we've already been able to put in refurbishing things here, we are already seeing big results. We've already had three loaded trains pass through here, and these new robots you're sending will get us connected to Wisconsin and other suppliers, plus get a couple more steam engines out of a museum and functional again. Those are working quite well, since they mostly run on coal - which nobody wants to steal, unlike diesel fuel. And we already have some coal stockpiled in strategic spots. Coal was one of the things people kept producing in hopes that things would get better and they could sell it later. So there's vast piles of it ready to ship and it's been the thing we've shipped most of, at this point."

"I'd have thought you'd focus on shipping things with higher profit margins," Boz speculated.

"No, no, Boz dearest," Lisa teased, "You forget the environment we're in. If you ship valuable things, you invite attack by super-villains. That's what wrecked the transportation industry in the first place. And shipments of high-value things still get stolen all the time. No, CAPES' success comes, in no small part, from the twin facts that our shipments are well-defended, and not worth attacking. So far we've shipped trainloads of cement, coal, salt, lumber, cow manure, scrap metal, and bricks."

"Can you make enough profit on those to stay in business?" Boz asked.

"Oh yes. The amount a person can carry - say a hundred pounds or so - of any of those isn't worth much, but a whole trainload is."

Lisa chuckled, "no robber in his right mind would choose to battle through defenses like ours in order to gain the rich, rich prize of all of the coal he can carry. Of course, there are people out there who are not in their right minds, so we do still get attacked, but only by the real loons, most of whom have to operate alone, since loonies aren't fun to team up with."

"I certainly wouldn't want to follow someone with, shall we say, a weak grasp on reality." Boz offered.

"I know, right?," Lisa agreed, "especially since that usually comes along with having a weak grasp on other important things, like planning, strategy, and tactics. So the few crazies do attack us, but they don't achieve much. Our first two train shipments both got attacked, but the defenses we had on those trains were stronger than our attackers, so we won handily. And we had a 'chase' unit of capes ready to track down, defeat, and arrest any attackers who got away. That helped too. First impressions are very important. And we're getting the reputation of being too tough to crack even if it were worth trying, which it isn't. In fact, we're as public as we can be about loading our bricks, or lumber or coal or whatever. We want everybody to know that what we're carrying isn't worth their time or effort to steal. And it is working. Though a large part of that is because our initial mistake isn't widely known."

"What mistake?" Boz asked.

"The first train we sent out went without fanfare or advertisement - since it was still a test in several ways - down to Miami Florida to meet our sailing ship - the former pirate ship - as it came north from the Virgin Islands. The thought was that the ship would stop in port after port as it sailed north, trading coconuts in every place it stopped, but only as many as the local market wanted - not enough for that port to re-sell elsewhere. We wanted the train to do the same further inland, after having met the ship and picked up a bunch of coconuts. All of that worked more or less as planned."

"But then...?" Boz prompted.

"Zoot, the costumes-focused Tinker on the ship, had developed some exciting new costumes we wanted to try out as soon as possible. So we took the first 30 prototypes off the ship and onto the train, which can go a lot faster and reach Brockton Bay sooner. But those 30 prototype costumes got stolen right off the train. They didn't take anything else - just the costumes. We're still figuring that out. Later the train also got attacked for the relatively valuable coconuts. We fought that off OK - the train has guns, missiles and capes defending it - and people do not seem to associate that train with the ones run by CAPES, so we dodged a bullet there. As far as the public is concerned, CAPES has never shipped anything remotely valuable in its trains."

"Aren't you worried about those stolen costumes?" Boz asked.

"No," Lisa answered, "TinkerTech doesn't usually last very long without maintenance by it's original Tinker anyway, and that will be even more true with prototypes. They've probably lost all abilities already, and if not, they will in another few hours. So it isn't worth spending the effort trying to track them down, except to punish the thieves. So we are looking into it, but not frantically. And in the meantime, Zoot made more ant costumes, with upgrades, and we've been using those. They make labor go so much faster. They've been a great help in building the dirigibles and other things, and are a big reason why we've already got some in service."

"You don't ship coal and bricks in those, right?"

Lisa laughed, "No, we don't. You're right there. Trains are easy to attack, being land bound and stuck on inflexible tracks. So they need to not be worth attacking. Dirigibles, on the other hand, can fly high enough they can't even be seen from the ground, especially when we paint them the same color as the sky. Few potential robbers can fly, and few of those have radar or something to help them detect the dirigibles in the first place. Also, dirigibles can follow any path they want to - not just a set of tracks that are obvious and don't change."

"So each has a niche," Boz offered, "trains carry vast amounts of low-value cargo, while dirigibles carry small amounts of presumably high-value stuff?"

"Exactly!," Lisa agreed cheerfully, "We still protect our dirigibles for that reason. And the sailing ships cover a lot of the stuff in-between. A small train can carry 100 times as much as a large dirigible, but a smallish ship like the one we started with can carry about a quarter of what that train carries. And the ship can take any path it cares to, from any port to any other port. It could be attacked at a port, except those generally have cities with solid police presence in one form or another. Still, we protect the ships too, so nobody gets any ideas. And we vary the protection, to keep robbers guessing. Though we never go with less protection than Dinah and I, in cooperation with local experts, deem necessary."

"So, in short, it sounds like business is good and looks like that will continue," Boz summarized.

"Exactly! So we're expanding, building more things, and hiring more workers, which brings us to my next request for you, dearest Boz."

"Go ahead," he sighed.

"Don't be like that - this is all good stuff which you like, and you know it," Lisa humphed. "Anyway, there is a town, Madison Wisconsin, which we need to discuss. As you were leaving last time, I asked you to hit the whole place with your Reset chemical, which you did. I wanted to see if that could fix the damage done to the people years ago when the Simurgh attacked them."

"And?" Boz asked with interest.

"That's the spirit! See, I knew you liked this stuff." Somehow Lisa's smirk was audible.

She continued, "congratulations, you're a hero...again. Apparently the way the Simurgh drives - or rather, drove, before you killed her - people insane centers around causing trauma and Pavlovian response to that. Clear out the unresolved trauma - as Reset does - and the whole thing untangles. The people of Madison Wisconsin are normal again. I snuck in with a couple of psychologists and verified it myself!"

"You had to sneak in?" Boz inquired.

"Yup," Lisa responded, "The PRT, who guard the walls around that town and shoot anyone trying to leave, are a government entity, and, like all government entities, do not change gears easily. It would take years of controlled studies and metric tons of paperwork - literally, I checked - to get the people of Madison certified sane and allowed to leave their city. That, my dearest Boz, my favorite Boz-man, is where you come in."

"I think taking out the wall and disabling the guards is not what you have in mind, since it'd just prod the government into new efforts to contain those people. So I'm guessing you'd like a teleport portal from there to... a place where they can live normally for a while?" Boz speculated.

"Bingo! Oh it is so lovely dealing with people that use their brains!. Yes, dear Boz, I have places being prepared for them in Chicago, where I need workers anyway for the re-invigorated railyards. They need jobs and want out, so it's a 'match made in heaven' so to speak. Just like you and I! But note, if you marry me, I'm not taking your last name. Snodgrass? Ew! I don't know how you live with it."

Boz, noting that ignoring her fake flirting wasn't making it go away, tried a new tactic and played along, saying, "What then, are you going to hyphenate last names? That's awkward and unsustainable: after just four generations of folks doing that, you're stuck with 16 names hyphenated together. Or 32 names at the 5th generation. No, at some point, names have to be dropped, and the moment of marriage is the logical time to do it. Anyway, when do you want the portal, and exactly where in Madison should link to exactly where in Chicago?"

"Beth owes me a dollar," Lisa cackled, "I bet her I could get you to loosen up and you just flirted back, sort-of. But as for the portal: we'll be ready by tonight, and night time would be the best time anyway. I'll call you when we're ready. When we do, make the portal go from in front of the courthouse in Madison, to just south of the white maintenance building in the center of the Chicago railyards."

"Can do," Boz said, "But give us another call about 7 hours before you expect to be ready - it'll take us that long to fly 180 miles from Brockton Bay to Madison."

"Uh, Boz honey, I think you may need some medical help. Madison is about 1200 miles from Brockton Bay, not 180 miles. Have you been up all night or something? If so I hope it was fun!" she finished playfully..

"You are thinking two-dimensionally. Instead, we're going to fly 100 miles straight up, so we can use the star drive, then zip almost instantly to a point above Madison, then descend 80 miles to put them in range for our teleportation portal to go directly from Madison to Chicago without having to set foot on my ship. For a city's worth of people plus their luggage, such a direct trip will be a lot faster."

"Nice thinking, my darling," Lisa responded. "Now on to another matter."

"You had mentioned that there were other cities attacked by the Simurgh and now walled-off - is it time to hit all those with Reset?" Boz asked.

"Not yet. First we need to get the folks out of Madison while nobody is really paying attention. Then we hit all the other cities, which will get them all scrutinized, but at that point that's not a problem." Lisa responded.

"Then what?"

"There is a cape I want to rescue and/or recruit. She's in the clutches of some very corrupt government folks and it's all an unspeakable travesty of justice."

"Go on," said Boz, interested.

"Her cape name is Canary, and she's been on trial - the worst sort of show-trial, with all the flagrant injustice you can imagine - for a crime she didn't commit. At worst it was self-defense, but in fact her idiot, sicko, ex-boyfriend is entirely at fault for instigating a confrontation then misinterpreting what she said. And the government knows she is innocent. But they want to 'make an example of her', since she is a type of cape they are particularly afraid of - a Master than can control humans."

"Sounds pretty bad. Maybe we'll need to 'make examples' of those corrupt officials. Tell me more." Boz responded in a flat tone.

"Oh Boz, It's awful! They've got her gagged and won't even let her talk to her lawyer. She can't give her side of the story at all - not even in writing. There is no excuse for that and they know it. And, to add insult to injury, they've got her in chains - specifically they're using Brute Restraints rated for keeping even super-strong capes incapacitated. There's no call for that. Nobody has even suggested she has super-strength. But they put those on when they arrested her and they haven't taken them off for any reason - not to eat, visit the bathroom, nothing! Those, and other abuses, are so extreme that even the stupid people among us can see that, if the government can arbitrarily do that to an obviously innocent person, they could do it to me, or anyone else. Nobody has any safety once the legal system becomes the weapon of the corrupt people in power!"

"Very true, Lisa. And that's why I and my crew will not only rescue Canary, but will also 'make an example' of the folks doing this to her. We have to. If they got away with this kind of thing, the rot would soon spread until little or nothing sound was left of your government. But if they are publicly held accountable, it may be possible to reverse that trend - to keep some people honest who might otherwise have gone corrupt; maybe even make some semi-corrupt ones back off on their corrupt activities, at least until they can figure out some way to assure themselves that things have gone back to where no one is watching."

"And from me," Lisa added cheerfully, "you will need a list of the corrupt people at fault in this case, so you can hold them accountable! Don't worry, I'm on it. I'll get you names, locations, and lists of their misdeeds - both summaries, as well as whatever proof I can get. With that, plus the ways you already have of determining who is, and is not, a bad guy, I expect you will be able to target them with confidence!"

"Thanks Lisa, that's perfect. We just want to bring justice to the bad guys, not target folks who are, for example, merely jerks." Boz said.

"You'll get a good list, Boz honey. We want as many bad guys hit as possible, like you said, to stop the rot. And speaking of bad guys and rot, there is one more thing I need to tell you about on this call."

"Go On."

"There is a group of super-villains called the Slaughterhouse 9. Their typical mode of operations is to travel the back roads incognito until they reach a small town, then stop there for a couple days while they torture to death everyone in that town. Then they move to the next town and repeat. They were recently in a small town in Pennsylvania, and are headed this way - well, Brockton Bay's direction: I'm actually in Chicago right now. But anyway, there are several indications that 'The Nine' may be looking to capture your battleship. So be prepared." Lisa warned.

"We just got here, how...Oh, I see, we were known to be planning to return about now. OK Well, what can you tell me about them and their super-powers? That will probably be the most important factor in the fight. I imagine they have some kind of super stealth or mobility, since otherwise the PRT and Protectorate should have caught them long since?"

Lisa actually laughed out loud, then explained, "I'm sorry dear heart! I wasn't laughing at you, but at the concept that the PRT or Protectorate could actually do their jobs successfully. Yes, you are absolutely right that they Should have stopped The Nine long ago. Should is the operative word here. As for mobility - The Nine drive around in an old bus. And they have no stealth at all either. Rather, they are extremely obvious - entire towns covered in blood are kinda hard to miss, ya know? But they've been at it for years."

"So are they effectively unbeatable in combat, or are the PRT and Protectorate just incompetent to world-class levels?"

"The latter, primarily. Oh, The Nine do have a couple members who are quite tough, but I'll let you judge, since you need the information anyway."

"OK"

"Here they are, in no particular order," Lisa began, "First there's Burnscar. She's a pyrokinetic - she controls, creates, and destroys fire. She's fireproof, can teleport from one fire to another, and can make walls of fire and all kinds of fire blasts."

"Impressive, but it also sounds like a simple bullet would take her out," Boz replied.

"It would have, but for cape two: Bonesaw. She's a surgical Tinker, also a chemistry Tinker, biological Tinker, and sort of general-purpose Tinker, in that she can make robots and whatnot when she feels like it. In addition to that B.S., she can use and maintain Tinker tech made by other Tinkers, which I don't think any Tinkers but her can do. She's a nasty piece of work known to, for example, remove, without anesthesia, the brains from random victims, place those brains in robotic spiders, and force those new cyborg spiders to serve her slavishly. Anyway, rumor has it - and there is plenty of supporting evidence - that she 'upgraded' all The Nine with internal modifications such as armoring their vitals, reinforcing their bones, enhancing their resistance to poison and disease, and probably other things as well. The armor has been observed to stop a sniper bullet."

"Are they noticeably bigger after her modifications than they were before?" Boz asked.

"No, they're the same size and appearance as before.. ahh, I get where you are going - there can't be much armor if they didn't get much bigger. Armor takes up space and there just isn't much unused space in the human body."

"Bingo!" Boz replied. "I deal with a lot of armored systems - the ship, our tanks and LAV's, our robots and bulletproof vests and more. So I know some things about armor. And if The Nine didn't get significantly larger - say an inch bigger in all dimensions, at minimum, for a ballpark guess - then stopping a sniper bullet is already beyond what normal materials can do and into the realm of super-tech materials. And even super-tech materials have limits."

"But bulletproof vests are thinner than that?" Lisa asked.

"True, but not by much when you add front, and back, plus 'trauma plates'. Without trauma plates, most such vests will stop medium pistol bullets, but not rifle bullets, nor exceptionally powerful pistols. And even with trauma plates, those vests will generally not stop exceptionally powerful rifles such as snipers typically use. And a vest has a comparatively easy job - just give me a layer of protection. But putting the same thing inside a living body complicates stuff dramatically, since it has to allow for all the usual stuff going on internally. For example, it either passes nerves and blood-vessels through the armor, or routes those around the armor, or it cuts off part of you from those vital functions. That's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. And every bit of such complications either diminishes the protection offered by the armor, by opening holes through it, or increases the weight and volume of armor needed - trying to cover holes is usually done 'lobster-tail' fashion, and that requires overlap, which means extra armor to cover the same area."

"Yah, yah, yah, I got it," Lisa was saying.

"But there is so much more," Boz insisted, so energetically that she let him continue. "All that was just about stopping the bullet, so it does not penetrate and tear up a bunch of tissue. But, even if you stop the bullet, it still transmits it's kinetic energy to the target. In other words, being shot in your bulletproof vest still feels like being beaten with a baseball bat, even if it stops the bullet. That can break ribs, which, in turn, can puncture lungs and still kill you. People can even die just from beatings. And being hit a few times in your bulletproof vest will definitely feel like a world-class beating. More so for The Nine, since their bulletproof bits are inside, meaning more overall bruising plus some flesh does get penetrated and start bleeding."

He paused, wondering if Lisa was still there, and heard, "Are you done?"

"One more thing," he continued, "In no situation can you have unlimited armor. There are always limits, such as the amount of weight you can carry. And so people design their armors as they must - to stop the anticipated threat, but no more. So armored personnel carriers are armored against the expected threat - enough to stop shrapnel, plus rifle and pistol fire, possibly including medium machinegun fire, but no more. It is not a flaw that they are not armored against tank guns, for instance, since their mission is not to engage tanks. And if they were armored to that level, the weight of the armor involved would severely impair their mission - transporting infantry across a battlefield - due to carrying armor instead of infantry. Anyway, my point is that there are many factors limiting what Bonesaw could have achieved with this armor. I've barely even touched on some of them, but I can tell you're tired of hearing about it, so I'll shut up with the last comment that I'm sure heavy machineguns or light cannons could disregard this armor and shred people without a super-power protecting them somehow. Our ship has several weapons that could easily cut through a human-sized solid block of armor steel. So I don't think we'll have a problem with Bonesaw's armor."

"All done now?" Lisa asked.

"Close enough." Boz replied

"OK, take a nice deep cleansing breath Boz Honey..."

Boz did

"... hold it a couple seconds, then let it out and say 'it'll be OK, my nice pretty guns won't be useless..."

Boz's laughter cut her off.

A moment later he added, "they are kinda pretty, you know. But point made. Now back to business."

"Right you are, Boz my dear. Back to Bonesaw. While she is known to make things like cyborg spiders, she doesn't go around accompanied by any, we're not sure why. What she does usually have with her is some of the product of her chemical and biological Tinkering. She favors smoke bombs with variable effects - one may kill, while another disorients or causes hallucinations. She even has one smoke bomb that kills all pathogens, plus insects and even small rodents. She has that one in case one of the products of her biological tinkering get out of hand. Those are various forms of plague. Imagine all the worst sorts of plagues and you'll have the idea. She is even rumored to have put some capsules of really nasty plagues within her own body, designed to be released if she gets killed."

"So, while a 40m round could penetrate more armor than she could possibly carry, and kill her no problem," Boz couldn't resist pointing out, "It would release world-ending plagues to do so?"

"Yes."

"OK, then we'll need to disintegrate her, or use one of those bombs from Bakuda that turn everything living to glass. Either of those will take her out and her pathogens as well." Boz commented. "Next."

"The third cape in The Nine is Shatterbird. She has wide-area silicate control, she flies, and has armor made of many small bits of glass sort of clustered around her and held together by something like telekinesis. The Nine usually start an attack on a city by having her fly overhead and shatter all the glass in that city. Every window, computer screen, TV set, drinking glass, set of eye-glasses etc all blow up as if they'd exploded. Most people in that city are wounded, plus many killed, by that initial blast."

"You know," he said, "glass actually makes really good armor for one hit until it shatters. They tried it as one layer of composite armor for tanks, and it does really well if you can guarantee only getting hit once before you can repair it. And holding it together by tk even after it is shattered should be effective - something like a sand-bag, at least. But I digress. In short, even heavy machineguns and light cannons won't be a sure bet against her. But particle beams, positron beams, and big cannons should have no trouble. We'll just have to keep a good watch so as to take her down before she shatters the whole city. Next."

"Fourth is Jack Slash. He cuts and stabs things. Any knife he is holding can reach anything he can see, no matter how far away. The knife does not actually stretch to infinite range, but it may as well."

There was a moment of silence while Boz waited for more, then he prompted, "and?"

"That's it. That's the only power he is verified to have..."

Boz, from sheer surprise, choked on some water. There was a minute while he choked, gasped, and wheezed.

Then he observed, "With the first three, you had me thinking this group had fairly beefy powers - able, with some thought and planning, to take on just about anybody. But this one is, frankly, pathetic. He must be new to the group, right? I can't see him lasting a week in his chosen profession."

"Actually," Lisa sounded slightly confused, like she hadn't thought about it before, "he has been with the group longer than any other current member."

Boz cut her off, "Is his role basically like the towel-boy at the pool, where they keep him around to do the things nobody else wants to do, like keep watch all night, and be the butt of their jokes? Maybe he's the one who has to fuel up the bus and then drive it all night so the rest can be well-rested for their 'fun' the next day?"

"Actually, he's their leader." Lisa replied, deadpan.

Boz nearly choked again.

When he could again speak, he said, "no fair pulling my leg like that. It isn't funny and all this gasping for breath is rough."

"No, seriously Boz my love, Jack Slash leads the Slaughterhouse Nine. They do what he says. He calls the shots. He is rumored to have a Master power that affects only capes, if that helps."

"I think you can consider that rumor confirmed - it would take something like that," Boz replied, "otherwise this guy would be the abused minion of all the rest. That's how it mostly goes with folks as evil as these sound - they do not have friends, partners, or equals. Instead, they see everyone as a minion, or slave, except for those more powerful than themselves, and to whom they become minions unless they can get away from them. This guy would definitely be the slave of everybody on that team unless he did have a Master power like that."

He guffawed, "even with that, it is amazing that he is still alive. They go from town to town, killing everybody, meaning any there who can't get away may as well fight to try to hurt their killers before they die. Any of them with any weapon could have taken this guy out - it takes a minute to die from knife cuts, even very serious ones, and that is long enough to get in a return blow."

"Boz honey, you have an indomitable spirit, but most of those killed by The Nine do not. When you die, you will have a big bloody chunk of the enemy between your teeth, or your hands locked in a death-grip around your enemy's throat, or the equivalent. But most people do not think that way." Lisa offered, almost tenderly.

"Thanks, but still, any kind of ambush, or sniper attack, poison or roadside bomb etc could have taken this guy out without real risk. So, for planning purposes, I'm going to assume he has some unknown, but effective power - probably a defensive one."

"Good idea my dear. Don't take unnecessary risks. I'd hate to lose you. Anyway, Fifth we have Chuckles, who dresses as a clown, has no hygiene, has super strength in his arms and torso, and super speed in his legs and head. So he moves very fast, and 'lives' in a sped-up reality, perceiving everything outside him as moving in slow-motion."

"So," Boz mused, "he could be hard to hit, since he'd effectively have time to notice and react to any threat, and speed enough to get away from it. But lasers,are still a good bet for him, since, however fast he is, he's not faster than the speed of light. Even particle beams would probably do, since they move a good fraction of the speed of light. His super strength doesn't really matter, since we're not planning to trade punches with him. Although knowing about it is still good, since it tells us the kinds of things he is likely to try. Next."

Lisa complied, saying, "Hatchet Face is sixth, named for his scarred-up face and the hatchet he uses as his primary attack. He has both super strength and super durability. With those, he can swing his hatchet through a car, and survive being run over by a steamroller. He moves pretty fast too. But the most feared thing about him is the aura of powers-nullification around him. Reports vary, but that aura extends for something like 30 feet all around him, and any cape within it loses all their powers while within it. Powers coming from outside it are unaffected by it though."

"So, like Jack Slash, don't take capes against him. Attack him with anything but capes. But, that said, this guy is the kind of all-around butt kicker I was imagining when you started describing The Nine - not some guy with a long knife. Anyway, the same answer applies for this guy as for Chuckles - cannons could work, but best to go with particle beams or lasers, due to their defenses. The super strength isn't really a threat, unless we're stupid, which we do not plan to be. Next."

"No, my dear Boz, you are not stupid. That's one of the things I like about you. Next we have Mannequin , the seventh of The Nine. He is a Tinker that has cyborged himself up completely. He appears now to be just a 9 foot tall battlesuit. He supposedly still has some flesh in there somewhere, but not much - maybe just a brain and a few organs. His battlesuit has a total 'Swiss army knife' approach - with all sorts of gadgets and features built-in. It has all the usual: armor, mobility enhancers, and plenty of weapons. But he also has all sorts of esoteric tricks, such as the ability to separate a limb, operate it independently and remotely, then reel it back on its chain tether. For another example, all of his joints bend in all directions."

"I'm glad to hear it," Boz replied amusedly. "no one ever has an infinite budget, whether that budget is time, money, materials, or space and weight capacity. He only has so much room in that suit, and so much weight it can lift. So every bit of that space and weight budget which he spends on reels of chain and motors to run them, he is not spending on armor or weapons. The US military used to have 'swing-wing' planes where, at high speeds, the wings were swept back for the best performance at those speeds, and at low speeds, the wings were outstretched for best performance at those speeds. Both the F-14 and the F-111 were like that. But they dropped that approach when they realized it was not worth the cost. The mechanisms to make the wings move like that weighed 2 tons. That's 2 tons the planes hauled around at all times in order to get a bit of performance boost at some times. Every bit of weight a plane hauls around impairs it's performance a bit. When they thought about it, they dropped further experiments with such things, since the overhead was not worth the benefit. So I expect that Mannequin will have spent so much of his space/weight budget on all his fancy gadgets and special tricks, that he only has enough capacity left for fairly light armor - the minimum to stop rifle bullets probably. So a 20mm or 40mm round should be plenty to stop him. But we have much bigger stuff if we need it. Next."

"OK, you should have lots of fun thinking about the next one. Eighth is Crawler. He has adaptive regeneration. So when he takes damage and does not die, he grows back more resistant to what damaged him. Repeat that enough times and he can grow back immune to what damaged him. Only the re-grown parts gain the resistance Damage him enough times and with enough types of things, and he builds resistance or immunity to all of those types of damage. Over time, this has left him looking very very freaky. He now looks like a six-legged bear-panther, covered in armor plates and spikes, and hundreds of eyes. He's the size of a van, and his legs split into tentacles at the middle joint. He can regenerate hundreds of pounds of flesh in seconds. And he can spit a potent acid."

"So, like Lung but without the wings or fire?" Boz asked.

"Yes, but don't discount the adaptation. You kept Lung down by repeatedly shooting him, That would work only a few times with Crawler before he became resistant, then immune - if he isn't already, which I'm sure he is, as far as regular bullets anyway."

"Let me just say here that, no offense to you Lisa for passing it on, but this really sounds like a fairy tale designed to scare children. It involves so many impossible things I don't even know where to begin. And that's even with acknowledging that many super-powers look impossible until you understand them. But that's different than actually being impossible, which Crawler as-described, is. For instance, There is no known substance that is immune to all damage. And if there was such a substance, it would be impossible to rebuild a living organism out of it, because, if it is damaged by nothing, then it reacts to nothing, and living organisms need to react to lots of things in order to remain alive. In fact some say that the constant stream of varied chemical reactions we undergo is what constitutes life. But nevermind. For planning purposes, we'll take his powers at face-value as presented, and still find ways to defeat him. That way, we avoid making any assumptions that may bite us later."

"Yes, dear," Lisa commented wryly.

"So the guiding principle here seems to be do not 'nickel and dime' this one. Don't, just shoot him a little bit. Don't poke him to see if it hurts him, and then if it does, try to ramp that up if you can. Instead, go for broke: when you hit him with something, hit him with as much of it as you can arrange, in case it hurts him. It he isn't hurt, then switch what you are hitting him with. But if he does get hurt, then keep pouring it on as fast as you can, for as long as it still hurts him. You never know when you may hit something vital, or pass some threshold and take him down. He can't regenerate if he's dead. And even at the rate of regenerating hundreds of pounds of material in seconds, it is possible to do damage faster than that. Heck, we have several ways just with the ship's built-in weapons."

He paused a moment and Lisa let him think.

He resumed, "Then, if it turns out that nothing we have can kill him, we try other things. Maybe we can banish him, like we did with Lung. Or maybe drag him into space and leave him coasting slowly towards another star, to arrive in a few thousand years. Heck, at worst, I know a black hole we can drop him into. Just try regenerating from that. Next."

He chuckled.

So did she, briefly.

She got very serious again as she said, "Ninth and last, we have The Siberian. She's been described as both the Irresistible Force and the Immovable Object. She is invulnerable - or rather, nothing anybody has ever tried has been observed to damage her at all. She can share that invulnerability with people or objects she is touching - as many as five at once. Anything in her way, she just tears right through - whether people or objects. She pulverizes everything like tissue paper. She's fast and agile. She can make impressive leaps - 300' has been observed. And she can glide - possibly by ignoring gravity, which she has also been observed to do."

"Now that," said Boz, "is the kind of thing I would expect it would take in order to defy everything the government could potentially bring to bear, if it really wanted to stop these folks. The Nine are certainly not winning any car chases in an old bus," he snorted. "And that means, as obvious as they are in their operations, that forces could be gathered against them to take them down if there was the will to do so. So I'm guessing they've got some corrupt officials in their pay, who use excuses like 'unacceptable losses' to prevent any real attempt to take them down. Because otherwise, taking them down would be pretty easy. Only Siberian, Crawler, and maybe Hatchet Face and Mannequin, would even be a problem for normal cops, with just their pistols and shotguns, to stop. Anyone with heavier weapons, like SWAT teams or the PRT, could take down all but Siberian and Crawler. And I expect that there are lots of capes who, with a little creative use to their powers, could take down the last two. So I have to wonder, why haven't they? Is this world so hopeless and broken that folks haven't even tried?"

Lisa sighed, "I think that's it, my dear Boz. They are so afraid and convinced that everything is pointless that they do not try. Even though all of The Nine have 'kill orders', which means they have already been judged guilty and punishable by death, by anyone who gets the opportunity. And all of The Nine have rewards on their heads too. But, despite generous rewards, folks generally don't have enough hope left to even try." Then she emphasized, "However - don't you give up on us. Through your efforts, we're building my CAPES organization and restoring some hope. Help me keep at it!"

"OK, Lisa," Boz smiled, "but you're going to need to prepare lawyers and legal fronts, or something like that, so that when we take down The Nine, you can collect the rewards. I imagine the government will look for every excuse to not pay out on those. Even if we can't kill The Siberian, we can get 8 for you. The Siberian will take some thinking about, but I imagine we can find a way...In fact, come to think of it, we could just use telekinesis to grab Hatchet Face and hold him next to her to shut off her powers with his nullification field, then shoot her. Yes, that should work nicely. On Crawler too. So,", he switched to his best Austrian accent and paraphrased a popular action movie, "I like you Hatchet Face - you're a useful guy. That's why I'm going to kill you last."