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#2
DEC 11 |
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“The Rakkus Gem” Part Two
The Boneblade
100,000 Miles outside The Gessil System
Zindro-Ka sat in his captain’s chair tense with the anticipation of battles yet to come. He had been charged with the task of destabilizing a world by his people’s masters, the ancient Reach. It would be done and it would be done swiftly because his people were deadly in the arts of combat. Ever since he was a nameless broodlot, Zindro-Ka had lived and breathed warfare, and this moment was something he had been waiting for more than sixty years. He just hoped the Mongesians put up a fight and did not let themselves be slaughtered like gonga fish flying to the ain-ain’s mouth.
Standing at the bottom of the small set of stair leading up to his chair was Vorla-Tex, his second-in-command. She was a robust Vuldarian with a strong eye and arms ready to rend flesh from bone. Straight as a board, she was in perfect control of her demeanor like most members of the Jecht Brood, but Zindro-Ka had known her long enough o now what lied underneath that stone exterior. She wanted this as badly as he did.
“May a thousand corpses fall before you, Brood Commander,” Vorla-Tex said with her usual formality. As leader of the Auron Brood, Zindro-Ka was to be afforded that before being addressed.
“Not before your hands taste a thousand souls,” Zindro-Ka responded. He let a silent moment pass between them and continued. “Our other cruisers should be meeting up with us shortly.”
“Yes, Brood Commander. The Bloodsport, Eyesaw and Skullscratch are all en route.”
“Then soon we shall spill blood, but I assume you are here for other reasons.”
Vorla-Tex held a white circular device with a blinking red center. Holding her arm out to Zindro-Ka, a hologram of an alien appeared from the center. It had a slender, two-armed upper body supported by six thick legs, each of which was covered on the lower fourth by blue suction cups. The blue was deep and rich to match the twenty eyes spread across an almost anvil shaped head. A series of large, connected black plates made up the rest of its body. “These are the Mongesians, Brood Commander. They move upwards to fifty Vuldecs an hour and those legs can do some damage. It is easiest to kill them by targeting the nerve cluster in the center of their chest.”
Staring at the suction cups, Zindro-Ka asked, “Are we dealing with an amphibious species?”
“Not at all, Brood Commander; Mongesians are herbivores but most of their planet’s plant life exists underground. The suction cups allow them to drain sustenance from the soil. In the event we cannot hit the nerve cluster then we should hit the cups as a large number of pain receptors are in that area.”
“Excellent intel, Vorla-Tex. Make sure the rest of the troops get it. Are the Drop Hammers and Filaists prepared?”
The mention of those genetically brewed monsters made Vorla-Tex inwardly annoyed. Those creatures were pure destruction that knew nothing of discipline and tactics. “Both are prepared, Brood Commander.”
“Good. Then we shall bathe in blood tonight.”
Mongesi
Capital City of Grek Lam Curran
For five thousand years Grek Lam Curran had been a city of influence in the world. The last one thousand Archdukes had called it home and it was where the momentous Treaty of Tooley had been signed, ending centuries of bloodshed. Ten million Mongesian souls called it home and not a single one of them expected their city to be burning before the moon lovers, Polla and Thornle, rose to greet them. How could they when war had not touched their city for nearly a millennia? Carnage and death was in places like the Middle South and Bachmann, not here in the jewel of Mongesi.
“How much for this?” the woman asked as she held up the copper bracelet to the aging merchant. She knew it was going to be expensive since copper was so rare, but her House Mother was soon to be two hundred and deserved a fine gift. Besides, with Bedine as her witness, she was not going to let Vzari show her up this year.
“That would be twenty luthors, my dear Ventriss.”
She dropped the bracelet in disgust. “Twenty luthors?! Do not think to soothe me with platitudes old man. You must take me for some foolish sapling that’ll suck up whatever you’re selling!”
“Ventriss, Ventriss,” the merchant pleaded, his twenty eyes wide and unblinking. “Copper is expensive and–”
“I have a name. I am Tonyia of the House Damazon! And…”
That was when they heard the first rumble and the second one quickly followed. It was enough shake the entire shop and knock most of his hanging jewelry to the floor. The gaining Mongesian grabbed Tonyia’s hand and skittered with her out the door. They moved right into a crowded street packed with other Mongesians who had abandoned their homes and stores. Their multitude of eyes was turned toward the dingy yellow sky. Gigantic black hammers, each easily weighing hundreds of pounds, were raining down on them like a winter monsoon. The people began to scream and run for cover, but their streets were too wide and their bodies made easy targets.
“Look!” the aging merchant screeched as he pointed to the city’s tallest building, the Vinohack (or Laughing Hope), the purple tower had been built by Archduke Orack as a symbol of pride and prominence. Now they watched in horror as it was being ripped to shreds by hammer after black hammer. It wouldn’t’ be long before the Vinohack fell.
Tonyia was hopeless. What had wrought such destruction so quickly? “Surely the Zeprim must be returning!”
An endless amount of sizzling noises filled the air as hulking aliens came into existence to take hold of the hammers. With predatory roars, they began to swing at and crush the populace of Grek Lam Curran. Tonyia watched with horror as the merchant was crushed to a lime green pulp by one of the hammers, blood splattering across her white leggings. She let out a scream, leaped into the air and took off in a sprint to catch up with a group of people trying to escape the chaos.
They were all running for a small bridge when the ground buckled and shook beneath them. It happened with such violent force that they were all thrown on their chests or backs. One woman lost her young boy and watched helplessly a he was smashed between two rocks. She cried crimson tears, but in the next few moments she would realize he had been one of the lucky ones.
Out of the ground rose a fifty-foot creature that looked like a mesh of a snake and a stegosaurus. It had the thick coiling body of a boa constrictor the hissing head of a viper and its back was covered in orange defensive plates. The creature looked down on the dazed Mongesians with deadly silver eyes. Tonyia heard one of the aliens cheer with bloody exuberance. “Filaist! Filaist! Devour them all!”
A thin blue tongue erupted from the Filaist’s mouth and wrapped around the woman who had lost her child. She screamed as she was lifted into the air and stabbed between the creature’s fangs. Paralyzing poison filled her body and she was swallowed, to be slowly devoured over the coming hours by the alien beast.
Three more Mongesians were scooped in such a manner until one man cried out in fury. “Enough!” he railed as he picked up a large rock, leaped into the air and landed on the Filaist’s head. He began to beat the animal in the head over and over again, and his blows nearly were beginning to cut through its flesh until he was shot off by a precise blast from a Vuldarian fighter.
Tonyia looked up and saw the sky was full of the crimson ships, which appeared like curved daggers given wings. It was the last sight she saw before a Drop Hammer knocked her head completely off.
She died feeling no hope.
The Barolyn Jiku (Darkstar Cruiser)
Above Mogo
Ganthet sat across from his ancient brother with his hands folded in his lap. “Do not appear so hostile, Calibetu. I only wish to talk.”
The Controller eyed the Oan suspiciously. “If I truly believed you were a threat the full power of my people would be upon you.”
Ganthet smiled, but he really wanted to grit his teeth. “I have no doubt. But greater threats face us all.”
Calibetu saw beneath Ganthet's smile to the annoyance and was pleased by it; Controllers loved any opportunity to put the arrogant Oans in their place. Even though Ganthet was the last one, the many millenia under their oppressive influence was still well remembered by them. “So I am here. For what have you called me to this cruiser for? Is it not enough that you have robbed the Darkstars from us?”
“Robbed?” Ganthet was shocked at the statement. “I am merely one Guardian, Calibetu. If I really was able to steal something from you then I think the Controllers would have more than enough power to take it back. All of you discarded the Darkstars and left them to languish in obscurity. I have simply revived them.”
Calibetu sneered. “Perhaps. It remains to be seen how well you can control them. The last time your police force brought your race to nearly absolute extinction. You are all that remains and yet you foolishly resurrect the Green Lanterns.”
“Parallax was a one time anomaly and I have taken measures to make sure such insanity never happens again,” Ganthet said sharply. “But you Controllers are well on your way to making such a mistake with this Effigy Force.”
Calibetu nearly bit his tongue. How had Ganthet found out about it? “My people know how to handle that which we create. We are not so stupid as to ignore proper safeguards like you Oans did. Is that what you called me here for Ganthet? To lecture?”
“The Effigy are unstable. They have proven themselves so in the past.”
“We will do what we have to do in order to fight the Reach,” Calibetu said. When he saw Ganthet's eyes perk up, he smiled. “You are not the only one capable of finding out things that you should not know. The Controllers know that the Reach have returned and we will not be swallowed by them.”
“We do not desire to be destroyed by them either. We should work together. Don't you see that together we would be powerful enough to perhaps give the Reach pause in their plans?”
Calibetu laughed. “That is why we will handle this problem alone. Only a foolish Oan would believe that the Reach would actually stop. Their plans are now in motion and they have no intention of turning back, Ganthet. You either confront them head on or find yourself in their web like the backwater Palu was.”
“Don't you see that's insanity?” Ganthet asked. “To confront the Reach alone will leave you race as broken as my own.”
Energy reverberated from Calibetu's body and every loose object in the cruiser's conference room shook and rattled. “Never compare the Controllers to the Oans! Your fate shall not be ours, Ganthet. You are weak and the Controllers will not consider you an ally until we believe you are strong. It would seem more likely to see the end of the universe before bearing witness to that.”
Ganthet was unstirred by the display. “If that is truly how you feel then I believe that we are done here, Calibetu. I truly hope my words do not come true.”
Calibetu floated out of his chair, his body charged with bright pink energy. “It shall not! The Controllers will stand against the Reach and our creations will not fail us.”
Closing his eyes as Calibetu departed, Ganthet took a deep breath. Truthfully, he wanted the Controllers to succeed. Silly jealousies would only destroy all of them in the face of the Reach, but he knew his intuition was correct. The Effigy Force would eventually prove a catastrophic failure and his ancient brethren would find themselves extremely vulnerable to the Reach and their plans.
Ganthet Tower
Stewart knew from his encounter on Vingardo that a planet was soon to be in the snares of the Reach, but he had been unable to find out which planet. So he dispatched as many Green Lanterns as he could spare across the sectors closest to Palu, the last location of Reach interference. But that was shoddy guesswork at best, as distance really didn't matter to ships that could travel across galaxies in a matter of hours, if not quicker. The Reach were nearly as old as the Guardians and that made their technological level off the charts.
Guy Gardner looked around at who Stewart had assembled: Merayn, Amon Sur, Kilowog and Prince Uzoomba. He looked back to John and said, “So, I guess you found out who the Reach attacked?”
One of the many spheres in Ganthet Tower's observation room lit to life and John nodded. “Yes, Zuron was on patrol and discovered the planet Mongesi under attack from what we assume to be at least twenty Vuldarian cruisers with all the forces that come along with that. Mongesi is a world about two hundred years from interstellar travel so they don't have the technology to fight back the invasion force…not with any success, anyway.”
This was the opportunity that Guy had been waiting for. Ever since the attack on Palu and his own encounter with the Vuldarians, he had been aching for a dance to fight against them again. Vuldarian blood flowed through his veins and that was partly why he was so eager to fight…he was ashamed at what his people were doing. Guy didn't care how he had to do it but he was going to knock some sense into them.
“So you're sending us in to take care of the problem?”
“Yes. You, Amon Sur, Kilowog and Uzoomba will be the Green Lanterns on the ground,” John said as he turned to Merayn. “The number of Green Lanterns we have at the moment are limited and Darkstar recruits are coming in faster than ours, so I need you to support them as much as you can.”
Merayn nodded. She saw the worry in John's eyes because he didn't want to send her off into combat, but she was a big girl. This wasn't her first firefight and he was going to have to let go of what happened on Rann. Things were different now and they had a lot more firepower backing them up,
“Consider it done, John. I'll pull in a Darkstar cruiser to match every one of theirs.”
“Good. Make it your priority to protect all vital locations and figures. We may not be able to save everyone, but we at least want the planet's way of life to be as intact as possible when this is all over. Do I make myself clear?”
The response was simultaneous. “Yes sir!”
As they floated out of the room, John felt Ganthet's voice in his head. The Controllers will not join us and they are going to continue in their plan to create an Effigy Force.
Is there anything we can do to stop them?
I wouldn't want to risk it; we have enough problems with a lack of resources as is. Trying to stop the Reach and Controllers would stretch us too thin I'm afraid. Our best option is to hope that perhaps we are wrong and the Effigy Force will prove successful in combating the Reach.
You don't sound like you believe that.
I do not, John Stewart, but it is all we have.
John didn't buy into that desperation. The Green Lanterns could get the job done. They always had and, with the Corps having a new lease on life, he wasn't about to let them fall so soon into it. Before this was all over with, he'd make sure the Reach cringed every time they saw the color green.
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To Be Continued...
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