Titans West

A low hum emerged aboard the USS Argus as the station’s equipment finally came back online. In a burst of light, Gar Logan and Bette Kane stepped out. The Changeling hurried down to the control console as Bette took a moment to look around before stepping down.

“Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe this. How did we get this place?”

“Long story,” Gar replied. “In the end the Titans were given this station by the government. Doesn’t look like anybody’s been up here since Arsenal’s team disbanded.”

Bette nodded as the transporters hummed to life again and Terra appeared with Risk. “So what are we doing here?” she asked.

Gar shrugged. “Karen wanted to come up and check out some of the technology. She wants to see if it’ll work with some of her S.T.A.R. projects. The rest of us are just here because it’s kinda cool and I thought everybody’d enjoy seeing it.”

Risk stepped over to a porthole and gaped as Terra walked up beside him. “What do you think?” she asked.

“This is so wild,” he said. “I’ve been in space before, but I’ve never been able to just relax and enjoy it. We were always chasing somebody or being chased.”

Terra smiled. “I know. This was one of my favorite spots back a few years ago.” She turned as the device hummed again and Red Star walked over. He simply looked out the window silently. Terra turned and walked away.

Poor Leonid, she thought. He’s been so distant ever since the funeral... She shook her head and kept wandering through the corridors.

In the transporter room, Gar stepped forward as Mal and Karen appeared. Karen gaped as Gar walked up to her.

“Welcome aboard,” he said. “What do you think?”

“Where’s the computer room?” Mal asked. “I’ve got to see the controls for this thing!”

Gar smiled. “Right this way,” he said. Bette followed as they walked out.

On Earth, Jason Parker sighed as he looked up at the skylight. He slumped in front of the main computer in the Titans West headquarters. “I can’t believe this!” he yelled at the empty room. “I finally get the chance to go into space, and I’ve got a paper I’ve got to finish!” Jason glared at the search window again and stood up. “Enough of this,” he decided. “I’m taking a break to clear my head.” He stormed out in the direction of the bedrooms. He stopped just before he slammed into Sarah Simms.

“Hi, Sarah!” Jason said as he recognized her.

“Hello, Eagle,” Sarah replied. “Mr. Questor asked me to come over and check out how the repairs are going. Care to give me a tour?”

“Sure,” Jason said. “Right this way.” He led her down the corridor.

Aboard the Argus, Karen was examining the main lab. She smiled as she recognized some of the hardware and turned. When she didn’t see Gar, she thought a moment. Finally Karen pushed a button on the intercom.

“Gar, could you come back to the lab, please,” she said and released it. She then turned her attention to a small hydroponics area where crops were growing.

“This is wild!” Mal said. He was testing the command consoles like a master pianist. Suddenly his watch started beeping. He glanced down at it. “Oh, man,” he said. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got an appointment back at the restaurant. Can I get you to send me back down?”

“Sure,” Gar said. He looked up as he heard Karen’s announcement. “Care to say goodbye to Karen first?”

“Why not?” Mal said, smiling. Together the two walked out toward the lab.

Bette kept examining the console for a moment more. Finally she turned and walked out. If she had waited a moment, she would have seen a small light urgently flash for a moment then go dead.

Karen smiled as Mal walked in. “You forgot your meeting, didn’t you.” she said.

Mal shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve gotta go.” He quickly kissed her goodbye. “I’ll see you back on the ground.”

“Count on it.” Karen turned to Gar. “Can we send some of this down? It would really help a lot of our projects.”

“Sure,” Gar said. “Nobody else seems to care about it. If it’ll help, let’s get it down.”

“Great!” Karen said. “I’ll start making some lists and we’ll decide what we need.”

Terra turned as Bette walked into her old room. “Hi, Tara,” Bette said.

“Hey, Bette,” Tara replied.

Bette looked around. “Is this where you used to stay?”

Terra nodded. “Yeah, I shared this room with Mirage. We never really stayed up here much, though. We spent a lot of time in our base on Staten Island.”

Bette sat down on a metal chair. “What was it like back then? I mean with all the government funding and stuff.”

Tara thought a moment. “The base was great. We had an old train station that was set up just for us. And Green Lantern was kinda cute, but he had a thing going with Troia. Damage was a good kid. Rose Wilson was there, but we never really clicked.” She shrugged. “And Sarge Steel was a jerk. What can I say?”

On Earth, Jason led Sarah into the monitor room, pointing out where the repairs had been done. The entire time Sarah was making notes in a small notebook she carried.

“Everything looks like it is satisfactory,” Sarah said, jotting down a few more notes. “Is Mal here? I wanted to ask him some questions about the computer.”

“No, everybody else went up to the old satellite. I’m just stuck here finishing up a paper. I’ve been working on the computer all day, though, and I haven’t noticed any problems.”

Sarah nodded once briskly. “Good,” she said. “I’ll let Mr. Questor know and-“ Sarah stopped as sparks shot out of the computer and the screen went dark.

Jason shrugged. “I guess that the computer wasn’t as well off as I’d thought.”

On the satellite, Tara and Bette looked up as the lights dimmed and went out. Finally emergency lighting came on, leaving everything in a murky darkness.

“What’s going on?” Tara asked.

“I take it that this isn’t a regular occurrence up here, then,” Bette replied.

“No way,” Tara said. “We’d better find the others.”

On the observation level, Risk and Red Star were looking out at the stars as the lights went out. “Oh, great,” Risk said. “Now what?”

Red Star frowned. “Perhaps I can assist,” he said as he held up a hand. With a thought, his hand covered with fire, lighting up the room.

“All right!” Risk said. “Now we’re set to go!”

Both Gar and Karen’s heads jerked up as the light extinguished. “Power failure,” Gar observed. “Come on, we’ve got to get to the control room!”

“Shouldn’t we get the others?” Karen asked as they ran out of the room.

“No time!” Gar said. “I’m not sure how stable our orbit is. It’s been a while since we’ve run any sort of upkeep on this thing.”

Bette and Tara entered a corridor just in time to see Gar and Karen run past. “I think Red Star and Risk are in the observation lounge,” Flamebird said. “You go check on them and I’ll help Gar.”

Terra nodded and the two women split up.

Deep within the CPU of the station, a thought formed. Finally…

Bette ran into the control room, where Gar and Karen were frantically trying to work controls. “What’s going on?” Bette asked.

“Bad news,” Gar replied without looking up. “Without power, we lose our thrusters. Turns out that our orbit’s gone more unstable than I’d thought.”

“Bottom line, if we don’t get thrusters online in twenty minutes, we’re nosing into the atmosphere,” Karen said.

“Maybe Jason should have come with us,” Bette heard herself saying. “Then that paper wouldn’t be a problem.”

Meanwhile, Jason, in full Golden Eagle costume, lightly landed on the roof of the Questcorp building with Sarah Simms in his arms. He gently let her step down. “There you go,” Jason said.

“Thank you,” Sarah replied. “I appreciate the lift.”

Jason shrugged. “No problem,” he said. “I needed to get out of there, and I know you didn’t want to fight the traffic.”

Sarah smiled. “You’re right about that. I’ll see that someone gets out tomorrow to get that computer fixed. Good afternoon.” She turned and walked into the roof access door. When it closed, Jason smiled and took off.

Inside, Sarah stopped and closed her eyes. She couldn’t help thinking how safe she’d felt in Eagle’s strong arms as they flew across the city. “Stop it,” she whispered. “You’re not making the same mistake you did with Vic and Joe. Now shape up and get this report to Mr. Questor like you’re supposed to.” Sarah straightened her shoulders and started down the steps.

Aboard the station, Gar smiled as the lights came back on. “All right! We did it!” he yelled. His smile vanished as the lights went red and an alarm sounded. “Oh great, now what?!”

They were finding out in the observation lounge. “What is this?” Red Star demanded as steel tendrils began shooting from the walls. Wall panels also slid aside, revealing machine guns.

“If those things fire, they’ll shatter the windows!” Terra yelled. Using her powers, she pulled dirt from the potted plants in the room and funneled it into the barrels of one set of guns. When they tried to fire, they exploded.

Risk grabbed the barrels of the others and crimped them closed. “No sweat,” he said.

Red Star, blazing now, silently grabbed and melted the tendrils.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Terra said as the door slid shut.

“Warning! This room will be opened in one minute! All unsuited personnel must evacuate now,” a voice said.

“This will be,” Red Star said grimly.

In the control room, Karen screamed as the main control console shorted out, knocking her back into Gar’s arms. As Gar laid her on the ground, he saw a long black burn running up her sleeve.

“I’ve got an idea,” Bette said just before the wall panels slid aside revealing the guns.

“Down!”Gar yelled an instant before they opened fire.

“DIE GAR LOGAN,” came over the room’s speakers in a dead, robotic tone.

“Who said that?” Flamebird asked as she tried to figure a way out of this.

“No idea,” Gar replied, “but I know what’s going to happen if we don’t take out those guns!”

Flamebird popped up and threw her throwing disk. It careened into one of the guns and dented one of its barrels. When it started firing again, the unit exploded. The disk fell to the floor on the other side of the room.

“Well, that’s one,” Bette said. “Any more ideas?”

“I’m working on it,” Gar said.

Suddenly, Gar vanished in a flash of light, leaving behind a buzzing fly. It flew over above the remaining barrel and shifted into an elephant. The green elephant fell onto the guns, ripping them from the wall.

“Good job, Gar,” Bette said as Gar returned to human form, rubbing his behind.

“Man, I think I bruised my butt,” he said as he consulted a nearby readout.

“Begin total atmospheric purge,” the computer’s voice said. Gar’s eyes widened.

“What is going on here?” he yelled. “This thing’s pumping out our air!”

Karen uneasily fought back to her feet. “One way to stop this,” she said. Bette helped her stand as she approached the console. Karen pointed at a glass square on the console. “Smash that,” she said. Gar’s fist slammed through the glass and pushed the button underneath.

In the CPU, the stray thought suddenly realized the danger. A nanosecond before the button was pressed, it fled back into the murky depths of cyberspace before returning to its host.

“Initiating system purge,” the computer calmly said. Around them, the lights dimmed and then returned to normal.

“What did I just do?” Gar asked.

“System purge,” Karen said as she coughed. “You just completely wiped the primary CPU. Everything’s running on backups.”

“Great,” said Gar. “Let’s get the others and get out of here. We should be able to launch a shuttle now.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Bette said. “Are you okay, Karen?”

Karen nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go get the shuttle ready. I’m just still shaking off that jolt.”

“Let’s go then.” Gar led the way into the corridors. Together, he and Flamebird ran to the observation room, where Bette bumped into the door.

“Hey, isn’t this thing supposed to open automatically?” she asked.

Gar’s eyes went wide as he pointed to a gauge. “There’s no air in there!” he said. “That computer blew one of the walls out.”

“Oh, no,” Bette said as her eyes began to fill with tears. Suddenly a voice came over the speakers.

“Hey, guys. This is Karen. Guess who I just picked up inside a big metal ball! Tara, Cody and Leonid are all fine. We’re coming back now. See you in a minute!”

Gar smiled and embraced Bette. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Good idea,” Flamebird said as she wiped her eyes.

Jason Parker looked up as he heard rockets firing. He walked into the hangar and saw the shuttle landing. “What did I miss?” he asked as the team started disembarking.

Red Star walked silently past him. Risk snarled and kept moving. Terra pulled her jacket off and headed toward her room. Bette and Karen headed toward the infirmary. Finally Jason reached out and grabbed Gar’s arm.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Don’t ask,” Gar said. “Just be glad you got your paper done.” Gar walked out, muttering something about needing a shower.

Jason’s eyes went wide. “My paper!” he yelled. Then he smirked as he ran back inside for his armor. Wonder if I can use Sarah’s computer... he thought.

The host’s eyes lit up as the thought returned to it. Soon, Gar Logan, it thought. Soon I will have my revenge.

The End...

Next Issue: The return (sort of) of two former members you never thought you’d see again! Who is Barter, and what does he want? And what could he possibly have that could be this tempting?

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