//|| //^^\\ || || .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS // || \\ || || --X--------------------------------------------- //======================= '|` ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #28 // || \\ || || "Solar Flare!" // || \\__// || || Copyright 2000 by Dave Van Domelen ___________________________________________________________________________ [cover shows Solar Max straining to push a meteor as it starts to glow from atmospheric friction.] ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL CODENAME REAL NAME POWERS STATUS -------- --------- ------ ------ Solar Max Jonathan Zachary Spacetime Control ACTIVE "JakZak" Taylor Meteor Sarah Grant-Taylor Superspeed ACTIVE Green Knight Salvatore Napier Strength, Regeneration ACTIVE Contact Aaron Zander Psi, Mind-over-Body ACTIVE Scorch Scott Handleman Pyrokinetic ACTIVE Essay Sara Ana Rodriguez Gadgeteer MEDICAL LEAVE Peregryn Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage ACTIVE Lightfoot Tom Dodson Velocity Control PROBATION Breaker Christina Li Telekinesis PROBATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [June 13, 2024 - Ottawa, Ontario Sector] There was a knock at the door. Scott looked up from where he lay on the aerogel mattress, wondering if he should answer. It might break up the monotony of this stripped-bare room, a room he hadn't left more than a few times since the funeral. Everything flammable had been removed, and he still wasn't feeling up to decorating it. The starkness suited his mood. "Scor...Scott, may I come in?" asked a voice on the other side of the door. A woman's voice, which sounded familiar. A decision had to be made. He sighed. "Who is it?" he croaked, his throat still somewhat sore from the solid hour of screaming he'd done after the press had gone home and he'd had time alone. "It's Juliana...Julie. George's sister." Scott thought for a moment. One of the worst things about grieving was that people tried to cheer you up, or tell you they knew how you felt. And they didn't know. Maybe they once did, but you can't *remember* sorrow. It's just something you feel and then try to forget as fast as you can. But Juliana knew how he felt. Or close enough. "Come in, it's unlocked," he grunted, propping himself up on his elbows. Juliana slowly opened the door and stepped in. She was dressed almost plainly, certainly not how you'd expect the wunderkind of modern fashion to look. She took a quick glance around the room and set down the large canvas bag she was carrying. "You know, if you locked your door, people wouldn't steal all your things," she smirked. Scott chuckled despite himself. "I'd offer you a seat, but there's nowhere to sit. Except the bed, but, er, it needs washing. If you can wash fireproof aerogel." "That's okay," she smiled weakly. "I, ah, brought you something," she picked up the bag again. She paused, then blurted out, "I cope by working. And it took a big challenge to help me cope with...you know. I heard your powers just jumped up a notch, so you'd burn through your old costumes, and, er...here." She put the bag on the bed next to Scott with a soft whoosh of aerogels compressing and the rustle of fabric. The bag sank into the mattress far enough to indicate its contents were pretty heavy. Scott reached in and pulled out a dark, featureless helmet, like a fencer's mask made to take an artillery shell. It was smooth except for a vent on the top, which Scott guessed was to make sure it didn't launch off his head from fire pressure. "Spacecraft 'glass' tinted so you don't blind yourself when you flare up. There's room for the usual radio gear," Juliana explained. "Although the radio'll need to be made fireproof somehow." Next was a bodysuit of some kind of mesh, very light blue in color. "Weird material," Scott observed. "What is it?" "New generation heat shield ceramics, woven. Pulled a few strings with EuroSpace to get it. The rest is titanium armor...melting point should be high enough for you to get away wearing it. And..." "And it's bulletproof," Scott hefted the chestplate, tinted a medium grey with light blue flame patterning. "Definitely a thought that counts." "It should fit you okay, I used your last set of measurements. Unless you've lost weight since then...?" Scott snorted. "I haven't eaten since George died. No appetite. Haven't had more than a few sips of water either." Juliana's expression changed to one of shock. "How?" Scott sat up all the way, and didn't look at all like someone who'd been fasting for days. "The doctors say I'm running on pure paranormal energy now, looks like. Wherever the energy comes from for my fire, now it seems to be feeding me directly. I get a little thirsty now and then, but...well, not having to eat suits me fine right now." Juliana sat down next to Scott. "I could have used that ability when I was a kid...I got sent to bed without my dinner so many times. George was the good one, I was the terror." "Well, except for the time George decided that the creek out back needed a bridge...a structural engineer he was not. Good thing the water only came up to his chest." Juliana laughed, then suddenly stopped. "Wait, he *told* you about that? He made me swear up and down I'd never tell another soul after I helped him hide the evidence and clean his clothes...." "Well," Scott hesitated. "I guess he did. Can't remember when, though. Probably some night when it'd gotten late enough and we were both deep enough into a twelve-pack that Deep Dark Secrets started coming out." "I guess so, although I can't picture George getting that drunk. Or drunk at all, actually. Come on, try it on," she nudged the bag. "I want to know if I need to make any modifications." Scott feigned a scandalized expression. "But you'd see me changing." Juliana smirked. "Mister, I'm a fashion designer. I've seen plenty of men and women changing clothes. But if it'll make you feel better, I'll wait outside." With that, she stood and stepped out into the hall. The funny thing was, he finally *did* feel better. But not because she'd stepped out...because she'd stepped *in* in the first place. * * * * [June 16, 2024 - The Cavity, Nevada Sector] Solar Max stepped into a room still somewhat in disarray. Most of the debris had been moved away from the computers and monitors, but a few of the vital pieces of equipment were still damaged, their backups being pressed into service. Meteor and Peregryn followed him. "Sorry about the mess," Warden Anderson frowned. "The Conclave of Super-Villains really knew what they were doing when they broke in." He gestured to one of the technicians, and a series of still images came up on the monitors. "These are our best enhanced pictures right now. That one clearly shows Derek Radner without his armor's helmet on...but we don't know if he was initially leading the raid, because of this," he pointed to an image of Triton brutally killing a figure wearing one of the other black armors the CSV wore at Haven six months before. "This is the first good image we have of them, by the way...our best guess is that whoever Triton killed was keeping our security system backups from coming online." "Doesn't sound like a power possessed by any of the CSV, unless your secsystem's vulnerable to Anchors," Solar Max ventured. But he knew it was a little too much to hope that Triton had killed Rebus. "No, it's not. But we also have some sound records, and the one wearing Sultry's suit is referred to as Tiara, among other name-switches," the warden noted. "A large part of their tactics seemed to revolve around us assuming they had the wrong powers, and STRAFE's report indicated that these armors were initially intended for such a switch-around. They must be recruiting new members." "They are," Meteor nodded her head. "They were using some of the less inviting parts of Khadam as testgrounds for their recruitment drive." "Well, there you have it, then. We've sent out the remains of the dead CSV member for analysis, but the face was pretty heavily damaged by Triton's power trident. We'll forward you copies of the security tapes to see if you have any idea who these new members are." "I have a question," Peregryn interjected. "There seems to have been a great deal of damage here that cannot be explained by the presence of the CSV alone. The initial reports indicated that the paragang prisoners had been released as well. Why were we not brought in earlier to assist?" Warden Anderson's expression darkened at this. "Look, the CSV may have been too much for us to handle, and they obviously had some help in figuring out the layout, but we're perfectly capable of dealing with the other prisoners here, whether they're in or out of their cells. And frankly, none of you is trained in our protocols. There's a strong possibility you'd have only gotten in the way of the cleanup operation. You'll note that the only prisoner to escape was the target of this raid, the Viau woman." Peregryn, utterly unperturbed by the older man's intensity, replied, "I was not only concerned with that, warden. I also wish to study their method of arrival and departure, and the longer I wait, the weaker the traces." Anderson hmphed. "Well, we know what room they were in when they left, but they were careful to blast the security cameras there before doing whatever it was that they did. We suspect Viau's brother was with the group when they arrived, but he seemed to be absent later on. He might have pulled them out remotely, however." "Please take me to the place." A few minutes later, the four were in a room in the Extra-Security Wing, where the stench of death still hung despite the powerful disinfectants used to scrub down the walls and floor. Peregryn sat in the center of the room and concentrated for a moment. "A great deal of magic has heen used in here, but I think I feel a familiar clastic. I cannot tell where it went, but someone teleported out of here magically." This earned a snort of derision from the warden. "More importantly, it's the same method used by Channel's killer," Peregryn added. "Damn!" spat Solar Max. "I knew the CSV was behind that. Maybe the murder was an initiation test." "It's not your fault," Meteor tried to console him. "None of us have been able to capture Labyrinthe." But it was, JakZak thought. And I have...and I let him go. Trading the lives of the people who would have been killed by the Anchor Virus for the lives of the dead guards and dead prisoners in here. * * * * [June 26, 2024 - Chicago] "And then, Khadam will take its place in the world...its rightful place. *Our* rightful place. I thank you, everyone who helped build my resolve and hone my abilities. Be assured, I will give you the rewards you deserve. *All* of you." A hush descended over the room, and Tom muted the television as the national news talking heads came on to pontificate on the implications of this bold move, the ascension to power of Triton, leader of the Conclave of Super-Villains. He ran a hand through his mussed and dirty hair in irritation. Tina had buzzed his room at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning to insist he come down to the rec room to see the news. Solar Max stormed out of the room, heading for his quarters. A few of the support staff left to return to their posts, or to call relatives. More than a couple were justifiably worried that they would be caught in the blast radius when Triton decided to "reward" ASH. "Bad enough when they were *just* a band of incredibly powerful psychopaths," Tina Li sighed. "Now they have the backing of a technologically advanced nation." "And a space program," one of the security guards added, casting a wary glance at the ceiling. Tom shrugged. "It could be worse. Haven used to be run by dozens of incredibly powerful psychopaths." "And there used to be hundreds of powerful superheroes," Tina countered. "And the 'good' aliens used to make sure the 'bad' aliens didn't do too much to meddle in our affairs. Khadam is swarming with Pranir, and it looks like they're actually willing to let Radner lead the country with their blessing." "Well, maybe Triton'll be satisfied for now with playing politics," another support person ventured. Tom snorted. "And maybe Hitler will be satisfied with the Sudetenland. I don't know Triton personally, but from what I've read he's bought into the whole myth of the grand supervillain...a myth I can tell you was false. But that's not going to stop him from trying to leverage his new power into world domination." Tina frowned. "I did know him. Not well, but I know that Derek simply doesn't know when to quit. I hope for their sake that the rumors about the Moslem Confederation's shoddy treatment of supernormals are false. They're going to need all the supers they can get, and soon...." * * * * [July 5, 2024 - roughly 120,000 km from Earth] As beautiful as the sky was in space, JakZak was starting to get a little tired of it. If he'd had the luxury of relaxing in orbit, maybe it would still fascinate him, but he'd been under a gee of acceleration for the past four hours. Eighty minutes speeding up on the way out, eighty minutes slowing down to a stop, then eighty more minutes rocketing towards Earth so he could match speeds with an incoming asteroid. "We got lucky on this one," DSHA Director Evans had told him. "Once a month we give the Keck telescope in Hawaii over to rock-hunting, looking for Near Earth Objects that might hit us. After that near miss in '22, the funding became a lot more available for it. The Keck has picked up a rock on an inbound trajectory, and this one *will* hit, assuming it doesn't vaporize. We have a good guess on its mass, but we can't tell from here or from the orbital telescopes what it's made of. Snow or rock will probably not make it to the ground, or will be so reduced it won't do any real damage. But if this is a nickel-iron asteroid, it will hit the Mediterranean hard enough to generate tsunamis thirty feet high. And I think you can agree the Mediterranean doesn't need more of THAT." So, after a crash course in astronavigation and the space operations of his inherited armor, JakZak had been given an intercept course to fly. They were cutting it pretty close, he'd arrive only about an hour or so before the asteroid's projected impact. "Your first job is to tell us what it's made of," Evans had explained. "Your armor has mass and size sensors built in, according to the Professor, you just need to get within a few klicks and activate them, we'll be watching the telemetry." The rock was within view now, and it definitely was a rock, not ice. "Control, I'm sending telemetry now," JakZak said, activating the sensors. "Acknowledged. Analyzing now...." JakZak stopped accelerating at full gravity and drifted closer to the rock. Out this far, gravity was negligible, and the nullgee systems of his armor kicked in automatically. It was odd, how he could actually move as if he were standing on a surface under normal gravity. The suit sensed his movements, interpreted them and sent impulses to microjets that dotted the suit, tiny vents almost too small to see with the naked eye. The propellant was carbon, which the suit pulled from the carbon dioxide he exhaled as part of the breathing system. He mimed pushing against a wall, and saw a small black jet against the moonlight behind him. Fortunately, he was in Earth's shadow, so the Sun wasn't blinding him. "Solar Max, this is Control. You're going to have to move the rock. Its specific gravity is thirty point five." "What?" Nothing was that dense in nature, not counting neutron matter. "We think it may be a form of naturally Collapsed metal, probably iron. If you think you can swing it into a stable orbit, the boys down here would love to study it. But priority is keeping it from hitting the Mediterranean." "Acknowledged, Control." "Solar Max, this is Director Evans," came a second voice. "I've been authorized to give you an abort option if the rock's too heavy to swing completely out of the way. We estimate only minimal environmental damage if the rock hits the Sahara. For political reasons, we'd prefer it if you avoided territories controlled by the Eurasian Union or the Moslem Confederation. Do you understand? There will be *no blame* attached to you if you have to drop it in the Sahara, so long as you avoid the Eurasian Union and Moslem Confederation territories." JakZak nodded slowly. The Sahara was split among three powers. The Eurasian Union had the western reaches and some of the northern coast, the Moslem Confederation controlled the eastern section...and the rest was under the control of Khadam. He'd just been given permission to orbitally bombard Khadam. "Understood, Director." Evans continued, "Control is going to tie your sensors into theirs and give you a realtime estimate of where the asteroid will hit if you stop pushing at that moment." A targeting reticule. Great. But...it was tempting. Like in that old movie, you won't find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in all the world. With Radner and his delusions of greatness running the country, Khadam could start trying to expand again, conquering territory like during its failed push in the '00's. Khadam was funding the "businessman" Rex Umbrae who now held Manhattan under his thumb. Khadam helped run organlegging missions like the one that had cost Arin her sanity. Khadam was home to the Conclave of Super-Villains. Tempting. Solar Max had finished closing with the asteroid. It was a dull grey, and parts of it looked disturbingly like the Collapsiron that made up the Astro Spear, the weapon that now served as Triton's scepter of leadership. This thing wouldn't explode on impact...it would punch right into the ground like a bullet, sending earth and rock fountaining. "Control, how big a hole would this make if it hit the desert?" Without a pause, Control replied, "Roughly one point two klicks in diameter. Dust cloud big enough to alter weather patterns to the east of it for a couple weeks." JakZak started to exert his power on the asteroid. He felt stronger than ever, maybe because there was so little natural gravity to fight against. Even so, this was a big rock compared to things he'd moved before. The only thing comparable was the Galactic Warrior Corps ship he'd helped shunt through hyperspace a year ago. And that was a completely different kind of task. The red pip moved across the map of the Mediterranean Sea, skimming past Malta and past the ruins of Haven. It moved slowly, but surely. Given half an hour or so, he might even be able to guide it into orbit, although he'd have to share that orbit for a while...there wouldn't be enough time to slow himself for a normal descent. The pip passed over Tripoli, and JakZak realized that if he really wanted to put it in orbit, he should have been moving it southeast, not southwest. Did he really want to drop it on Khadam? It was a nice straight line...Malta to Tripoli to the Citadel of Khadam. JakZak caught himself musing that George could probably slow it to a near stop in seconds by turning all its kinetic energy to something else. George. The pip was centered over Khadam now, after several minutes of controlled exertion. "Control, I'm exercising abort option. I'm going to stay with it a few minutes more to make sure it doesn't hit any of the proscribed territories. The landfall estimate has some wiggle room, I'm guessing." It was Evans who replied. "You guess correctly. You've just saved a lot of lives today...and down the road, too." But...had he? The red dot wavered slightly as the scale of the map changed to allow for more precision, but it never left the official borders of Khadam.... * * * * [July 5, 2024 - roughly 60,000 km from Earth] "Control, I'm ready to start my braking phase," JakZak finally said, after fifteen minutes of relative silence. "My onboards confirm that the rock will not hit the Mediterranean, or any territories belonging to European Union or Moslem Confederation nations." In fact, the red dot of the landfall estimate now held steady on the location of the Citadel, the palace fortress of the rulers of Khadam. "Our telemetry concurs with that assessment, Solar Max," came the slightly staticky reply. "It should land at...." The signal degenerated completely into noise. "Control?" He wasn't yet at the Van Allen belts, so the signal should still be clear...JakZak was suddenly jolted from his thoughts by a warning light in his helmet. Something was coming up in front of him! Solar Max turned and put his visor on maximum magnification, looking where the sensors said the bogie was. There! No details yet, just a purplish hydrogen plasma flare. And he was catching up fast. "I've done caught me a claim jumper!" came a familiar voice over the radio. "Triton," Solar Max hissed between gritted teeth. The source of the radio interference was pretty obvious now. Only the link between the two armors was now working. "Back off, Zachary. This asteroid is the property of the sovereign nation of Khadam. Once I do a little prep work, Labyrinthe can fish it out of the drink and we can start mining Collapsiron!" Solar Max was taken aback, as Triton slowly came into view. "You arranged for this asteroid to hit the Mediterranean just so you could get Collaspiron?" "Nope, but it's happy coincidence. The entire world's supply of Collapsed Iron, up until today, was the Astro Spear, which I own. When a Pranir told me about this rock, I knew I didn't want to lose my monopoly. Of course, I could always boost my rep by claiming to be responsible for the rockfall, but I do have a more responsible public image to build now." "You'll have a country to REbuild in twenty minutes or so, Radner," Solar Max snarled. There was brief silence. "You don't have the balls. Wait, scratch that...cliche villain mistake number 23. Any time you tell the hero he doesn't have the guts to do something, he does it. To you. With a blunt spoon if possible. Okay, maybe you have the balls. But I'm the guy with the jamming field, not you. And now my people know it's been redirected, so they'll be ready to re-redirect it." With that, Triton arrived, shedding a bulky booster rocket he'd been riding in order to match speeds with the incoming asteroid. He held up the Astro Spear, which spat out three angry prongs of plasma. "Call me a sucker for drama, but I just can't pass up the chance to fight you here, on an asteroid heading for Earth, with almost a million lives at stake, if only *I* save them from the dastardly Solar Max," Triton chuckled. "Or are you Challenger now? Same super, different dimension? Think of how much more interesting the Academy would have been if it'd been run by the Professor's 'evil twin.'" JakZak took a "step" back in uncertainty. "How did you know about the Professor being Solar Max?" "The Professor may not have aged gracefully, but when I saw the face of Challenger in the ruins of Haven, I knew in a heartbeat who he was. Nose isn't the only one who can solve mysteries, Zachary." "You're right on that one. I know about your involvement in George's murder." Now it was Triton's turn to be taken aback. "Hey, I can't claim that one, and I wouldn't anyway...nowhere near my style. Anyway, I was busy with internal politics that day. But, hey, if you really want a dead superhero on my record, I'm more than happy to oblige!" With that, Triton pressed several buttons on the Astro Spear and launched an eight-pronged attack, a variation on the "Celestial Canopy" used by the 'Spear's original owner. As the flares arced towards him, Solar Max twisted gravity and sent them in eight different directions. "Too easy, Rad...." Then he reeled back as Triton flew past, smashing at his face with the bulk of the Astro Spear. "You said it, Zachary," Triton taunted. "Let me guess, this is your first time in null gravity combat? Thanks to Labyrinthe, I've had hours of training fighting in microgravity." "Who needs training when you have cybernetic space armor?" Solar Max retorted as he literally sidestepped Triton's followup attack. It was an odd sight, to see one man moving as if he was standing on solid ground, while the other was properly in his microgravity element. Then Solar Max launched a tidal ripple at Triton, which hit the supervillain like a truck. Only the antigravity systems of the armor kept the wave from passing straight into Derek Radner's body and pulping his internal organs. "Not bad. But you're not the only one who can play with gravitational stresses now!" Triton exclaimed, pressing all the buttons on his weapon at once. Only the slight visual warping betrayed the presence of the newly created miniature black hole. Solar Max created an antigravity wave to deflect it, but he also fired thrusters and got out of the way at the same time. No way was he going to let Triton catch him twice with a feint. And he ran straight into the almost invisible mesh of wire Triton had extruded from his onboard systems. "Heh. Suit can't compensate for the fact you're still thinking in terms of up and down. And I don't repeat myself if I can help it," Triton sneered as he fed an electrical charge into the net. Only a quick burst of omnidirectional antigravity got the net off before it could start seriously damaging the systems of Solar Max's armor. "Nor do I rely on just one weapon." "Neither do I," Solar Max replied, opening a pinhole warp to the Sun and firing a beam of intense sunlight straight at Triton. The energy started to sizzle on the refractory coating of the Strafe armor that Triton wore, but then it was pulled into the Astro Spear. "On the other hand, this one weapon is pretty damn good," Triton chuckled. "Handy for sucking in light," he laughed at a private joke. "Suck this," Solar Max thrust straight at Triton, and he could feel the CLANG as the two armors slammed into each other. The Astro Spear was pinned between them, but it was obvious this wouldn't last...Triton's armor enhanced his strength considerably, while Solar Max's armor only did so well enough to compensate for its own mass. So Solar Max held his hand up to the faceplate of the Strafe armor and pushed. A fine spray of carbon shot out of the minithruster mounted on his palm. In the atmosphere, it wouldn't have had any effect, dispersing instantly in the breeze. But it clung to the electrostatically charged Triton, covering his faceplate in inky blackness. The net effect seemed to be zero, and Triton hurled the hero away from him contemptuously. "Cute move, Zachary, but I don't see through the plate...it's just for show. These horns," he pointed to the wickedly curved golden spikes on his helmet, "collect all the data I could ever hope to have and turn it into a virtual image inside the helmet. Nothing to blind." Then he pointed the butt of his weapon at Solar Max and triggered a plasma wave. Solar Max let the plasma wash over him, ignoring the yellow lights that started to blink in his helmet. "There's more than one way to blind." It was a trick Solar Max had never tried before, but it was a regular part of his predecessor's arsenal. Rather than focus on grabbing the light and heat of the Sun, he instead reached out for the violent magnetic prominences that dotted the solar landscape...and brought one through a warphole to drop right on top of his enemy. The magnetic pulse, stronger at this close range than the Strafe armor had been designed to resist, ripped through systems, causing visible arcs of power across the suit. "Ow," Triton replied, with some genuine pain. "Nice trick, but I'm still online." "But your antigrav isn't." With that, Solar Max held out both hands and smashed into Triton with a wave of high gravity. Triton fell, slamming into the only solid ground for thousands of kilometers...the asteroid. The Astro Spear fell from his stunned grip and smashed against the equally invulnerable surface. Triton struggled, but found that his systems were too damaged to overcome the intense gravitational field now holding him to the surface of the asteroid. The Astro Spear was tantalizingly close, held down by those same forces, but too far away to reach. Solar Max paused and "righted" himself, small puffs of carbon moving him into a position facing Triton. "There. I may not hit anything but desert with this rock...like you said, your people may move it off-target...but at least you're going down with the ship." Triton mustered as much bravado as he could and sneered, "Not satisfied with potential mass murder, you've gotta throw in a little personal murder, Zachary?" Solar Max paused, his eyes narrowing to slits behind the large bug-eyed visor of his armor. "Radner, you plotted the nuclear annihilation of millions. You helped engineer the deaths of dozens of Anchors in Las Vegas. You released a pathogen that killed thousands before we stopped it, and could have killed millions more. You personally murdered one of your own men in the Cavity. God only knows how many died in your takeover of Khadam. And despite your protests, I know you had something to do with George's murder. I would bring you to justice, but you'd probably have the World Court blown up to cover your escape." "Now there's an idea," Triton muttered. "This isn't a joke, Derek. In seven months you've managed to achieve your big dream. You're a supervillain. A monster ready to join the ranks of Hitler or Stalin or Devastator. This isn't murder. "This. Is. Justice." Solar Max paused to look towards the growing sphere of the Earth. "Be thankful I can't bring myself to just crack open your armor and be done with it...you might actually be able to escape this. I'm giving you more of a chance than you gave New Jerusalem. Or Perth. Or Havana. Or Monaco. Or Las Vegas...." As Solar Max continued the litany of Triton's targets, he started to brake at 2G. The asteroid pulled away and quickly shrank out of sight, on its way to the planet below. One last, staticky burst of defiance came over the radio. "Of course, you realize, this means war...." ============================================================================ Next Issue: The first shot in the ASH/CSV War has been fired, and things are going to get worse before they get better as we enter the Pyramid Scheme! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: There really is an asteroid slated for a near miss with Earth in 2022, Tony Pi found it on the web while looking for likely places Labyrinthe would seed with Berlin Wall fragments. The excerpt from Triton's speech on June 26 was taken directly from CSV #13, written by Matt Rossi (who also helped inspire some of the action in the final scene this issue). For those who haven't read all the backstory, the ASH Universe's "supermetal" is actually a class of metals. "Collapsing" a metal involves altering the band structure bonding in that metal, bringing extra electron levels into the game. This increases the density and strength, with variable effect depending on the original metal. Collapsium is the generic term, and is sometimes also applied to Collapsed Lithium (which is no stronger than aluminum, but is useful in some scientific pursuits). Collapsed Aluminum, or Collapsinum, is the strongest material that can be made by Terran superscience. Collapsed Iron, Collapsiron, is beyond Terran superscience, but has been created by some extradimensional scientists, like those working for WarStar. Collapisum is stable in the presence of Anchors, suggesting that it could be made naturally and that it does not violate any natural laws simply by existing. The asteroid here is only partially Collapsed, so it would probably break into a buckshot of Collapsiron if subjected to enough force. Pure Collapsiron has a density of about 60 grams per cubic centimeter and can survive being next to a supernova. Collapsinum has a density of about 20 grams per cubic centimeter, and can survive anything short of a thermonuclear device of about a megaton yield. However, a laser of the right frequency can "erode" Collapsinum. That frequency varies with the batch, and is a closely-guarded secret of the manufacturer.