Cover shows a column of WWII Nazi tanks approaching the viewer. Standing astride the lead tank is a man carrying a large bearded poleaxe that crackles with lightning. //|| //^^\\ || || .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS // || \\ || || --X--------------------------------------------- //======================= '|` ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #80 // || \\ || || Timequake Part 2: Blitzkrieg // || \\__// || || Copyright 2007 by Dave Van Domelen ___________________________________________________________________________ ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL CODENAME REAL NAME POWERS ASSIGNMENT -------- --------- ------ ---------- Solar Max Jonathan Zachary Spacetime Control MISSING "JakZak" Taylor Meteor Sarah Grant-Taylor Superspeed AMERICA Scorch Scott Handleman Pyrokinetic CANADA Green Knight Salvatore Napier Strength, Regeneration MEXICO Fury Arin Kelsey Concussion Blasts MEXICO Contact Aaron Zander Psi, Mind-over-Body DIPLOMATIC Breaker Christina Li Telekinesis DIPLOMATIC Essay Sara Ana Henderson Gadgeteer VENUS Peregryn Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage VENUS Beacon George Sylvester Living Light VENUS Geode Unknown Living Crystal VENUS Lightfoot Tom Dodson Velocity Control TRANSIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [April 19, 2026 - Houston, Texas Sector] "So, Mike...your sister get out of Dallas okay?" Bijaya asked as he looked up at the Big Board for the tenth time in as many minutes. There wasn't a manned mission up at the moment, so the tracking center was in quiet standby mode, really just doublechecking the results sent in by the interdiction satellite the Planetary Confederation had in place to deter smugglers. Mike nodded. "Yeah, she's staying with our mom in San Antonio for now. I've been bugging her to get out of that hole for years now, guess it took a mandatory evacuation to shift 'er. Me, I'm worried that crap that's spewing out of the time rift'll spread downriver here, and we'll have to reloc to the backup in Florida." "Hey, Florida's nice enough, especially this time of year. And it's not like hurricanes never hit Houston." Mike waved dismissively. "Oh, it's not hurricanes, it's the whole tourist trap atmosphere. Could be worse, though, I hear China's putting together a spaceport in the Gobi, on top of an old Pranir smuggling strip. Working *there* would just su...what the hell?" Alarms were lighting up all over the tracking center. The Big Board shifted from its usual flattened projection of the planet to a spherical representation that made exact positions of selected objects clearer. And it was clear that something big had just appeared in low orbit over the Eastern Hemisphere, descending fast. "Holy..." Bijaya hissed. "How did that get there? We're not getting any hyper footprints from the interdict, are we?" Mike shook his head. "Nada. But it's not moving fast enough to have sneaked up on us without some kind of cloaking. Besides, it looks like it's changing course...it was on a direct intercept for, looks like northern Africa, but it's deflecting a little now. It'll still...land, I hope, or impact. Either way, it looks like it's gonna be a really bad day for Spain!" The room started to fill as people who had been on break, or working other duties, came in and took up stations. "Kowalski, see if you can get a visual on whatever that is!" Bijaya shouted to one of the newcomers. "I'm sure the jet jockeys are already scrambling, and they're gonna call any second to ask us what it is so they can decide whether to blow it up...." "It's gone," Mike realized, pointing uselessly at the Big Board. * * * * [April 19, 2026 - Earth Orbit] "I've got enough other sensors online to confirm gravimetrics, sir! Including main visual!" Dectos Vega shouted over the rising din on the bridge. "We're headed dirtside!" "Dectos Synam, can we steer clear?" Commander Hektane asked. "It's no good, sir! We can't shed enough momentum or turn hard enough with our current vector," the Dectos replied, nervously. "Radar sheath online," another rating noted nervously. While it made them invisible to most long range detectors, it also kept their own long range systems from seeing anything. Right now, though, they could all see pretty clearly the most important thing in the area, now that visual sensors had been brought back online. Earth. And they were on a collision course, thanks to some mis-Twist. The Fornax hadn't been anywhere near the original home of the humans when it started its last Twist through tachyonic space, but somehow they'd overshot by far more than anyone could recall having happened. To anyone. "Are the Twist engines still online?" Commander Hektane asked, wincing internally. "Aye, captain. We should have enough residual power for a Twist out to the Oort Cloud. But..." Hektane shook his head. "You heard Synam. We don't have the jets to pull out of this, and the Fornax is meant to destroy surfaces, not *land* on them." In fact, the ungainly ship would probably break up before reaching planetary surface...which it would do VERY hard, since it didn't have the kind of thrust needed to counter a standard gravity. The main drives didn't work as well in an atmosphere as they did in space, requiring a vacuum for full efficiency. "Another mis-Twist might be as bad, but it can't really be worse...get us a Twist solution out of here, right now! We can hide in the Oort cloud and make enough repairs to get home." If home was still there, Hektane reflected. They hadn't gotten much data from the hardened backup sensors before realizing they were dangerously close to Earth, but what they had found out made him wonder if they were really in the same Sol system he was familiar with. Then all musing was cut off by the familiar wrenching of the Twist Drive kicking in and hurling them through the planet as a stream of insubstantial tachyons.... * * * * [April 19, 2026 - Skyhaven, Monaco Bay] "I'd like to thank Glyph for letting us use this space one last time before Skyhaven returns to Khadam for more complete repairs," Meteor nodded to the leader of the Conclave of Super-Villains. "I expect we'll all be in contact after this to share information, but I'd like one last face to face meeting before we go our separate ways." She looked around the table. Most of the Earth-side ASH members were present: Green Knight, Fury, Scorch, and Breaker, with Lightfoot currently on a mission. Arc and Hotspur of EUROPA were also present, as were Grind, Drake and Kleinvogel of STRAFE. Glyph and Sultry sat at the head of the meeting room table, but the rest of the surviving Conclavers were conspicuous by their absence. "There don't seem to be any new major time rifts opening up, although it's possible that there's dozens of them out there we haven't found, simply because nothing dangerous has come through them. The larger ones have been giving off strong tachyon signatures, but the smaller ones simply don't emit enough energy to be obvious unless something pops through. That said, we do seem to have two classes of rift. "The first seals behind itself, possibly because so much mass passes through that it disrupts the rift. The one the demonic Mongol fleet in the Sea of Japan came through seems to be of that type, as does the one that briefly opened in orbit. More on that second one in a moment. The second, more problematic sort of rift is staying open, theoretically allowing two-way travel. The one in Rome is currently under guard, and we've shoved the dinosaur back through, just in case a Butterfly Effect is possible. The Polish rift is still open, despite the large size of the panzer group that came through, and Arc is working on a plan to get the tanks back through," she nodded to the leader of EUROPA. "The rift over Dallas has been estimated to stretch back to the Precambrian age, and the only thing to come through it so far has been unbreathable air...we're pretty sure there was no life other than in the seas back then, so we just have to keep any idiots from this side from trying to go through. Right now, that's our priority for sealing, since the air pressure on the other side is so high we can't simply plug it with a force field and let it sit. Once we figure out how to seal these rifts, we can go to work on the others. Oh, and there seems to be a rift in the Moslem Confederation territory, but they won't let us close enough to gather any intel. We just have to hope it's not dangerous for now." "Can we get back to the orbital rift now?" Glyph asked. "Whatever came out of that came uncomfortably close to hitting Khadam. We have preparations in place to deal with threats from the sky now," she shot Meteor a significant glance, "but more information is always preferable." Meteor nodded, letting the veiled reference to her missing husband pass. "That one's worrying me a *lot*, and I've got Lightfoot up there looking around to see if he can find anything. It was definitely a ship of some kind, and a big one. It definitely arrived via time rift, as there was a strong tachyon signature when it appeared. There was another tachyon signature after it vanished, but more focused, not like the ones generated by the time rifts. More importantly, it vanished from radar thirty seconds before the second tachyon signature. Not the most comforting thought, since that implies it may have some sort of stealth system. The PC interdict satellite was on the wrong side of the planet to get a visual, but confirms that there was no hyperdrive signature either on arrival or departure. Right now we're trying to see if anything was looking in the right direction at the time, but it's not looking good. It arrived just barely on the daylight side of the planet, so none of the visible-light astronomical systems would have been open for business yet, just things like radar. Fortunately, after Doublecross's Paris plot, our space tracking systems were permanently upgraded, so we do have more data on the ship than we might otherwise have gotten, but it's still not a lot. I'll have it all forwarded to your systems once we finish here." "Do we have any good news at all?" Sultry asked, frustrated. "Yes," Contact interjected. "I was able to get one more piece of useful information out of Timeslip's memories. Just a flash, but he saw part of a yacht, complete with enough of the registry number that we were able to find it. It's named the Lazy Twilight, flagged out of Malta to a woman named Neve R. Mai. And yes, for any at the table who don't know, 'mai' is Italian for never...the sort of deliberate calling card someone picking up the legacy of the CSV would leave. We're trying to see if this false identity has anything else of interest attached to it, but I doubt it. In any case, we should be able to locate the Lazy Twilight pretty soon, and then decide if we want to try to board it." "It's likely a trap, for many reasons," Grind noted. "Not least being that everything these people have done so far has been a trap in some way." "Granted," Meteor agreed. "So, that's where we stand. We have a possible lead, most of our time rifts are currently being dealt with, and there's something really big out in space that will probably come back at the worst possible time. Any questions?" * * * * [April 20, 2026 - near Poznan, Poland] Felix had seen nothing like these two women in all his admittedly short time with the 4th Panzer Brigade. The two light companies of the second Abteilung had seen many strange things in the past several days, though, so the speedy french woman and the young Polish woman tipping over Panzerkampfwagen I's still had stiff competition. There had been rumors of ubermenschen under development in the Bavarian labs, but a Slav with such powers? He triggered his PzKpfw I's twin 7.92mm machineguns, carefully tracking the bursts onto the slender Pole, but she barely jerked as his weaponfire shed off her like rain from a duck's back. She did seem to be careful to avoid the 2cm shells from the company's heavier PzKpfw II's, so she was probably not completely invulnerable. Not that this comforted Felix overmuch, as he was in an all but obsolete Panzer I, and the other inhumanly strong woman seemed to be heading his way despite the efforts of his infantry support to stop her. This was certainly not turning out as well as the first day's battle had. "Back off, Frenchie!" came a shout from behind, barely audible over the chattering of Felix's guns. He turned to see a man in what looked like aviator's leathers, swinging a great poleaxe that crackled with lightning and glowed with some sort of runes. He pointed the weapon at the woman approaching Felix's Panzer and a bolt of electricity shot out, striking her in the chest. She staggered, spasming from the jolt. Felix snapped out of his shock and swung his turret around, taking advantage of her momentary stop to fire several rounds into the woman, dropping her to the ground. She didn't bleed, but it was the most effective his guns had been since the two women had started assaulting the company's laager ten minutes ago. The Pole snarled and turned away from her current target to advance on the axe-wielder, but only got a few steps before she too was struck by lightning, followed by a 2cm shell from one of the more alert PzKpfw II gunners. She flew forward and landed almost atop her comrade, who was starting to rouse. With a glare of hatred for the newcomer, "Frenchie" picked up the Pole and ran off faster than Felix's eye could follow. Shrugging, the man walked over to Felix and said in German with a strong British accent, "Greetings! I am called Justice. May I speak to your commander? It is a vital matter of importance to the world!" * * * * [April 21, 2026 - the Oort Cloud, Sol System] "Ship, this is Commander Hektane," the captain said over the ship-wide channel. "There have been a number of rumors floating around about our situation, and I'd like to clear things up. Now that we've had time to fix our most serious damage and get some more accurate star readings, I can say that we are no longer in our own time." He could feel the murmur run through the massive ship, despite the comm system being set to one-way operation. Even the bridge crew, who already all knew what he was going to say, seemed to echo the trepidation and shock that others no doubt were expressing. "We're not a survey ship, so we don't have the most up-to-date astrometrics gear, but we were able to get a fix within half a century either way, which was more than good enough to be sure that there's no going home. At least, not simply by Twisting. Further, once we knew what to look for, we were able to pick up old Planetary Confederation communications traffic from an interdiction satellite. We're apparently stuck in the dying days of the Confederation, in perhaps the worst possible place to be...the Sol System at the height of its so-called 'Heroic Age'. "The good news is, it's extremely unlikely anyone can detect us where we are. We have better sensors than anything in this era, and if we see someone coming we can always put up the radar sheath. Plus, even with most of the ship's resources devoted to the planetary sterilization systems, we're likely better armed than anything we're going to find in the hinterlands here. Anything that can find us can't beat us. "The bad news is, there's a reason the Galactic Warrior Corps was forced to attempt destruction of this world on several occasions. The paranormal inhabitants of this world make any of the psis or wild talents from back home look puny by comparison, and it's certainly possible that one of them will have the power to face a ship of the line. That said, we do have several choices." He paused to let things sink in, then continued. "The safest option is to take the long way home. Engineering assures me that the old slowboat systems were installed in the Fornax, should they be needed in the event of a Twist breakdown. We can reroute main gun power to the drives and maintain a constant one-gee acceleration long enough to reach a high enough relativistic speed that with minimal use of hibernation we could simply loop up and around off the galactic disk, so that we come back to Santari space more or less in our home time. However, I'm not inclined to use that option unless nothing else works." Another pause. He once again wished that ship captains had some sort of sealed orders from the Emperor, an "Open in case of time travel" sort of packet, but he didn't. Maybe the admiralty had thought about the matter and had plans in place, but a mere Commander wasn't privy to that sort of thing. Especially since he captained a ship built with well-proven technology that wasn't supposed to do weird and unpredictable things. "Our other option is to grab this opportunity with both hands. We destroy Earth now, before they spread to the stars, and then return to Santar. We all know the basics of this ancient history, which Houses were responsible for the fall of the Confederation...we can stop all of that. We can sidestep centuries of decline and rebuilding, and establish the new Santari Empire right now, in our lifetimes. The technology aboard the Fornax, in her databanks and in the skills we all bring to the table, will free our people from dependence on the T!rir's handouts. The Twist Drive will let us bind the scattered worlds together, where the six month Hyperspace round trip from one end of the Confederation of the other doomed it to disintegration. Are you with me?" A ragged cheer resounded through the massive ship. "Good! From here on out, time is our ally. I don't intend to do this in a slipshod manner, although we do need to move relatively quickly. We were visible long enough that even the primitive Terrans would know we were there, and that will likely bring attention from the Galactic Warrior Corps. But we have time to repair all systems and devise a plan of attack. I already know which of you did well in your military history classes, but if any of you have studied this era as a hobby, inform your superiors. We don't have a scout wing, or anything capable of making the trip from here to Earth in a reasonable time other than the entire ship, so I'll want to know as much as possible before we return. Our first strike needs to remove as much of their space-travel capability as possible, so that we can concentrate on sterilizing the world at our leisure...." * * * * [April 21, 2026 - Olympus, Q'Nos] "This is certainly fascinating, Kaliban," the Vizier said, a thoughtful hand on his chin. "But definitely well beyond my abilities, at least as they now stand. Even in my heyday, artificial intelligence wasn't one of my strengths." Kaliban nodded. While "Simon Smith" played things close to the vest at even the least guarded of times, the former Vivarium resident had learned that he was among those rarest of individuals...someone who had been active in the hurly-burly world of supernormality in the previous century. Hero or villain was left unsaid, but the man was clearly no Anchor, making him rarer still for a survivor. But no mere observer had been Mr. Smith. "Still, o prince among men, while skills improve with the passage of years, the man underneath rarely strays far. What you can do may not apply, but what you would do given the skill is a matter of your mettle." "Ah, yes. But would I give away my personal weaknesses to the ambassador plenipotentiary of a power I may one day find at odds with my lord and master? Still, I suppose I could offer some clarity, confirm what you may already have guessed," he relented. "Much of my mystic training comes from an alchemical background, as you have no doubt surmised by now, and the leader of your Conclave of Super-Villains should be well-versed in those arts. While he appears to be bronze, Talos is likely a more mystical variant on the metal, incorporating more than merely copper and tin. I would expect some of my own blood to have been used in quenching the alloy, to make him more a true offspring of mine...and if you haven't already found a way to obtain genetic samples from me, you won't be clever enough to defeat Talos anyway," he grinned in an grandfatherly manner that belied his role and reputation. Kaliban nodded. "What of his mind? Is there anything you would dare tell me of how you would have a son think and feel?" Smith shrugged. "Likely entirely mystical in nature. Given the identities of the other members of the team as you have described them, I don't think I would risk silicon or photonics in the construction. He would be intended as my successor, and if Matrioshka or Chiaroscuro could subvert him too easily, he would not be very good at that job, yes? Now, it does sound like Talos is something of a child in his reactions, especially his reaction to pain. I suspect I wouldn't try to give him a fully-formed psyche, but rather I would craft a child and send him into the world to grow up on his own. Talos is likely still very much that child, albeit a very powerful one." "Thank you, Vizier, for your sage advice," Kaliban bowed. "One more thing, ambassador plenipotentiary," Smith grinned. "The powers over light that Chiaroscuro seems to wield can be traced back through several steps to a man who was the first to go by the name of Beacon. While he is long dead and forgotten by most, one of his enemies may be rousing from her slumber. Whether she is a help or a hindrance to Chiaroscuro remains to be seen, but any others who claim descent from the Lord of Living Light may wish to keep a close eye on the shadows...." * * * * [April 22, 2026 - near Leszno, Poland] "My subordinates have told me they believe what you say, at least as much as any of this situation is believable," Oberstleutnent Schmidt said, gesturing as if to take in an entire world gone mad. His tightly-fitting black "Panzer wrap" uniform was spattered with dried mud here and there, and he hadn't shaved in days. "But, Herr Shaw, I wish to hear it from your own mouth before I decide if I can trust you." "Well, you know my name," Colin replied, the English accent to his German having faded somewhat over the past few days, thanks to all the talking he'd been doing. "And you know that you're in a Poland not under German rule. In fact, Poland spent most of the past eighty or so years under the thumb of Russia," he said. The best lies contain the most truth, mum always told him. "Germany lost the war that you were involved in helping start back in 1939, and was divided among the victors. Russia came out of the war in a pretty good position, and communism spread across much of the world...I was raised in socialist England, for instance," he told the assembled officers. It was more or less true, too...Labor had held onto Parliament most of the time he was growing up, and that was pretty socialist, yeah? "If you were raised socialist, why do you seek to help us?" Schmidt asked. "Because I was raised socialist, sir!" Colin replied, mustering as much indignation as he could manage. "I wouldn't wish socialism on even the Russians. Now, I'm not much of a historian, but I can't help but think that if Germany won, or even if it held out a little longer before losing, the world would be better off. And when I found this," he hefted his mystic axe, "I knew that the spirit of Germany was the key to finding justice in the world. So I named myself Rechtigkeit, after the previous German heroes to carry the axe and fight against wrong." In fact, there had been two heroes of that name before. One in the 1950s and 1960s, and the other in the 1990s. Both had met unpleasant ends...the first had been murdered by his own son. But they had fought for West Germany and worn its colors. "I have assessed our situation," Schmidt narrowed his eyes. "We do not stand a chance. Eventually, even with your help, the armed forces of this time will mobilize and we will be crushed. The small tank unit we faced when we first arrived was clearly far beyond our level of technology, and only surprise and no small amount of luck let us carry the day. They will not be so easily surprised again. Why should we not simply try to get the best terms for surrender that we can manage?" "Because you don't have to fight them *now* to win," Colin explained. "History shows you vanished in 1939. While you are only two light companies, the confusion your disappearance caused threw the entire advance into disarray. Poland was still conquered, but precious momentum and confidence had been lost. Stalin saw weakness where there should have been strength, which gave him courage to counterattack. If we could get you back through the hole in time, history might be changed for the better." The lieutenant colonel pondered this for a long moment. "Still, it has been several days now. Even if we were to fight our way back to this 'hole in time,' you say we emerged from, would not our absence of several days do enough damage?" Colin shrugged. "I'm not a scientist or a philosopher. Maybe time will repair itself if the damage is small, and you'll actually reappear with no lapse in time. Maybe you'll get back several days late, but your story will be believed. Maybe the legend of the time-lost panzer command will become a rallying point. I really don't know. But I do know what happened in my history, when you never came back. And I do know that if you stay here, you will have to surrender at some point." Schmidt smiled. "You are earnest, I will give you that. And there's even a small chance you are telling the truth. But," he picked up a book from the trestle table behind him, "this may be telling the truth as well. My men found little useful intelligence in this village, as so much seems to be stored on electronic machines we lack the time to learn the operation of, but your future time still has books. And I read Polish," he tapped the title. "In the event you do not, it is a history book. Oh, save your protests. I am aware that history is written by the winners, and the fact that you and this book disagree does not mean you are wrong. But even if your words are a lie, your message is valid. We cannot stay here. And this is not a future in which I would wish to live...perhaps on my return to 1939 I can attempt to set things right." * * * * [April 22, 2026 - Malta] The helijet touched down in VTOL mode, disgorging a small army of supernormals, the majority of the Earthside contingent of ASH plus most of the STRAFE core team. "The harbormaster confirms that no one has left the Lazy Twilight since it docked an hour ago," Tony Drake said, holding a hand over his earpiece to block out the roar of the helijet's slowing rotors. "Contact, you're with me on boarding duty," Meteor ordered. "Breaker, Fury, Green Knight, backstop us. Dan?" she turned to Grind. "I'm going in. Tony, you too. C.J., I want you to go talk to the harbormaster in person, just in case he's hiding something." "And me?" Teller asked. "Stay by the helijet, break out the rail rifle. If we need to move fast, I want there to be something to move *in*," Grind ordered. "Gotcha," the telekinetic marksman nodded. "I'm on point," Drake said, as the foursome approached the yacht. Being nearly impossible to damage made him a natural for a suspected trap. He could still feel pain, and there were any number of ways to neutralize him, but at least he'd survive being at the sharp end. Meteor's speed, Contact's psi powers and Grind's overall "super spy" abilities made them the best bets for the boarding party out of the rest of the combined teams. "Sensors don't show anything but a standard commercial security system," Grind noted as they came up to the yacht. It was maybe thirty meters long, impressive for a private citizen but common enough among the rich. "But that doesn't mean anything, given that our targets have access to technology twenty-odd years ahead of our own. I've neutralized the security system in any case." "Are you sure that's a good idea, Grind?" Contact asked as Tony picked up a portable gangplank and moved it over to the hull. The leader of STRAFE shrugged. "It's a no-win situation. Deactivating the system may trigger something, but not deactivating it means we'll set off alarms that may be tied to traps. Either way something might go off. And if this whole thing is a red herring, at least we don't have the nuisance of a klaxon now. Contact, are you picking up anything?" The muscular telepath shook his head. "No minds, no. There's something, almost at the edge of my senses, but I can't nail it down. It's familiar, though." "Well, let's get on board," Drake said, walking up the gangplank. "The party can't start until the guests arrive." When nothing exploded, opened fire, or otherwise spat death at Tony, the other three followed him onto the yacht. "I think I know what I'm getting," Contact said after a few moments of carefully pacing the deck. "It's like a telepathic static shield, but quieter. More of a sort of cotton wadding, where static shields are like steel wool. Must be 2052's version. So there could be dozens of people belowdeck, or no one, and I wouldn't know." "Then you might as well go join C.J., help her question the harbormaster," Meteor sighed. "Right," Contact agreed, hopping down to the dock. Then the Lazy Twilight exploded. ============================================================================ Next Issue: You should know by now that no one's totally safe now that the Impossible Five hold all the cards, but did they play an ace or a deuce in Malta? Plus, there's still more immediate problems to deal with...be here next issue for Timequake Part 3: Dallas Rocket! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: Ooops! In CSV #28, the dinosaur appears in Venice, but in ASH #79 I had it in Rome, and no one caught it (least of all me) until weeks after posting. Let's just say that the reports coming in during CSV #28 were a bit garbled. :) Most of the Gobi is actually part of the Central Asian Confederation, but it's the sort of place that no one really fights too hard over, and the People's Republic of China does lay claim to some of it. That's where their new spaceport is being built. It's the same sort of logic that has had spaceports proposed in Arizona and Nebraska in the real world...if you're going to have a land-based port, put it where there's lots of open space in case something comes in hard. Or, at least, somewhere with too few people to have the clout to keep it out of their backyards. I suppose I should go into a bit of background on the Santari for the benefit of newer readers who haven't trawled the entire archive yet. The wars of the gods involve a lot of time travel and paradoxes, hence the term "Causality Wars" you may have seen pop up from time to time. In an attempt to shield himself from having his worshippers erased from existence, a minor Roman god named Santarus took a dedicated core of his followers and plopped them down on an Earthlike world over 200 lightyears from Earth and ten thousand years in the past. He set them up with a supernaturally stable culture, a side-effect of which was that the Magene was almost completely suppressed in them. And then he got himself erased via other means, leaving a colony of humans on another world with no memory of Santarus save for the certainty that they were the Santari (or Santarii, my Latin skills are pretty much nonexistent). They did go into a bit of a decline a few times, but always bounced back, and by about the time they caught up with the era they had been pulled from, they were starting to explore nearby stars. All of this was a roundabout way to have human-like aliens with a Romanesque culture without invoking the "parallel evolution" cliche. I wanted my own cliche, by gum! I will admit that my origin for the Santari has not exactly been popular with the readers, but I like it...and even if I didn't, I don't think I'd want to retcon it away now. That way lies Infinite Crises. And no, the Santari don't actually speak English (although they probably have plenty of loan-words by the 37th Century), or use terms exactly like "Oort Cloud", but I've never really cared for the SF trope of making up new names for everything simply for the sake of driving home alienness. When I do make up terms, like Dectos or Tsaran, it's because it's for something where there isn't an English word. Or because the mood strikes me. Whatever. So assume that their dialogue is all translated not only into English, but into appropriate Terran terms where such exist. For what it's worth, Dectos descends via long and twisty paths from Decturion, but has changed in meaning as it has been applied to new situations and military structures over the millennia. The Panzer I (PzKpfw I) really does kinda suck, poor Felix. Check out its stats at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_I. But, in real history, it really didn't face much opposition in 1939, and even a "trainer" tank is still better than the horse-mounted cavalry Poland was still fielding. Each Panzer Regiment or battalion in 1939 was composed of two Abteilungs ("departments"), each made up of two light companies (with Panzer I and IIs) and one heavy company (of Panzer III and IVs), for a total of 71-74 tanks. The stranded tanks in this story are the two light companies of one Abteilung, plus their anti-tank support. For those who haven't been following along the whole time, Simon Smith was born Bennett Rush. In the 1970s, he was a government employee who stumbled across the equipment of the original Beacon (see his series at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH/history.html) and used it to become the high-tech villain Doublecross. An accident with a teleporter turned him into living light in the early 1990s, but his hubris led him to clash with Apollo during the Godmarket, and he was stripped of his powers and memory and turned into a mortal once more. But, thanks to Apollo's curse, he was "invisible" to the gathering up of paranormals that created the Barrier. Much later, he stumbled across the original home of Simon Filius, the Renaissance-era alchemist who would become Lord Ebon in the 20th Century, and his study of magic unlocked his blocked potential once more. Contact with a fragment of Eos's rainbow bridge (pieces of which he used to create Q'Nos's gateway to Venus) unlocked his memories as well. Needless to say, he's very careful to not let anyone know he carries the legacies of two of the 20th Century's most notorious villains, although Peregryn probably suspects him of being a student of Ebon's writings. Justice seems to spend a lot of his time pretending to be one of the bad guys, doesn't he? Infiltrating the Revanche, acting the part of a pro-Nazi resistance fighter...no wonder people have trouble trusting him. :) ============================================================================ For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art, and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH ! To discuss this issue or any others, either just hit "followup" to this post, or check out our Yahoo discussion group, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/ ! ============================================================================