The cover shows the planet Earth in a set of crosshairs on a monitor screen. A hand is reaching on from the left as if to grasp and crush the world. Cover copy shouts, "INTO THE FURNACE!" //|| //^^\\ || || .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS // || \\ || || --X--------------------------------------------- //======================= '|` ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #82 // || \\ || || Timequake Part 4: The Furnace // || \\__// || || 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Note: you may want to pay attention to the dates on the scene headers this issue. Lots of flashbacks.] [May 5, 2026 - Near Earth Orbit] The ISN Fornax wasn't an exceptional ship when she was built. Rare, yes, that could be said. There wasn't too much need for planetary bombardment craft capable of reducing the surface of a world to a charred cinder...while useful under limited circumstances, they were woefully undergunned for ship-to-ship combat for a craft of their size and cost, meaning they needed to be protected en route to their target. The realities of combat at several light-seconds' distance just made the Fornax a sitting duck in standard tactical situations, given that her main weapon fired plasma at subluminal velocities and her opponents all had missiles capable of faster than light travel. Its captain, Commander Hektane, had been resigned to an undistinguished tour of duty before putting in enough time to earn command of a real warship. But that was the reality in the 37th Century, where she had been built. Now, nearly two millennia in his own past, Commander Hektane was confident that even had the entire Planetary Confederation fleet been on hand, it would have had trouble dealing with the Fornax...and he certainly planned to put that theory to the test shortly. But right now, he had a more urgent target. Earth. Home to humanity, cradle to the United Worlds, the main opposition the Santari faced in his native time. And, perhaps more importantly in this day and age, home to the wildly unpredictable supernaturals that had fortunately been reduced to an insignificant number in his time. "Sir, primary target one in firing range," the Dektos reported. Primary target one was Khadam, the only real spaceport the planet had in this backward era. There were others, little more than glorified Pranir smuggling strips, and one had already been wiped from the face of the planet by the Fornax's main weapon. Now it was time to erase the smugglers' main haven. "Fire!" he ordered, with grim satisfaction. * * * * [April 24, 2026 - Oort Cloud, Sol System] "Do you have it operational yet, Smells-Fresh-Meat?" the Pranir shuttle owner asked. Barnes sighed. He'd been told that a descriptive Starname was an honor, even though the Pranir were perfectly capable of saying his real name. But while the Starname was a reasonable description of his paranormal talent to detect the so-called Universal Donors...it made him a little too aware of the final fate of those he fingered. He wasn't exactly squeamish, you didn't go into organlegging if you were, but he liked to pretend he had some humanity left. "I think so, Catches-Crosswinds," he told the owner and pilot. The snakeowl fancied himself a sailor, and even kept a small dinghy packed up in one of the Grubni's holds. It was an expensive affectation, since the Grubni didn't have much cargo capacity to start with, being focused on delivery of low-mass, high-value items and passengers. This was largely a data run, with some genetic samples...and Barnes himself as supercargo. He'd been spending time lately bouncing back and forth between Earth and one of the more obscure border systems nearby where Santari scientists were trying to crack their transplant rejection problem using their normal science. As a bonus, Barnes also kept the supertech cloaking device on the Grubni working...organleggers got a lot more heat than most smugglers, after all, and the outbound runs from Earth always held...samples...for the research. Usually taken without permission. Sometimes even taken whole. "Good," Catches-Crosswinds nodded, his beaked head bobbing up and down and his feathery crest rippling. "Activate the shroud once we have decoupled from the external hull of our host." Small enough to slip past many detectors, the Grubni was also too small to carry the sort of engines required by hyperdrives, and very few Pranir smugglers could afford the ultra-compact super-capacitors used by ships like the Galactic Warrior Corps patrol craft to get around the problem. Catches-Crosswinds expected to be able to join that elite crowd in a few more trips, though. Barnes wasn't looking in the direction of the forward port, which was why he was only momentarily dazzled by the sudden flare of light that marked the deaths of Stealthily-Avoids-Patrols and his crew. Alarms started to blare. "What the grazz?" Barnes spat. "Launching now! Engage shroud!" Catches-Crosswinds shouted, his natural buzzing and clicking audible over the translator's vox. "Our host didn't live up to his Starname this time, but we may yet escape!" "Cloak up...I hope," Barnes tapped at the status screen, which glowed green. "Power at full, we should have a good day's cover if we need it." "Need it we will. Ship sluggish as armless old cripple at shroud-safe levels," he snarled, slipping into a local dialect that the translator had a little trouble with. The cloaking device may have had its own power source, but using too much of ship's power could give off emissions that the device couldn't mask. "Now pray to your two-arm gods we weren't spotted before we shrouded. Whoever fired that shot not copulating around." * * * * [May 5, 2026 - The Citadel, Khadam] Symbols carved into the walls next to the monitor bank glowed an angry red of warning, pulsing like a heartbeat. Glyph ignored them, as they'd done their job several minutes ago and now simply served as a reminder that the danger they warned of had not yet come to pass. She stood in a circle engraved into the floor of the specially prepared chamber, deep channels outlining a confusing array of symbols. Valves positioned at junctures snapped into place, sealing off some channels while leaving others open. Speaking a mixture of ancient human languages and tongues spoken by no culture remembered by man, Glyph stepped to each of a dozen reclining forms in turn, slitting their throats carefully so that the gush of crimson flowed into a basin that fed a series of tubes. These were "squabs," cloned humans with just enough spirit to count as sacrificial victims, but totally and permanently innocent. A byproduct of research into isolating the Universal Donor factor, they were considered failures by Khadam's geneticists...but they served Glyph's purposes perfectly, as they once would have served TerraStar's. Waste not, want not. As their blood filled the tubes, a series of stopcocks opened automatically to pour the fluid into the carved channels in the floor, defining a mystic circle. Then, as she finished with the twelfth and final victim, Glyph spoke one phrase in plain English. "Activate defense pattern aleph-daleth." The undercity of Khadam was a sprawling, confused mess. To say it was a squalid heap of human misery might be a bit of an overstatement, for there was just enough money flowing into even the poorer parts of the undercity to ensure habitable dwellings and access to utilities. But there had certainly been no planning put into its expansion. This was not, however, to say that there had been no planning involved at any step. While adopting a fairly hands-off approach to the notion of "zoning", Khadam's government had staunchly supported one particular urban improvement initiative, an initiative put forth by the new leader of the Conclave of Super-Villains. And so, as Glyph spoke the command phrase, semaphor-like stations atop buildings all across the undercity started whirring to life, spreading colored metal flags or folding them away as commanded by the central computer. To what end, none of the residents knew. Nor did they value their lives so little as to have asked at the time of installation. But as the fire from the sky started to fall, most of them fervently hoped that the purpose would save those not-valueless lives.... * * * * [May 1, 2026 - The Citadel, Khadam] "The thing was BIG," Barnes exclaimed. "Like, see-it-on-visual-from- ten-lightsecs BIG," he held out his arms, as if to have a chance of accurately describing its size with gestures. Fortunately, he didn't have to. "As you can see," Glyph said to the teleconference participants as she sent across selected stills from the Grubni's sensors, "the ship is indeed very large. And it is very likely the object that mysteriously appeared and then vanished over Spain last month." Visible on other screens in the conference room were Delta Rose of the Galactic Warrior Corps, leader of the Central Asian Confederation the Western Dragon, Q'Nos's Vizier Simon Smith, STRAFE's Dan "Grind" Tracey, and both Meteor and Beacon of the Academy of Super-Heroes. "It looks vaguely Santari in its design principles," Delta Rose frowned, "but we don't have anything that big. I know that several of the Great Houses have built secret private navies, and I suppose it could belong to one of them, but I have a hard time believing that any of them could have hidden something that big from the Corps. Or that they'd put that much into one huge ship when they could have a score of effective battleships of the normal size for the same cost." "It could be a converted big cargo hauler or colony ship?" the Western Dragon ventured. "Those still would have generated a hyperpulse of some sort on leaving, even if it arrived via time rift," Grind countered. "Unless this is totally unrelated to our sudden visitor from last month, which could be worse. That would leave us with *two* gigantic unknown ships in the system." "Nothing that size could have hypered in within a light-month of Sol without tripping our detectors," Delta Rose replied. "Unless it's a slow- boat, it got here through the rift, and then left without using a hyperdrive." "Damn," Beacon said, a look of dawning recognition on his glowing green features. "What?" Meteor asked. "Do you know what that is?" Beacon nodded. "Not specifically, but I still have some hazy memories from my little trip to the future while I was dead...I'll explain later if any of you need to be caught up on that," he added. "Nothing the Santari build these days is going to be that big, especially not something capable of accurately one-punching a Pranir smuggler ship like the one Barnes's tape shows being hit. But it was pretty standard Imperial Santari Navy size in the 38th Century." Glyph hissed in shock, and her reaction was largely mirrored by the others. "Do you know what type of ship it is?" she asked. Beacon's brow furrowed with concentration. "It's nagging at the back of my brain...everything that happened then feels like a half-remembered dream, and it's mixed up with some memories I picked up from the man whose body I was borrowing. But I have a sinking feeling that it's bad news. The shape is wrong for most actual battleships, but it's too big to be anything but a purpose-built warship." There was a short pause while everyone held their breath. "I think...I think it's a planetkiller." "Lovely," the Western Dragon sighed. "I doubt that, even if we marshalled all our available spaceborne forces, we could put a dent in such a monstrosity." "You couldn't," Delta Rose nodded. "I'll send Veturna to bring as much help as she can, but the PC fleet is spread pretty thin these days, and might not be able to stop a 38th Century ship even if an entire squadron gets here in time. And before you ask, Star Knight's clear over on the other side of the Planetary Confederation right now, it'd take a month or more for a message to even get to him." "That means infiltration. Try to get aboard the ship and stop it from inside," Meteor proposed. "Agreed," Glyph said. "But we will need contingency plans as well. I believe I can delay them should they assault Khadam directly. Labyrinthe has fortunately turned up on Venus after some irresponsible wandering, so he should be able to help with the infiltration aspect, but I'd like to devote my team's efforts to one of the backup plans." "In other words, someone else takes the hard job," the Western Dragon smiled winningly, her supernatural charm almost managing to project through the teleconference link. "I nominate ASH for it, then. After the depredations of the Impossible Five, they are the most intact team, and I think this will require a group that has trained together, rather than an ad hoc international team. I will cooperate with my neighbors in China in the meantime, on trying to get our own orbital assets operational in time to make a difference." "So, Labyrinthe can create a token, like his Worldmaze pieces, to teleport a team from Venus onto the ship so long as we can get that token onto the ship," Grind mused. "But how do we get the token aboard?" * * * * [May 5, 2026 - Near Earth Orbit] "Sir! Target returning fire!" Dectos Vega shouted. "Eva..." Hektane started to order, knowing it was useless. The Fornax could no more evade plasma fire at this short range than it could perform a festival dance. The ship shuddered as armor plating absorbed and refracted most of the energy, but all sensors went black for a moment and the bridge heaved like an irritated riding beast. "What in the name of the five pits was that?" Hektane asked Vega. "And get me a report on the effectiveness of our own attack, NOW!" "Sir, I think that *was* our attack," Vega replied. "Preliminary scans from our hardened backups are showing a ring of blast damage around primary target one, but nothing inside that ring, and the signature of the blast that hit us matches our own to four decimal places. Can't get anything more until the main scanners are back online, and we've got hull breaches in five locations. Damage control teams are already on it," he added. "Status of our main gun?" "Operational, but showing some nasty fluctuations," the gunner replied. "I think we got some feedback up the spout." Hektane cursed inwardly. Supernaturals! No wonder the Corps had tried to exterminate this world more than once! "Fine. Emergency Twist, we can't risk that Khadam will have something else they can shoot at us before we can find a way around that reflection shield. Get us on the other side of the main moon so we can effect repairs and make sure the main gun won't blow up in our faces. I want us ready to return and try again in fifteen minutes! XO, Tactical, my office. I want options." On the hull of the ship, unnoticed by damage control teams, a small limpet mine clung to the slightly deformed armor plating via gecko-like sticky hairs. It had been planted quickly, during the seconds after the "exchange" of fire in which the Fornax's sensors had been blinded, and the ship that planted it was long gone at impossible speed. The mine did not explode, not exactly. Instead, it seemed to ripple and unfold like an origami flower, hot wind from the surface of Venus blowing through the hole in reality thus created. A single figure in blue and white armor emerged from the hole, which then folded back up as gracefully as it had opened. Scorch carefully detached a small stone from the surface of the limpet mine and stowed it in a compartment of his "god armor". Then he turned to the task of slowly, steadily melting a path for himself through the thick armored hull. * * * * [May 3, 2026 - Falcon Bay, Venus] The last time so many powerful people had assembled here, it had been a far more joyous occasion...a planned wedding and an unplanned but not particularly surprising (in timing if not in results) birth. But now it was a much grimmer purpose that brought them together. "So, everyone's clear on the first step?" Meteor looked around to the assembled heroes. "Glyph promises us one hell of a distraction when the Santari ship tries to attack Khadam, Lightfoot flies in *without* getting fried by whatever the distraction is and plants the token that Labyrinthe is crafting," she nodded to Yvan Viau, "and then Scorch goes in with his full armor on and brings the token inside." There were nods of assent all around. "I've got just the thing to make sure it sticks to the hull, no matter what the thing's made of," Essay added, cradling Rosa in her arms. The baby was a girl today, and looked mostly human, something not guaranteed when raising a metamorph. "I still think I should go along on this one. No offense, Boomer, but I'm better'n you." Marshal "Boomer" Hodgson shrugged. "None taken. I think I'm more expendable, though." Meteor nodded, with the tired look of someone who had hoped she was done having that particular argument. "And it's because you're better that we need you here, Essay. If plan A fails to destroy the ship, and all the assorted plans B don't stop it while it's reducing Earth to a cinder, then it'll come here next. You and the Viaus need to figure out some sort of last ditch defense to at least ensure humanity isn't totally wiped out." "Yeah, yeah, I get it. I just don't like waitin' around," Essay sighed. "So," Scorch interjected, "once I'm inside, how do I let Labyrinthe know to send the others through?" "I will simply not close the gate entirely, I will leave a pinprick of an opening," Yvan explained. "Once the pressure becomes more or less equal, I'll know you're inside. If for some reason opening it immediately would be bad, simply focus some flame into the token as a warning flare." "Good enough," Meteor nodded. "Green Knight, Fury, Peregryn, Beacon, Geode, Breaker, Boomer, Contact and I will be the strike team that joins Scorch," she pointed to each of the named people in turn. "Lightfoot will stay in the general area, but out of direct line of fire, in case a local extraction is necessary, but we hope to be able to get you all back to Venus via Yvan's gate. Most of us will be running interference...we may be using a tank to swat a fly, but better to have overwhelming force and a lot of options than the other way around. Once we find something explode-able or otherwise vulnerable, Boomer will set up the briefcase nuke we're bringing." "Why not just have me drop a bigger nuke inside and forgo all this messing around?" Scorch asked. "It's a damn big ship, and to them a nuke is pretty archaic tech. For all we know, they have damper fields set up to prevent nukes from going off inside," Meteor pointed out. "In that case, we'll also need to find any countermeasures and disable them first. We're only likely to get a single shot at boarding, better to go in with overkill than botch our first try and not get a second." "Okay," he acquiesced. "I'm also bringing one of my rift-sealers," Boomer added. "This thing fell through a huge-ass time rift, it might be carrying weird little pockets inside it. If I pick up any rifts inside, I wanna seal 'em before we blow the ship if possible, so we don't have to worry about tearing a planet-sized hole in spacetime when we detonate the nuke." "That would be bad, yeah," Fury smirked. "What if we have the chance to take over the ship instead?" Green Knight asked. "Instead of blowing it up, we could turn it into Earth's first line of defense against the next time someone comes gunning for us." "That's...under consideration," Meteor admitted. * * * * [May 5, 2026 - Beyond Lunar Orbit] The token folded closed once more after Boomer stepped through with his burden of scanners and other equipment hanging from his NAC Marshal uniform. Green Knight, Fury, Beacon, Geode and Breaker already formed an outer ring of defense, while Peregryn and Contact concentrated on using their skills in an attempt to gather intelligence. Fury, Breaker and Contact wore borrowed Marshal uniforms, which were sealed against environmental hazards and good in a vacuum for a limited time. Peregryn relied on his talismen, while Beacon and Geode had no need for extra protection. Green Knight was making do with an air supply hooked up to his helmet. Meteor, also wearing a Marshal's uniform, suddenly appeared as she skidded to a stop. "Clear for at least fifty meters in all directions. We picked a good place to pop in, I think all the crew are at duty stations or on damage control. But odds are there's still some kind of security sensors, so expect company soon. You getting anything?" she asked Peregryn and Contact. "My spirits are still roaming the corridors," the mage shrugged. "Nothing. I think there's some kind of telepathic jamming going on," Contact said, an annoyed edge to his voice. "It's not strong, I can still pick up everyone else here, but as far as telepathy is concerned, we're alone on the ship. Which I kinda doubt is true." "Makes sense," Beacon spared a glance back at his psionic teammate. "From what little I can dig up of Jenkins's memories, telepathy was one of the few paranormal talents still reasonably common in the future. Will be. Whatever. Anyway, they probably have countermeasures against long range psnooping," he slightly pronounced the leading "p". "At least I can still pick up anyone who gets close," Contact noted. "Like the security detail that's on its way...just came into the edge of my range." "On it," Meteor nodded. A quick burst of breeze filled the hallway, and within a few seconds she was back, with a Santari bound hand and foot with disposable plastic handcuffs. "Sorry I was so long, I had to make sure no one would stumble over the other four." "Hogging all the fun," Arin snarked. "These uniforms have all sorts of goodies in the pockets, don't they?" she added, gesturing at the cuffs. "I can get you some when we get back, if you want," Boomer replied, not looking up from his scanners. "I'm picking up a strong tachyon signal, by the way, but it's not a rift. If there are any rifts, they're being masked by the big signal. Contact, could you pick the guy's brain, see if he knows if anything on board would give off tachyons? Oh, and find me something to blow up." "You techies and your explosions," Contact shook his head. "No guarantees, he looks like a grunt, not a tech." -+Wow, Santari mores are pretty decadent,+- Paul's voice echoed in Aaron's mind. -+Now I know where we need to go on our next vacation.+- +-I don't think our travel agent has packages to the future, but I can always ask. Let's see...okay, he knows English, or something close enough for jazz, but he doesn't think in it.-+ -+There we go, the word 'tachyon' is actually in there. I guess the technical term got absorbed into Santari. Let's poke at translating what it's attached to....+- Contact broke his concentration after a moment and looked up. "They use something called a Twist Drive for FTL. It converts the entire ship into tachyons. That's about all he knows about that, but I'll keep digging. He's a security guy, he should know about what things need to be protected from insane techies and what countermeausres there are." "Okay, everyone," Meteor ordered. "His buddies are bound to show up soon, and I don't want Contact disturbed while he's looking. So let's spread out along these corridors and keep everyone at arm's length until we get a specific destination to go destroy things." "You suppose we could just ask where the bridge is and seize the ship anyway?" Scorch asked. Meteor sighed. "Tempting, but no...." * * * * [May 4, 2026 - Canberra, Australia] "No, trying to take the ship is a monumentally bad idea for a whole host of reasons," Delta Rose insisted to those assembled in the virtual conference room. "Our best bet is to just blow it to vapors. Even having large chunks left over would be bad." "The advantage of having it on our side, though, would be..." Meteor countered, before being cut off by the Galactic Warrior Corps's representative on Earth. "...totally negated by all the disadvantages, even assuming you could manage to crew it. Keep in mind, regardless of how user-friendly the tech is intended to be for everyday use, it's a warship, not a pleasure yacht. It will have systems that are dangerous and nowhere near goofproof. It will require people with significant training to keep it running, and avoid catastrophic malfunctions. Even assuming enough of the crew is subornable that you could use them, keep in mind that it's very unlikely the ship's designed to operate without support for extended periods. There's no infrastructure available for refitting and overhaul...it'd be like trying to maintain one of your main battle tanks using the resources of a medieval castle. It might work for a while, especially if you fill in the gaps with magic, but eventually...boom!" "We could park it in orbit, power down, and simply study it," Glyph countered. "Even in that condition, it would be a viable deterrent long enough for us to raid it for the technology we need to bring ourselves up to the level of interstellar power. Or are you afraid of an Earth capable of meeting the Planetary Confederation as equals?" "Damn right I'm afraid of you people!" Delta Rose spat. "But at least I'm not stupid. There's people out there who are both afraid *and* stupid, I know they'd try something. And it'd probably work, at least partially, since you won't actually be able to run the ship properly. Nor could you hope to keep it a secret once it shows up in Earth orbit. Look," she sighed, "one of the missions of the GWC is to keep a lid on dangerous technology, that's why we devote so much effort to an otherwise backward little mudball like this... you're a breeding ground for dangerous tech. If even a tenth of what you people make could work in the hands of normal people, we would have blown you up ourselves long ago." "You tried that already," Meteor pointed out. "Didn't take." "We would have done it when you had no supernaturals around to stop it," Delta smirked. "Anyway, that ship represents the biggest source of extremely dangerous tech we've seen in a long time, and I don't think anyone has the resources these days to keep it from falling, bit by bit, into every pair of wrong hands there is. Not to mention, despite the lofty sounding title of the building where my office is, you're not really a United World yet. This warship would be just the thing to set you at each other's throats as you compete to be the first to unlock its secrets. Hell, even if it does get vaporized, I'm sure some of you will have managed to loot it for a few things along the way," she shot a significant glare at Glyph. "Look," Delta sighed. "If my arguments don't sway you, keep in mind that we've already decided once that it was worth trying to eliminate you. You may have stopped the first planetkiller weapon we had in our arsenal, but the Corps has been around for centuries, and one of the main things we go after and keep well hidden in our vaults is planetkiller weapons. We have dozens, and you can't stop them all. Don't make us empty our vaults at you." "Very well, I will support the detruction of the ship, and I believe the others will as well," the Western Dragon said, having stayed silent during most of the debate. "But you may well regret one day that you chose to hold that threat over our heads." Delta Rose laughed bitterly. "The fact that the Santari need ships that big in the future, and that this one seems to be sticking around with an eye towards destroying Earth tells me that you're right. Obviously, you people end up being an even bigger danger than you are now!" * * * * [May 5, 2026 - Near Earth Orbit] "Internal sensors indicate that the intruders are on the move again," Dectos Vega reported. "The special detail only stopped them for a few seconds," he added, sounding like a man reading his own death sentence aloud. Hektane nodded, but said nothing. The special detail had been armed with the powerful anti-supernatural weapons they'd found on the Pranir smuggling ship, superior to anything the Santari normally carried. After all, boarding actions just didn't happen in modern warfare. By the time you could get close enough to board, you'd probably already managed to totally annihilate your foe. It was vanishingly rare that a ship was only crippled, especially given the lag times between shot and strike. By the time you knew you had crippled an enemy, you had already sent several more salvos to meet him, and that was usually the end of the story. Security forces were largely internal affairs, for dealing with crew that got rowdy after too long in space. And they were never meant to deal with supernaturals. "Very well," Hektane sighed. "It looks like it has come to our worst projections. Synam, initiate the Final Order. Comm, send the signal to the crew. It's been an honor serving with you all." * * * * [May 4, 2026 - Oort Cloud] "...and in the best case, that will reduce any possible resistance to a level that we can largely ignore, letting us take care of the rest of the sterilization at our leisure," Hektane finished outlining the main assault plan to his junior officers. "Any questions?" "Yes, sir," Lieutenant Commander Paraval raised a finger. "What about the worst case? We're like an egg in here. A very strong-shelled egg, but if anyone can get inside, we really don't have the means to fight off even a well-trained marine unit, much less the sorts of freaks history tells us infest Earth in this era. They'll scramble us." "Yes. Worst case. They could get inside, possibly kill or enslave every one of us," Hektane agreed. "Given enough time, they could even take over the ship, learn to operate it, and use it to establish the very interstellar empire we're trying to prevent. If it looks like there's even a halfway reasonable chance of that happening, I will *not* be responsible for handing victory over to the Terrans," he snarled. "We will enact the Final Order if that happens." The table was silent. No one asked for explanations, as everyone knew. Anyone who served on a bombardment ship knew. In extremis, if all else failed and the world had to be sterilized, if the enemy's forces were closing in and it looked like the Santari would be beaten back, there was the Final Order. The engines would be locked on full thrust, or as close to that as possible, presuming they would likely have been damaged by that point. Navigation would set a course for the planet below. The ship would become a meteor, flaming death with enough mass and speed to ensure that even if there were survivors of the initial strike, the planet would be unlivable for generations. "We know that during this era, the second planet in the system was habitable, but it seems to still be very sparsely populated from what intel we've managed to pick up," Hektane broke the silence. "Once the Final Order is enacted, everyone who can is to go to the lifeboats and try to make for the second planet. The navcomps are programmed with the destination, and we have some good guesses as to where we can land with minimal interference. From there, we hide out and hope someone friendly from the Planetary Confederation shows up to rescue us." "And hope someone unfriendly doesn't decide we're war criminals and execute us," one of the officers muttered under his breath. "Even if they do, in the end it will have been worth it. The Planetary Confederation may still tear itself apart, but there'll be no stinking Terrans around to scavenge off the pieces," Hektane snarled. * * * * [May 5, 2026 - Over the Atlantic Ocean] The heroes raced for the engine room, facing no opposition whatsoever. "How much longer do we have?" Meteor asked, racing back and forth to make sure nothing automated or suicidal lay in their way. "We're not yet in the atmosphere," Boomer said, glancing at the quarter strength overlay on his helmet visual. "But all the lifepods have ejected, even the empty ones. We've got maybe two minutes before we have to bail or go into the drink with this baby. I guess the future Santari are serious about not liking Earth." "Is this crazy plan of yours really going to work?" Fury asked. "Well, the nuke certainly won't, not now," Contact put in. "It'd just mean that lots of radioactive chunks hit Earth, instead of one big piece. Not seeing much upside there." "I can't change which way this ship's going," Boomer said, panting a little as they entered the engine room. "And I can't slow it down enough to make a difference now. But my rift-sealer does have a hyperdrive at its core, and I think I can tap enough power from these engines with a little help from you guys to make it work according to its original intention. At least, long enough to hyper through the planet." "There's the main coupling," Contact pointed, using the memories he'd taken from a fleeing tech. "Accessed," Green Knight grunted, shearing off the cover with his hands. "The electrical spirits have agreed to the task you proposed," Peregryn nodded, making a small gesture that caused sparks to fill the air around the coupling. Boomer had set down the rift-sealer and was rapidly making adjustments to it. "I'm almost ready. Get the warp gate open, Scorch, and start the evac. Fifty seconds until splash!" The ship was huge, yet even that mass wasn't enough to completely insulate them from the first howling screams of protest the hull made as passage through the magnetic field of the Earth started to induce currents in it and the very outer fringes of atmosphere tore at it. Fifty seconds later, a massive explosion lit the sky of an entire hemisphere. ============================================================================= Next Issue: You'll want to be here for Timequake Part 5, "Aftershocks"! There's no guarantee who will still be around to meet you, though.... ============================================================================= Author's Notes: Okay, I planned this as a four part arc, but this issue got a little (okay, a LOT) bigger than I'd initially thought, plus I felt it would work better to go out on the explosion. So now it's a five part arc. :) Although you can be reasonably sure the entire planet hasn't been rendered uninhabitable (although not 100% sure, since stories could continue on Venus), there's still plenty of damage short of that that could have happened. While it was established back in Academy that humans in general are pretty easy to use as transplant sources for Santari, some are better than others. Any healthy human will work as a donor in at least some cases, but if you're going to go to the expense and risk of illegally bodysnatching people for involuntary organ transplants, it's a good idea to only grab those for whom compatibility is maximum. These lucky souls are called Universal Donors, a concept introduced in Warden #2 (the term actually came up in ASH #7, but incorrectly claimed that all humans were Universal Donors, CSV #13 clarifying the distinction). They can be identified by genetic testing, but it's a lot easier if you have someone like Barnes or Scry who can suss 'em out on the spot, making spur of the moment snatches of opportunity easier. In any case, Santari scientists in conjunction with Khadamite mad scientists are trying to figure out how to use the UD markers to overcome the Santari tissue rejection problem, either by modifying the Santari or by cloning parts from existing UDs. Hence the squabs. Had Stealthily-Avoids-Patrols survived this encounter, he might have faced a challenge to his Starname. If you can't live up to your Starname and some other Pranir wants it, they can mount a challenge. As it stands, once news of poor SAP's death reaches the Pranir homeworld, the name will be up for grabs. It should be noted that Savagely-Murders-His-Enemies rarely gets challenged for *his* Starname, as the simplest defense is to savagely murder the challenger. Then again, neither does Sleeps-On-The-Job get any challenges to his Starname. TerraStar's use for the squabs was established back in CSV #25. She planned to use them as the necessary victims to fuel her transposition spell that carried people back and forth from Venus. Glyph was a part of that little conspiracy, so she was well aware of the resource they represented for "blood magic". In case anyone's curious, here's some of the other defense programs Khadam has set up, for different semaphor configurations to turn the city into giant mystic sigils. Aleph-aleph protects against falling stone (in case someone tries to repeat Rockfall), aleph-beth protects from light (in case Doublecross returns), aleph-gimel protects against lightning (both Tsaran blasters on particle beam mode, and just in case Sultry gets pissed at Glyph or something). The Beth-series protections are lesser spells requiring only one or two sacrificial victims, intended to blunt the effect of natural disasters, such as sandstorms or swarms of locusts. Gimel-series spells aren't actually protections, nor do they require blood sacrifice to work, they're mainly showy visual effects used at times of celebration. ============================================================================ 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/ ! ============================================================================