7th February
05:05 GMT
"O-kay."
I look around the cargo hull of Xor's reclaimed ship.
"Ten thousand bleed fracture personal communicators designed to look like commercially available brands with text, sound and video recording and transmission. Effectively unlimited data storage and able to interact with government monitored channels and charge from commercially available power points."
Onigar picks one up and taps the screen, working her way through the menu.
"I… Can see the use of it. But I was expecting you to do something more aggressive."
I shake my head. "Not a good idea. Intervention-in-force would require an army of occupation numbering in the billions. I don't have an army that big lying around." Though Dox is working on it. He probably could field a billion soldiers at this point, but most of them would be from allied worlds and their governments would only authorise them for fighting the Reach. "So we're using a prod-based strategy."
"Meaning?"
"Make it harder to get away with being bad, and make the punishment for grotesque violations extreme. So rather than citizens fearing government attack squads, malevolent government officials will fear the righteous retribution of Lantern Xor's team. Or such other individuals who might choose to act on the information they receive. And their own citizens will gain the ability to share evidence of malevolent activity with a device the government can't censor."
I shrug.
"This decay isn't the result of the activity of a single individual I could arrest or assassinate. Is it?"
"No."
"And I'm trying to ease up on mass killings. I'm.. afraid that this doesn't meet my threshold for that. This is… Going to have to be a long-term thing."
She looks around at the equipment racks. "How long will Xor be staying?"
"Until it's done."
"Doesn't he have other duties?"
"Yes: teaching me how to train people. Orange Lanterns aren't police. Police… Are supposed to be objective, disinterested servants of the law. Like Green Lanterns. Orange Lanterns fight the fights which matter to them as individuals. This is the most important thing in Lantern Xor's life." I shake my head. "I'd be a fool to try and order him away. When he's done… We'll see."
"Ten thousand won't be enough. My homeworld alone has a population-."
"While this is the most important thing in Lantern Xor's life, it isn't the most important thing in mine. This ship has the facilities to manufacture more but you'll have to organise that yourself."
"Avoiding the Alignment's fleet might be difficult."
"The ship has excellent stealth, and can move. And Lantern Xor is perfectly capable of moving the fabrication unit to a different location. But if you're directly engaging the Alignment's fleet then you're doing it wrong." I nod my head to the right. "I think. You know more about your culture than I do."
"And if I want to cause a civil war against a state ruled by the people who ordered my mother's death?"
I know that she doesn't, but I suppose that these things have a way of escalating.
"Then maybe that's for the best." I shrug. "I have an unusual insight into some areas, but my understanding of sociodynamics is nothing special. In the long run it may turn out to be better to have a war."
The door opens and Guy walks in. "You about finished in here?"
"I think so. You?"
"I'd rather have your job. Retribution missions ain't exactly in th' Green Lantern Corps playbook."
"On the positive side, you don't have to kill anyone."
"You don't have t' kill anyone."
"Yes, but if I did it wouldn't be a problem for me."
"Hm. You ever wonder 'bout that?"
"Occasionally. You picked a location?"
"Short term, sure. Long term I was thinkin' 'bout that place in Vega with the snailfuckers. Since yer headin' that way anyway."
"There's… Room, but I don't really want to dump a whole lot of different aliens in the same place."
"Hey." He pokes me in the chest. "You're the Illustres. You want someplace else t' dump people then plan fer it."
I hesitate before going with my instinctive response of 'I'd be happy just shooting them'. I don't think that argument would be productive.
"Isn't there a Green Lantern Corps marooning world marked out around here?"
"Sure. Problem is, th' Alignment's got good FTL. Ain't that hard t' find it."
"Fine, I'll take them." I won't be giving them anything more advanced than simple farming tools, so there shouldn't be that much trouble with the locals. And the Gordanians can take care of themselves. Need to check up on them when I'm there. "Need me for anything else?"
"Nah. Get outta here."
I nod and turn away, staring eyes unfocused. One nice thing about neural imprinting children with little or no life experience is that they end up looking rather similar to me. So the War Hound training facility is… There.
I raise my right hand to my forehead, and the ship vanishes.
To be replaced by another ship.
Interesting. I engage my armour's stealth systems and take a moment to look at it. The Alignment has been experimenting with FTL weapons, but their current generation have colossal power requirements that they struggle to meet. That results in them putting the guns on what are effectively battleship hulls, replacing large portions of the gunnery, armour and shields with generators and thrusters and turning it into an artillery vessel. It's not a terrible design, but the FTL weapon design they're using is more of a 'neat trick' rather than anything truly game-changing. Most of the power goes into bypassing physics rather than hitting the target, so this thing basically reaps small to mid-sized vessels and can't fight things of its own displacement.
Plenty of other ships in this area as well. The location isn't a shipyard-. No, it is, but for repair purposes only. They actually build their ships in systems with inhabited worlds. There are a few large space stations where they train a lot of their ship crews, and the planetside facility where new War Hounds are made.
It is nice that their technology doesn't let them track me while I'm actively evading them.
I point myself at the planet and activate my armour's thrusters.
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