Yue

 22nd January

01:21 GMT

The officer in charge of the light carrier giving us a ride looks around as I stroll onto the bridge before returning his attention to the hologram the newly rechristened Chay'ara is gesturing to.

"…and here, though we may need dedicated mining equipment to break through. We deliberately collapsed a mountain over it."

"If it's that resilient, we could always just shoot our way through."

"Or you could ask me?" Ring, scan the rubble down there? Ah, a hill. Looks completely natural to me, but I suppose that after all this time it would. "Heavy lifting is why I'm here, isn't it?"

The officer's eyes shift to me again. "This is a Thanagarian matter. We'll involve aliens if we need to."

"Okay, I offered." I stroll a little closer-. Ah, yes, the ring's giving me confused returns about what's inside the hill. "Does anything down there suggest that the site has seen any recent use?"

The officer presses a button on his control panel, and the display shows a group of dots fly towards the planet. "We will know in a few minutes."

Of course, I could just teleport down… But… Yeah, this is a Thanagarian matter. They aren't Earth; they're technologically developed enough to deal with this themselves. Unless one of the Seven Devils turns up in person I don't need to involve myself directly.

"Chay-ara, what can you tell us about what other resources these people might have?"

"In my first life, they would have legions of soldiers armed as we were, hierophants empowered by a sliver of their might, automata and.. other things. Like these Man-Hawks."

"When you say 'automata', do you-?"

"Statues granted animation by magic or animated by their will. It.. sickens me to think about it."

"Why?"

"We were their tools. As far as they were concerned, we existed only to glorify them. The.. ship.. that brought me to Earth? Only a handful of devout hierophants were allowed the knowledge of how such things operated. The Man-Hawks are the most obviously altered, but if the lizarkons have no Nth metal in their bodies I doubt that our own strength was a product of natural evolution."

I look at her for a moment. "Their bodies, Sharon Parker."

She glares at me, then appears to snap out of it. "Yess, yes, I-." She takes a moment to order her thoughts. "I'm sorry, this whole situation-. This battle was Chay-ara's life. All of her memories are coming back at once. I think I'm even getting phantom pains from her wings."

"These creatures once ruled us? Altered us?" The officer bares his teeth in a sign of absolute distaste. "Disgusting."

"Is it? Your people do use cybernetics, and-."

"How would it be amongst your people if monsters altered you to turn you into their playthings?"

I shrug. "We'd do as your forebears did: rise up, cast them down and take everything they ever owned for ourselves."

"The gladness I feel at the knowledge that I am descended from such people only just barely counterbalances how repugnant I find what came before. You speak as if we were similar, but when have your people endured such horror?"

"Ah..? Vampires and werewolves?" I shrug. "They've been around for centuries. Possibly longer. More recently, we've had Devil Jizz users, and magicians have been making pacts with demons for as long as we've got records."

"Vam.. pires? What are those?"

"Humans who gain massively increased strength, endurance and regeneration in exchange for being burned by the sun and needing to drink blood. Older vampires gain hypnotism, shapeshifting and the ability to control the weather."

"Who do they serve?"

"No idea. The few I've met usually don't serve anyone, or if they do it's the Elder who changed them. Werewolves get increased strength, endurance and regeneration but become mindlessly bestial during some parts of the lunar cycle. Jizzers get random powers and mutations, demon pacts can grant just about anything…" He looks askance at me. "Working on Earth is great preparation for the rest of the universe: you'll never encounter anything you haven't seen before. Though the place itself is a bit-"

The hologram shifts as data begins coming in from the attack ships.

"-mental."

Both Ms Parker and the officer give it their full attention at once, studying the changes brought by each update.

"No defences." The officer gives his wings a small ruffle. "I will have them deploy a beacon so that we can teleport down a team of engineers."

"Let me know if you need me." I raise my right hand to my forehead and-

-step out and back-

-next to Bleez. Her eyes are on me the moment I reappear, then she returns her attention to the monitor she's reading from.

"They're sending down a team, but it doesn't look like anyone's here."

"What do you know about Nth metal synthesis?"

"I really don't remember how I did it." I shrug. "Lead, massive amounts of power and a whole lot of mental processing to keep the… Stuff I was working on from going critical or forming…" I frown. "Wrong, I think."

"Do you know how much Nth metal the Thanagarian Empire uses each day?"

"No?" I know that it's in virtually all of their advanced technology, but I've got no idea what their daily usage is like. "Lots, probably?"

"I like being a singer, but Mother had me educated 'as befits my station'." She grimaces prettily. "I know economics. And I know how much Nth metal our transmutation factories create and how much power it takes to make them work."

"Something.. not lining up?"

"No, the numbers make sense. At the moment. But mine productivity is decreasing. And the fleet is growing."

"I imagine me telling them that I couldn't remember how I made Nth metal out of lead was a bit of a disappointment."

"The Thanagarian Empire doesn't have any friends. All of the people who live around our borders are worried about which of them will be conquered during our next expansion. If anyone finds out that our fleets can't be replaced-."

"I'm not really seeing a problem. The Thanagarian navy is easily big enough to fight off any invasion force anyone else around here could muster. All that happens in the medium term is that Nth metal gets a little more expensive, and.. frankly, I don’t really want the Empire expanding any more, not without substantial internal reform."

"Yes, I know what we're like! I don't want us 'expanding' either. But what do you think the High Mor will do if he starts getting worried about Thanagar's strength diminishing?"

"Hopefully, adjust his policies to adapt to the new reality. But, in reality… Try to come to terms with people who should never be dealt with." I smile wryly. "I might get to fight one of the Seven Devils after all."