Yue

 24th January

11:17 GMT

The ship's crew are hunkering down, good. Xor will be here in seconds-.

The figure extends both hands towards me, shifting in space without apparent propulsion. I evade-. Ring, what am I fighting and what is it firing at me?

Unable to analyse.

Great, space magic, now? I didn't think that was possible, but if-.

No. Passive glow disruption.

Qwardians? Some other Maltusian faction? Pain in the arse, but okay. Make a construct sensor and scan.

Compliance.

"wRaH!"

My opponent waves his arms and I spot the stars behind him skip-. I raise construct armour as the disruption wave passes over me-. Ah! Whatever that attack was, it bypassed my construct armour and my regular armour. And if my environmental shield hadn't soaked it I might well have died.

"Did I win y-?"

I generate two laser constructs and shoot him in the eyes, maintaining the beams as I recreate the sensor-

"Gah!"

-construct and try and work out what I'm seeing. Damage pattern matches… Ahhhh. Closest match is a.. martian using molecular destabilisation. Can't be a.. martian, he's not using telepathy, but there's no inherent reason why someone else with telekinesis and shapeshifting couldn't do it as well...

He gestures and my laser constructs are shredded. Since they seem to be keeping him distracted, reform them and keep firing.

Compliance.

"Lantern Xor, recover the crew and defend them."

"I obey."

There's a faint orange glow as Xor cuts his way through the hull on the far side of the ship. His service history included enough sweep-and-clears that I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

Random bullshit powers suggests human. Ring?

Subject is speaking American English.

I think some Ungarans speak English, but the language hasn't travelled all that much off Earth. So if I assume he's a metahuman whose powers allow him to fly in space… He should know me by sight, shouldn't he?

"Earth law doesn't-."

A.. burning wall appears between us, growing as my lasers attempt to move around it to maintain fire on his eyes. What? How is-? I mean, yes, a martian could move chunks of their body into a novel arrangement and create a controlled destabilisation of its molecular structure, but it wouldn't just be… Suddenly wall. That's a construct-like effect. Ring, are you sure there's no power ring in operation here?

No evidence of power ring activity.

I.. think there's a certain amount of circumstantial evidence.

Numerous technologies exist which can-.

Yes, I know.

I dismiss the lasers and pull back slightly, ring scan showing me as Xor leaves the ship with the crew in tow. Protecting the crew is the most important thing, and now that they're safe I can try-.

A beam of vacuum-proof fire blasts past me as whoever this is switches from a solid wall to a shifting series of plates. As with a Lantern, there's a thin line of fire between his body and each plate. But he's missing his shots. No guidance or AI? If he's a general telekinetic, I'm the only object here… He should just be able to feel me, even if he can't exert enough force on me to disable me. Does he not.. know that? Has he only recently manifested his powers? If so he's doing well but-

I generate a psi-shock grenade and fire it at his shields.

-I'm still confident of my ability to take him in alive. I should probably visit-

"Uh-Ughh-h!"

-Ungara at some point anyway.

Ah. A Lantern's constructs would have collapsed after getting hit with a psi-shock grenade. His have remained in place, but they've stopped moving and from what I can make out the man himself appears to have stopped moving with them. Railgun, crumbler rounds set for premature detonation, fire at the thinnest layer of barriers… Make a hole, send bands of orange light through the gap and grab him before he can recover. Okay, his mouth is exposed to space so gassing him isn't an option, but the neural inhibitor I used on Larfleeze is perfectly viable. That will stop him forming coherent thoughts while I get a better look at his brain. The brains of human telepaths tend to have certain features in common, and I'll be far happier about this if I can suppress his unusual abilities without suppressing his entire mind.

…

What am I..? Looking at? I mean, it looks… Kind of human. I definitely recognise some of the neural architecture. But every.. part has been alt-. That looks martian, it's even shapeshifting sl-.

His eyes focus and phase!

Ah-!

Burning whatever-this-is sears off most of my chest plate and face plate and.. some of my actual face, but now that the phase shift is active it's just passing through me. I warp back, getting out of the way as much as I can before phasing back in and starting repairs.

"Who did that to you?"

"Fuck you! What the fuck were you doing to me!?"

"Trying to work out how to safely defuse you. That looked-" He flings a fiery net at me, and I shoot a hole through it with crumbler rounds. "-martian. Did someone alter your brain?"

"Yeah! And it feels great!"

"Who did it? Why did you attack this ship?"

"Call themselves the Controllers!" What. "And apparently the people who own it did something to piss them off, I don't know."

Ring, send scans to Controller Hinon and ask her what the heck is going on.

Compliance.

"I report to Controller Hinon. And no one mentioned you."

"I didn't even know they had names. And yeah, I know you work for 'em."

"Then would you care to explain-?"

"You shot me! And you're trying to steal my kills!"

"I shot you because you were continuing to attack the ship. And I'm not trying to steal your kills. I'm trying to prevent you killing them."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why? Because, firstly, I'm assigned to this Sector, and that means best practice. If I want to take someone in, I make every effort to peacefully detain them, and then hand them over to the relevant authorities. I certainly don't grab a random merchant vessel-."

"They're pirates."

"Have they been convicted in a court?"

"The fuck is your problem?" He sounds genuinely mystified.

"That ship has no guns, minimal shields and minimal armour. It isn't a threat. You could easily have disabled it and taken the crew captive."

"Pi-rates." He half-turns. "Where did they g-?"

"Controller Hinon is on Earth. Come with me and we'll both find out what's going on."