With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

BR549 · 2026-11-05T06:37:20+0000

...yeah, the Gaim would be a little much for somebody not quite prepared.

And 'Matthew' has a Narn shipmate? That's interesting...

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-11-05T07:04:07+0000

Mr Zoat said:
27th April 2258
16:56 G.M.T.

"I am humbled by your presence, princess."

My gaim passenger is faultlessly well-behaved. Even though they're in control of my physical actions, they asked first and haven't cut me off from my senses. It would be simple for me to retake control. But I won't, because this is what we agreed to.

I still wonder if he creates an image of the engram 'riding' him when he's doing this. Gaim appear quite distinctive, especially without their encounter suits. And their designer was a fan of Neil Gaiman and the Endless...

And because I suspect my passenger's sense of contentment is the main reason why I'm not panicking right now. Gaim royals are… Um. Not humanoid. And they're large. And they're… All the worst parts of sea anemone, caterpillar and assassin bug, with a little tyranid thrown in for good measure. The princess I'm speaking to is basically a senior civil servant along with a genetic engineer and brood mother, and completed eggs are being continuously taken away as she and my passenger speak.

As seen on the Gaim page I linked. For the benefit of anyone picturing a Xenomorph Queen or a Hive Tyrant right now...

There's a gaim diplomat on standby, but since I can understand the pure gaim language perfectly well they're mostly staying out of the way.

"The queen remembers you, Koh'dak. The gene strands used to give rise to your mind found much favour in our creative genelines after your disappearance. It closes the book in a pleasant manner to know what became of you."

Ah, so he did at least leave a good impression on his hive.

Because it turns out that my passenger was a great inventor from the gaim's total war period, and they mostly wanted to come back here in case they were supposed to receive punishment from their goddess-mother.

"I-. I am-. I am relieved, daughter-of-our-queen."

...I'm curious if the punishment would have been carried out on Matthew or not. Hopefully it would be the equivalent of a suspended sentence.

"There are not further matters which require your attention. No further duties for you. You may… Rest."

"Thank you." / Thank you.

And… They're gone… I suppose that having their princess tell them that they were allowed to die was… What they wanted.

A comparatively easy job done, especially given the last on-screen one was discreetly finishing a beloved Minbari cathedral...

Huh.

I stand up, trying… Not to look at the princess more than I have to.

Good thing he's not an entomophobe. Though a truck-sized pseudo-insectoid creature would give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

"Thank you for agreeing to speak with my former guest, princess, it-."

"I have decided not to eat you."

…

...High praise, I suppose?

Scan nearest escape route. Ah, okay, that's not too bad.

"I… Have decided not to eat you as well."

The ambassador gaim makes a choke-hiss noise which the ring doesn't translate. The queen -who is quite a bit bigger than me- doesn't really react.

...And because his gaim passenger has left, he's not sure if that's a social faux-pas or not.

"You are not aware. Gaim are materialists. Our queens are our absolute sovereigns, and they are physical beings. We reject all religious concepts. We believe in no gods, no afterlife. The last time a gaim suggesting changing this policy, they were punished with consumption."

As noted in the page for the Gaim Intelligence, their cultural 'ruling council' such as it is.

"And… You just spoke to a dead person."

"Yes. That will have to be… Discussed. Do you have more information on how the soul hunters 'harvest' souls?"

And whether they're actually capturing some spiritual aspect, rather than a simple mind-scan. That'd be a big deal.

"Sorry, no. I've been trying to avoid them."

"Is it a copy of the mind, or something else?"

Whatever they do, it;'s clearly very detailed and very fast, given the subjects are usually dying when it's done.

I shake my head, realising as I do it that she probably can't even see a gesture that small. "I've wondered if they're just engrams myself, but I'm afraid that I haven't been able to find out."

"I am grateful for this new evidence. Often, species attempt to proselytise with make believe. That is irritating."

He is somehow getting Orange Light charge from them, if I remember right. They're thus mentally complex enough to generate Spectrum energy.

"I will bear that in mind."

"Should you discover new evidence, we would be interested to review it."

"If I proved the existence of the soul, I assure you, I wouldn't keep that to myself."

Especially if he finds out he doesn't have one in any proper capacity.

"Good." She… Er… I'm not exactly sure what that is, but she's rubbing it. Since I'm not getting a translation I'm going to assume that it's not an effort to communicate something to me. "You have not mentioned remuneration."

"No. Koh'dak already paid. They assisted me with a personal matter, and I delivered them here. Nothing more is necessary."

Quid pro quo, and all that. I imagine the gaim are very precise about debts owed.

"But we have an obligation, in addition to what you did for Koh'dak."

"Ah… Thank you? There's nothing that I need at the moment. But… If I could bank the favour, in case there's something the gaim can help me with in the future?"

For the soul thing and/or the 'this is what happened to him' thing, I suppose. Better to have the favour and never need it, than need it and go wanting.

"A commensurate favour would be acceptable." That's a relief. "Then if there is nothing else, I declare this audience over."

I bow. "Thank you, your highness."

'Commensurate' covering a lot of potential ground there, depending on how they judge the debt...

And then I turn and leave, a group of other gaim already filing in to discuss… Something. Yeah, I… Know that now they've abandoned their state of constant interhival warfare they're actually pretty easy to get along with, but looking at them is… A… Little off-putting.

And I'm out, and I'm hurrying along the corridor in the direction of my shuttle. Ring, contact ship.

At least they're not like the Spider Guild of DC infamy.

"Are we leaving now?"

"Yep, yep, can't think of a reason to stay."

And less chance of someone deciding he looks like a nice snack. Be a little embarrassing to have to defend himself from that.

"You usually say that you want to see the sights."

"N'chak'fah has a chlorine atmosphere. I can't see anything."

Presumably the gaim have better vision methods than the mk.I eyeball.

"Ah."

"Is there something..? You want to see?"

"Narns on this world are marked for death. I have been keeping away from the windows."

...Okay, nothing to hang around for, then.

Something sharing the corridor with me sneezes at me, and I nod politely back. "Oh? Why's that?"

"We invaded them forty years ago. At first, we didn't realise the planet was inhabited."

Not surprising, the gaim are apparently primarily subterranean. And thus quite uncomfortable in space without solid preparation, I would imagine.

"Reasonable. I can barely see my hand in front of my face."

"And then we didn't realise they were intelligent. I understand that they didn't realise that the rest of the universe existed until they met us. I suppose it was nearly as unpleasant an introduction to other species as we had."

Presumably they would have been claiming the world for mining use, since there's no way you could reasonably colonise it.

"Yes, a giant black spaceship digging a canyon through a major settlement must have been a nasty surprise."

"…" … "I was talking about the centauri."

...Okay, that pushes past uncomfortable introductions and straight into potentially traumatising.

"Oh."

"What black ships?"

Presumably mining vessels related to the claim I hypothesised. EDIT: I stand corrected, they were talking about the Narn's first contact.

"They're in the Book of G'Quan?"

"I haven't read it. Narns generally only read the sacred text of their own faith."

There are multiple 'faiths' on Narn, then? Though probably taken less seriously than Minbari do.

"I haven't read any human holy books. But the historical parts are interesting, if only because it explains what happened to your telepaths."

"We killed them all."

And the mutations didn't keep showing up? Or were they really thorough, even targetting those with the potential to produce telepaths?

"If the Book's accurate, you only killed most of them. And to be fair, we nearly did that as well."

But you did not. And I do not think that you would have gone through with it.

Humans do a lot of things they come to regret later, sadly, especially when it comes to genocides and extinctions.

I don't know. Future people are weird.

I reach the shuttle, and… Airlock, because magicing the chlorine away with the orange light would be a little obvious.

At least the ship will be squeaky clean on the outside? What with contaminants burnt clean off by the atmosphere.

"I'll be up soon."

"We're ready to leave. Unless the hyperspace currents are unusually vicious, we will be back in time for your date."

And if they aren't, Matthew can do the 'tow at FTL' trick, though that's a little more suspicious.

An entertaining visit to a little-known minor race from the show, I guess. Good to see they didn't go for just 'human with makeup appliances' for every race. And a date with the lovely PSI Corps plant he met last time, I suppose? Place your bets now for how likely it is that he'll face being 'disappeared' into PSI Corps custody at some stage?

KharnTheBrotrayer · 2026-11-05T07:26:00+0000

"We have decided not to eat you" she sure is lucky to have made that choice and not the other cause as an OL he could have eaten her AND worse.

BR549 · 2026-11-05T07:30:58+0000

Chojin Patriarch said:
Presumably they would have been claiming the world for mining use, since there's no way you could reasonably colonise it.

That would presumably be how the Narn met the Gaim, yes, but...

Presumably mining vessels related to the claim I hypothesised.

...the 'giant black spaceship digging a canyon through a major settlement' Matthew mentions in the Book of G'Quan would have been Narn's introdution to the cosmos, and is almost certainly a Shadow Battlecrab.

Neruz · 2026-11-05T08:37:35+0000

To be entirely fair to the Narn, not realizing that the Gaim are intelligent is very understandable; because their basic worker drones aren't intelligent.

The Gaim that the Narn first encountered likely were little more than biomechanical robots, it's not surprising that they didn't immediately realize that the worker drones weren't animals.

BoML · 2026-11-05T08:45:52+0000

Ah, back to Babylon 5...let's see what's happening...

Mr Zoat said:
And because I suspect my passenger's sense of contentment is the main reason why I'm not panicking right now. Gaim royals are… Um. Not humanoid. And they're large. And they're… All the worst parts of sea anemone, caterpillar and assassin bug, with a little tyranid thrown in for good measure. The princess I'm speaking to is basically a senior civil servant along with a genetic engineer and brood mother, and completed eggs are being continuously taken away as she and my passenger speak.

Ah, he's on Gaim homeworld now. And if a princess is that big, it makes me wonder if a Queen is even bigger...

Because it turns out that my passenger was a great inventor from the gaim's total war period, and they mostly wanted to come back here in case they were supposed to receive punishment from their goddess-mother.

"I-. I am-. I am relieved, daughter-of-our-queen."

"There are not further matters which require your attention. No further duties for you. You may… Rest."

"Thank you." / Thank you.

Oh, he had two Gaim souls. Well, at least they got what they wanted out of this...

"Thank you for agreeing to speak with my former guest, princess, it-."

"I have decided not to eat you."

…

...thank you???

Scan nearest escape route. Ah, okay, that's not too bad.

"I… Have decided not to eat you as well."

The ambassador gaim makes a choke-hiss noise which the ring doesn't translate. The queen -who is quite a bit bigger than me- doesn't really react.

I'm betting the ambassador didn't expect that response.

"You are not aware. Gaim are materialists. Our queens are our absolute sovereigns, and they are physical beings. We reject all religious concepts. We believe in no gods, no afterlife. The last time a gaim suggesting changing this policy, they were punished with consumption."

"And… You just spoke to a dead person."

I don't remember much about the Gaim, but to my memory, they only recently became spacefaring. Though based on the planets description, I'm betting they barely even had a concept for space.

"Is it a copy of the mind, or something else?"

I shake my head, realising as I do it that she probably can't even see a gesture that small. "I've wondered if they're just engrams myself, but I'm afraid that I haven't been able to find out."

"I am grateful for this new evidence. Often, species attempt to proselytise with make believe. That is irritating."

Well, you could ask a soul hunter, but good luck with that. Or even getting a clear answer.

"But we have an obligation, in addition to what you did for Koh'dak."

"Ah… Thank you? There's nothing that I need at the moment. But… If I could bank the favour, in case there's something the gaim can help me with in the future?"

"A commensurate favour would be acceptable." That's a relief. "Then if there is nothing else, I declare this audience over."

I bow. "Thank you, your highness."

Okay, so Babylon!Paul has a favor with the Gaim he can cash in when he pleases. That will be interesting...

"Are we leaving now?"

"Yep, yep, can't think of a reason to stay."

"You usually say that you want to see the sights."

"N'chak'fah has a chlorine atmosphere. I can't see anything."

Yeah, that would be annoying to deal with. Betting that while the environmental shield keeps him safe, it doesn't really help in seeing clearly.

"Is there something..? You want to see?"

"Narns on this world are marked for death. I have been keeping away from the windows."

Something sharing the corridor with me sneezes at me, and I nod politely back. "Oh? Why's that?"

"We invaded them forty years ago. At first, we didn't realise the planet was inhabited."

...yeah, that would sour relations considerably.

"Yes, a giant black spaceship digging a canyon through a major settlement must have been a nasty surprise."

"…" … "I was talking about the centauri."

There's a bomb to drop on someone. And yes, being regarded as someone's centauri equivalent probably smarts for a narn.

"What black ships?"

"They're in the Book of G'Quan?"

"I haven't read it. Narns generally only read the sacred text of their own faith."

Pity. You probably should at some point.

"I haven't read any human holy books. But the historical parts are interesting, if only because it explains what happened to your telepaths."

"We killed them all."

...great. When Garibaldi brought it up in the series, it was understood that the Shadows had "done away" with them. To know that there were survivors and they were done in by their own people...

The fact that they're trying to get telepathy back into gene pool now....

I reach the shuttle, and… Airlock, because magicing the chlorine away with the orange light would be a little obvious.

"I'll be up soon."

"We're ready to leave. Unless the hyperspace currents are unusually vicious, we will be back in time for your date."

Oh...is this first official date, after the whole meeting thing, or is this a second date?

Two more souls gone, still many more left. And still time for some accidental shenanigans...

Mr Zoat · 2026-11-05T09:22:45+0000

BoML said:
Two more souls gone, still many more left.

Where are you getting 'two souls' from? There was only one gaim, unless I've forgotten something.

boo600 · 2026-11-05T10:37:30+0000

The artist who finally completed her work?

Zig · 2026-11-05T10:44:35+0000

BR549 said:
...yeah, the Gaim would be a little much for somebody not quite prepared.

And 'Matthew' has a Narn shipmate? That's interesting...

The maid that keeps hitting on him?

Mr Zoat · 2026-11-05T11:00:53+0000

boo600 said:
The artist who finally completed her work?

Zig said:
The maid that keeps hitting on him?

I mean, they both have souls, but neither of them feature here.

CTrees · 2026-11-05T11:11:28+0000

Mr Zoat said:
I don't know. Future people are weird.

"The future is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

MajorPane · 2026-11-05T12:07:12+0000

Paul will return, the bug fucker instincts are too deeply ingrained to be fought.

Silveraith · 2026-11-05T12:29:26+0000

Mr Zoat said:
"You usually say that you want to see the sights."

This should be sites no?

Khornelius · 2026-11-05T12:50:00+0000

Mr Zoat said:
"I am grateful for this new evidence. Often, species attempt to proselytise with make believe. That is irritating."

"I will bear that in mind."

"Should you discover new evidence, we would be interested to review it."

"If I proved the existence of the soul, I assure you, I wouldn't keep that to myself."

"Good." She… Er… I'm not exactly sure what that is, but she's rubbing it. Since I'm not getting a translation I'm going to assume that it's not an effort to communicate something to me. "You have not mentioned remuneration."

"No. Koh'dak already paid. They assisted me with a personal matter, and I delivered them here. Nothing more is necessary."

"But we have an obligation, in addition to what you did for Koh'dak."

"Ah… Thank you? There's nothing that I need at the moment. But… If I could bank the favour, in case there's something the gaim can help me with in the future?"

"A commensurate favour would be acceptable." That's a relief. "Then if there is nothing else, I declare this audience over."

I can't be the only one who was morbidly wondering if this Paul was about to have a Captain Kirk encounter and be yet another statistic for the number of times a Paul had "relations" with a arthropodal species.

I was laughing at myself by the end.

Darko · 2026-11-05T13:22:33+0000

Mr Zoat said:
gaim suggesting changing this policy, they were punished with consumption."

"suggested"

Mr Zoat said:
Know that now they've abandoned their state of constant interhival warfare they're actually pretty easy to get along with, but

"that they've abandoned"

BoML · 2026-11-05T13:46:27+0000

Mr Zoat said:
Where are you getting 'two souls' from? There was only one gaim, unless I've forgotten something.

...again, a derp from me.

"Thank you." / Thank you.

I saw this bit, and thought that it was two separate souls talking. It seems it was the gaim soul thanking the princess out loud, and then thinking the "thank you" to Babylon!Paul.

Benvolio · 2026-11-05T13:57:06+0000

I am shocked MC didn't somehow accidentally do something sexual with the bug queen. He has a history after all.

Mr Zoat · 2026-11-05T19:36:27+0000

Silveraith said:
This should be sites no?

Darko said:
"suggested"
"that they've abandoned"

Thank you, corrected.

BR549 · 2026-11-06T03:11:07+0000

Zig said:
The maid that keeps hitting on him?

The maid is Brakiri, not Narn.

~~@Mr Zoat Is this an error, or has Matthew picked up a Narn passenger as well~~?

Prince Charon · 2026-11-06T03:57:09+0000

BR549 said:
The maid is Brakiri, not Narn.

@Mr Zoat Is this an error, or has Matthew picked up a Narn passenger as well?

Doesn't his vessel have a Narn crew?

BR549 · 2026-11-06T04:33:35+0000

Prince Charon said:
Doesn't his vessel have a Narn crew?

You're right, It'd been long enough I'd forgotten that. Carry on!

Mr Zoat · 2026-11-06T06:16:41+0000

16th October 2013
17:41 G.M.T.

"…not safe, but it should let you hold out until the fleet either moves on or gets destroyed."

Grum the Escaped… Ah, Walked Off Slave taps the wall of his newly fabricated bunker, and glances back at the NEMO-brand ration packs I dumped on the floor.

"It's the nicest place I've slept in seven years."

"Ah, you're welcome. Try not to die in the next half hour."

His eyes move from me to where Lantern Gaart is studying a map of local space. "You know? I think I will. Thank you."

"Thank me by not dying. I hate wasting effort. Gaart, ready?"

He dismisses his construct. "Yes."

"Right. Activating armour-" We both vanish, though I can still see him with empathic vision. "-and up we go."

The ground falls away beneath us, nothing like as fast as we can fly with constructs, but certainly faster than, say, a rocket launch. We're both undetectable by most forms of sensor and hard to detect by the really exotic ones I know about, and our armour is sufficiently tough that what I don't know shouldn't hurt us. A direct hit with a spatial charge would probably kill us, which would be too bad for Lantern Gaart but is the reason why Grum's bunker came with one of my spare bodies in an under-floor compartment. An Apokoliptian world should be at least a little thaumically active, if only due to their presence.

Of course, that shouldn't be possible. The battleships all share the same orientation, though they've spread out a little, presumably to increase the volume of space they can cover with their weapons fire as they try to kill Jordan. Advanced stealth should mean that they still think that I'm around the mine, so hopefully they won't be looking… If they know that I'm heading up the most efficient course of action would be to do a saturation bombardment of the upper atmosphere. That would cover the area with crystal remnants, create dangerous pressure waves along with whatever's in the charge, and would generally give me a bad time, but…

Yep, we've made it into the vacuum and-.

I was going to say that the fleet hasn't moved, but I can see assault shuttles heading down from two of the battleships. And for a moment I feel the instinct bred into me by a dozen battles with the Reach: board the ship at once, kill or assimilate the Reach commander while the best marines and Beetles and whatever experimental weapons they might have are somewhere else. But with an anti-construct silver bullet… I don't think that's a mission I can complete with power armour alone.

So we fly past the battleships, their tenders and close-support escorts, and then the… Huh. Sensor buoys? They don't seem to detect us but I don't want to risk an active scan. And then the cruisers…

And we're clear. Track the orientation of their weapons, likely response times of the crew… Just have to get a little further away…

And warp.

"Jordan, we're clear. Do you want to rendezvous?"

Next to me, Gaart appears as he deactivates his stealth system.

"Just a sec."

Right. Teleport jammer, big ole' construct wall, and… Hope Jordan pulls his finger out because I want to add in a spatial stabiliser construct just as soon-

A green spec appears several miles away, and then starts rapidly growing

-as possible.

"Okay." Jordan slows down as he reaches us, and I add in the stabiliser construct… Yeah, I see that battleship repositioning. "Paul, I think I'm reconsidering my position on body armour."

"Glad to hear it. Roy and I can do a fitting when we get back to Earth." I give him a once-over. "Any injuries I can't see?"

"I'll get checked out for radiation damage later. Lantern Gaart, you okay to fight?"

"Yes sir."

Jordan nods. "Good. Paul, can you build missiles with the same stealth tech as your armour?"

"Sort of. Without the magic element they won't be quite as good. And whatever propulsion system I gave it would probably have some sort of detectable emission. And their gravity shields would probably deflect a missile to a degree anyway…"

"Does NEMO have missiles with magic stealth?"

"Probably, but if so, LEGION's saving them for a major Reach target."

"Okay. That black hole gun thing you do."

"They've got gravity shields. I could probably damage them eventually-."

"Could you-? Work out the frequency of their shields if you shot them long enough?"

"The frequency?"

"Yeah."

"Of… Gravity shields?"

"Yeah. What, wrong word?"

"Didn't you.. study physics for-?"

"I'm a pilot. I studied aeronautics. You wanna talk about drag coefficients, I'm your guy. You wanna talk about black hole guns, I'll go get Atom."

"It's more likely that I'll lock them on blocking my singularity beam, which would mean that they couldn't deflect the missile. That still leaves point defences, assumes that the ships can't cover each other with their gravity shields, and that we can actually hit them."

"Got a way around that?"

"Don't use missiles. Use ballistic projectiles with warheads. With the three of us firing, we can cover enough of their potential location volume to be confident of hitting-."

"Lantern Gaart, you know how to make a railgun construct?"

"No, sir."

"That doesn't matter."

"If it's just the two of us-."

"Grand Admiral Thrawn taught me that if they can't track the projectiles, they have to assume that each observed firing is a real firing."

He frowns at the name, but he gets it. "So he just pretends to fire a bunch of times, and they'll have to evade."

"Or fire along the projectile's calculated approach vector. Depends how good they are."

"Can you shoot these things and fire the black hole gun at the same time?"

"Why would I need to? They're going to be ballistic."

"So fire them, wait until they're about to arrive and then shoot the ships?"

"Yep."

"Okay, it's a plan." He claps his hands together. "Let's get to work."

Ngamer11 · 2026-11-06T06:20:32+0000

Mr Zoat said:
I was going to say that the fleet hasn't moved, but I can see assault shuttles heading down from two of the battleships. And for a moment I feel the instinct bread into me by a dozen battles with the Reach: board the ship at once, kill or assimilate the Reach commander while the best marines and Beetles and whatever experimental weapons they might have are somewhere else. But with an anti-construct silver bullet… I don't think that's a mission I can complete with power armour alone.

That should say 'bred'.

Mr Zoat said:
He frowns at the name, but he gets it. "So he just prevents to fire a bunch of times, and they'll have to evade."

That should say 'pretends'.

Oglymogly · 2026-11-06T06:39:11+0000

Mr Zoat said:
I'm a pilot. I studied aeronautics. You wanna talk about drag coefficients, I'm your guy. You wanna talk about black hole guns, I'll go get Atom

Not a bad attitude to have assuming you're part of a team and not a lone trouble shooter. On the other hand, his ring can't reliably or easily download info into his skull, may not have a easily accessable database, and can't upgrade him into the best version it can. So I shouldn't judge, he knows who to ask and do what he can until then.

Mr Zoat · 2026-11-06T06:41:45+0000

Ngamer11 said:
That should say 'bred'.
That should say 'pretends'.

Thank you, corrected.

BR549 · 2026-11-06T06:53:53+0000

Oglymogly said:
Not a bad attitude to have assuming you're part of a team and not a lone trouble shooter. On the other hand, his ring can't reliably or easily download info into his skull, may not have a easily accessable database, and can't upgrade him into the best version it can. So I shouldn't judge, he knows who to ask and do what he can until then.

Hal took the 'Knows A Guy' perk when leveling up. It's surprisingly useful.

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-11-06T06:57:59+0000

Mr Zoat said:
16th October 2013
17:41 G.M.T.

"…not safe, but it should let you hold out until the fleet either moves on or gets destroyed."

Grum the Escaped… Ah, Walked Off Slave taps the wall of his newly fabricated bunker, and glances back at the NEMO-brand ration packs I dumped on the floor.

Good to see he didn't forget to come back for Grum, as he said he would. And I suppose they needed a decent staging point for their approach to orbit.

"It's the nicest place I've slept in seven years."

"Ah, you're welcome. Try not to die in the next half hour."

Confident about your ability to wrap this up quickly, eh OL?

His eyes move from me to where Lantern Gaart is studying a map of local space. "You know? I think I will. Thank you."

"Thank me by not dying. I hate wasting effort. Gaart, ready?"

That is something central to OL, that. Probably why he gets so frustrated by people squandering potential and second chances.

He dismisses his construct. "Yes."

"Right. Activating armour-" We both vanish, though I can still see him with empathic vision. "-and up we go."

Time to see if Jordan's still managing to hold their attention, or if some of the ships have cottoned on to the trick.

The ground falls away beneath us, nothing like as fast as we can fly with constructs, but certainly faster than, say, a rocket launch. We're both undetectable by most forms of sensor and hard to detect by the really exotic ones I know about, and our armour is sufficiently tough that what I don't know shouldn't hurt us. A direct hit with a spatial charge would probably kill us, which would be too bad for Lantern Gaart but it the reason why Grum's bunker came with one of my spare bodies in an under-floor compartment. An Apokoliptian world should be at least a little thaumically active, if only due to their presence.

Ah, of course OL would include a contingency plan.

Of course, that shouldn't be possible. The battleships all share the same orientation, though they've spread out a little, presumably to increase the volume of space they can cover with their weapons fire as they try to kill Jordan. Advanced stealth should mean that they still think that I'm around the mine, so hopefully they won't be looking… If they know that I'm heading up the most efficient course of action would be to do a saturation bombardment of the upper atmosphere. That would cover the area with crystal remnants, create dangerous pressure waves along with whatever's in the charge, and would generally give me a bad time, but…

Not so effective if OL can just jaunt away, though. Still best to not push their luck.

Yep, we've made it into the vacuum and-.

I was going to say that the fleet hasn't moved, but I can see assault shuttles heading down from two of the battleships. And for a moment I feel the instinct bred into me by a dozen battles with the Reach: board the ship at once, kill or assimilate the Reach commander while the best marines and Beetles and whatever experimental weapons they might have are somewhere else. But with an anti-construct silver bullet… I don't think that's a mission I can complete with power armour alone.

The shuttles presumably heading to the 'mine' and investigate the reports of OL rescuing the Green Lantern they tossed into the simulation.

So we fly past the battleships, their tenders and close-support escorts, and then the… Huh. Sensor buoys? They don't seem to detect us but I don't want to risk an active scan. And then the cruisers…

And we're clear. Track the orientation of their weapons, likely response times of the crew… Just have to get a little further away…

Sneaking out right under the nose of the warhounds.

And warp.

"Jordan, we're clear. Do you want to rendezvous?"

Next to me, Gaart appears as he deactivates his stealth system.

I assume he did so because they're safely out of range and sight by now.

"Just a sec."

Right. Teleport jammer, big ole' construct wall, and… Hope Jordan pulls his finger out because I want to add in a spatial stabiliser construct just as soon-

Oh, yes. No real maximum range for their attacks beyond 'anywhere in the same solar system'. Just a matter of accuracy, given lightspeed lag time on sensor sightings.

A green spec appears several miles away, and then starts rapidly growing

-as possible.

"Okay." Jordan slows down as he reaches us, and I add in the stabiliser construct… Yeah, I see that battleship repositioning. "Paul, I think I'm reconsidering my position on body armour."

Ah, feeling the heat on your delicate bits after a few close calls, Hal?

"Glad to hear it. Roy and I can do a fitting when we get back to Earth." I give him a once-over. "Any injuries I can't see?"

"I'll get checked out for radiation damage later. Lantern Gaart, you okay to fight?"

At least with OL handy, he can be sure it'll get fixed properly.

"Yes sir."

Jordan nods. "Good. Paul, can you build missiles with the same stealth tech as your armour?"

Don't forget the recharge, which I assume Hal is putting off for a second while they strategise.

"Sort of. Without the magic element they won't be quite as good. And whatever propulsion system I gave it would probably have some sort of detectable emission. And their gravity shields would probably deflect a missile to a degree anyway…"

"Does NEMO have missiles with magic stealth?"

OL, you don't need the good stuff for these guys. Just the 'good enough' stuff.

"Probably, but if so, Legion's saving them for a major Reach target."

"Okay. That black hole gun thing you do."

I'm sure OL can share the specs for a singularity projector, Hal. Just a matter of whether you can reproduce it.

"They're got gravity shields. I could probably damage them eventually-."

"Could you-? Work out the frequency of their shields if you shot them long enough?"

Or at least find the portholes they're shunting their rounds through? I assume that's how they're shooting through a total defensive structure like that.

"The frequency?"

"Yeah."

"Of… Gravity shields?"

...admittedly, trying to exploit the gaps would require getting right into the line of fire for the weapons behind the portholes.

"Yeah. What, wrong word?"

"Didn't you.. study physics for-?"

Be nice, OL, he probably remembers stuff like Star Trek and their Shield Frequency thing. Matching the phaser frequency to their shields is what lets them shoot through them (And transport people, but that's riskier under fire.)

"I'm a pilot. I studied aeronautics. You wanna talk about drag coefficients, I'm your guy. You wanna talk about black hole guns, I'll go get Atom."

"It's more likely that I'll lock them on blocking my singularity beam, which would mean that they couldn't deflect the missile. That still leaves point defences, assumes that the ships can't cover each other with their gravity shields, and that we can actually hit them."

Though point defences can struggle with small, fast moving targets like Lanterns. Who can operate at knife-fight ranges far better than slow naval vessels.

"Got a way around that?"

"Don't use missiles. Use ballistic projectiles with warheads. With the three of us firing, we can cover enough of their potential location volume to be confident of hitting-."

And if you time your shots, you can arrange simultaneous hits from different angles even as you reposition, or stagger impacts to take advantage of overloading shields.

"Lantern Gaart, you know how to make a railgun construct?"

"No, sir."

Good time to learn, then. Hope you can pick it up quick.

"That doesn't matter."

"If it's just the two of us-."

Nothing says Gaart can't do something else. Toss giant rocks at them, launch missiles if OL fabricates them, that sort of thing.

"Grand Admiral Thrawn taught me that if they can't track the projectiles, they have to assume that each observed firing is a real firing."

He frowns at the name, but he gets it. "So he just pretends to fire a bunch of times, and they'll have to evade."

If he's not familiar with the old Star Wars Extended Universe - something quite unlikely even if he's seen the movies - he's probably assuming that's some NEMO officer OL is casually name-dropping.

"Or fire along the projectile's calculated approach vector. Depends how good they are."

"Can you shoot these things and fire the black hole gun at the same time?"

Given sufficient prep time, OL could probably arrange a whole array of combined arms.

"Why would I need to? They're going to be ballistic."

"So fire them, wait until they're about to arrive and then shoot the ships?"

And since they're much slower than lightspeed, it's going to take some time for them to connect, leaving plenty of opportunities to exploit their impacts.

"Yep."

"Okay, it's a plan." He claps his hands together. "Let's get to work."

First job, get the junior up to fighting fitness. Railgun specs, Ring recharge, all that jazz...

Plan made, preparations underway, now it's just a matter of waiting to see if it survives contact with the enemy. And then the scramble to improvise when it inevitably doesn't. At least they have a better idea of the fleet's capabilities and won't face any new surprises... At leat until they trigger the second phase Boss transition.

Vaermina · 2026-11-06T06:58:09+0000

Mr Zoat said:
A direct hit with a spatial charge would probably kill us, which would be too bad for Lantern Gaart but it the reason why Grum's bunker came with one of my spare bodies in an under-floor compartment. An Apokoliptian world should be at least a little thaumically active, if only due to their presence.

Ah yes, because leaving bodies around worked out so well for you last time.

Graeme · 2026-11-06T07:44:40+0000

Mr Zoat said:
16th October 2013
17:41 G.M.T.

A direct hit with a spatial charge would probably kill us, which would be too bad for Lantern Gaart but it the reason why Grum's bunker

it's (or "it is")

boo600 · 2026-11-06T08:23:18+0000

Huh. Jack Chance's gun was mass-produced by the Reach, and everyone was worried that the OLC would lose its quality advantage. But in the most recent updates on the war, we always get 'and there's nothing the Reach does that actually matters against OLC in a fight.' And now Paul is worried that the crystals are a silver bullet.

I know the Reach built that super-fleet of ships with gravity manipulation/teleportation, as well as jammed-on anti-construct guns. Paul won against it, but…

I dunno. Did they figure out a counter for the guns? Is every OL just, in a fight against a scarab, relying on their ring AI to auto-transition them if they use that gun, like when Paul fights a Kryptonian like that last from the JSI? And do the crystals have a much wider radius of effect or something?

Also, it's hilarious that Jordan still isn't wearing armor. After the anti life, after the Sheeda, after saying he'd have to get armor because the reach was planning on infesting GLC space with those guns. He really is gods dumbest, most stubborn soldier, huh?

With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

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