"This is my cause, this is my fight."
The fight's happening about a light-week away from me, and therefore is invisible to the unaided eye as a result. Ring-based FTL sensors provides a more helpful view of my Lanterns blocking shots for the L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet and then moving aside as their return volleys rend apart their Reach opposition.
Good to see such coordination between fleet elements. Looks like things are going well.
"Shine through the void with orange light."
My deduction about the magic shields was right, though the archmages weren't even attempting to repair them. Apparently it's completely impractical in the field away from a thaumically active world. Which meant that we had a choice between a slow approach -completely unacceptable- or having me muscle through the anti-Lantern FTL blockers to get us into position within a reasonable timeframe.
Thought so. So they'll likely need to capture a nearby planet with enough of a thaumic presence to recover the shields... Or maybe develop batteries capable of holding enough arcane energy to provide them with the necessary power. Until then, they're deep behind enemy lines, and the Reach now they're here. I expect constant harrying attacks as they move, then.
"I've claimed all within my sight."
Which means that the Reach now know that I can do that. And not just on my own, but with a strategically useful fleet. And I'm pretty sure that they're going to upgrade their jammers now, certainly around their core worlds.
So well done, Dox. your haste has blown the cover of one of your few major advantages.
Hooray.
The Reach's attack craft are dead, but rather than commit to the attack I'm having the Lanterns hold back. The former Darkstars amongst them have taken a particularly vindictive joy in hunting down the handful of Scarab Warriors who've shown themselves outside of their ships, while the rest are under firm instructions to focus on battlefield control. Some work in teams to drag Reach ships around or hold them in place to make them easier targets. Some assist our own crippled vessels in retreating. Some are storming the bastion stations while their fleet is fully distracted, and as one erupts in nuclear fire I immediately notice an increase in tactical agility amongst my Lanterns.
Heh, their own desires getting reinforced by seeing them successfully filled. Such is the nature of picking people who want to kill Reach forces.
"To keep what is mine, that is my right."
Orange light blazes out of my personal lantern and into my rings, because bulldozing a system designed to stop Lanterns bulldozing it does a number on your energy reserves. As I watch the ongoing fight one squad gets creative and uses a cored Reach battleship as mobile cover. I make a note of the Lantern who came up with the idea and decide to single them out for praise when this is over. Even if it's just a large mass of ablative armour, using something that isn't a construct shield will be a massive saving on ring power, and the Reach knows to target Lanterns who are recharging.
Gold star for those lads, lasses and/or
other. The Reach do tend to build their ships tough. The hard part will be making sure wrecks are intact enough to use that way without them still being able to fight.
Case in point, the stealthed Scarab Warrior closing in on me who thinks that I can't see through his stealth system.
I See You... </Sauron>
They stop once my lantern vanishes back into subspace, no doubt deducing that they've missed their window. We have reasonable intelligence on how fast Scarab Warriors can move, and I was careful to stay further than that away from the ongoing engagement. So now the Warrior has to decide whether to keep coming and try to get a lucky shot in, stay where he is, go back to the furball the Reach is currently losing, or flee out of the system. Since L.E.G.I.O.N. is winning I don't need to force the issue. I imagine that Dox would quite like a Scarab Warrior captured either alive or dead so that we can get a better look at one, but I'm still rather peeved with him at the moment.
Worth making the attempt at a peaceable capture. But with all the mental constraints and controls they have set, it's not going to be easy.
Casualties on our side appear to be light. Not really committing the Lanterns, ordering them to go slow, has prevented any of them from being killed. The Reach don't appear to have a doctrine for fighting Lanterns and fleets at the same time, probably because the Green Lantern Corps didn't fight like that. Or maybe there isn't much they can do here due to the disparity in the levels of force involved. L.E.G.I.O.N. ships are getting damaged and I'm sure that some of their crew are dying, but their armour and internal bulkheads appear to be working to keep deaths down. All in all, a relatively happy outcome, save for the absence of the supreme commander.
Yep, Dox is going to be getting yelled at after this. And it will be satisfying as hell, I bet.
Oh, I may as well deal with this.
Construct armour, construct FTL jammer, construct graviton gun.
Not a
significant response. But with OL's construct strength, the Scarab is going to have a hard time breaking them.
"Yes, I can see you."
The Scarab Warrior maintains stealth, but shapeshifts a heavy shield and improved booster array. I create a construct of his exact appearance next to me to demonstrate exactly how thoroughly his concealment has been penetrated.
'Well, excrement...' The scarab thinks. Yeah, he knows he's screwed, and I bet he can guess just how
hard...
"That won't work. Surrender, and I am prepared to offer you parole with a neutral third party for the duration of the war. Otherwise, I will kill you."
"I have killed Lanterns before, meat."
Green lanterns. And I doubt it. Oh, this guy (until otherwise revealed...) has no
idea how deep he is in the shit, doesn't he?
"I doubt it. Oh, Scarabs have killed Green Lanterns, but you specifically? I doubt that they'd put a Scarab with that sort of experience somewhere like this, and… Anyway, Green Lanterns are police. Splendid people for the most part, but they're not dyed in the wool killers like we are. And I'm afraid that I'm only meat out of habit these days."
"So?"
Which we
know will bite him in the ass one day, as seen in the 'Gate' snippets. But that won't be anytime soon...
He forms his left arm into a gun and I'm moving as it fires, secondary weapons appearing on his shoulders as he jinks in a doomed attempt to avoid my fire. False sensor images and holograms fire in all directions but none of them have desires and at this distance I can see the very particular desire-set of the scarab parasite itself. My graviton gun fires a moment later and hits his shield, which suddenly becomes about a thousand times more massive than it was a moment before. That doesn't harm the Scarab Warrior but it does make a mess of his shapeshifting and flight control. His secondary weapons strike my construct armour to little effect-
Bet that was a surprise to him. Especially if he was using weapons specifically tuned to disrupt Green constructs.
I guess Earth really is hard mode.
-as I close the distance, hitting his legs with my graviton gun and effectively crippling his acceleration. As well as probably causing all sorts of unpleasant internal injuries, though the scarab probably doesn't care much about that.
Joy of being able to disable your host's pain reflexes. Disabling him is going to take
extreme measures, methinks...
"Surrender-"
The scarab's arm gun fires again, shot passing over my right shoulder while the secondaries target my gun construct. I let it fade.
Oh, he's getting desperate, isn't he? Surprised there's no visible Fear. But then, the rider is probably damping
that alongside the pain...
"-and you will not be killed."
"Die now and I will not burn your world!"
Good luck
finding it, boyo. I have the feeling Earth wouldn't be too happy to see the Reach right now anyway...
I stop dodging and form a construct shield, letting the scarab fire every weapon it can directly at me. The main gun is… Interesting. It's abrading layers, but I'm using an ablative design and it's… Holding up as well as it does when Guy tries to breach it. The secondaries are actually doing more damage with raw power, and it only takes the scarab about two seconds to notice that and shift its weapon.
Sensible fellow. Smart enough to realise his popper ain't doing shit, and not too proud to give up on a tactic when it's clearly not working.
I step out
and grab it in a construct clamp the moment I return to the material universe, x-ionised blades cutting weapon morphs and-. Being defied by his armour as he loses mass in favour of molecular reinforcement fields, which prompts crumbler rams from me. A second later and his arms and legs are gone, flesh and directionless armour floating in the void. I take a fraction of a second more to shove them further away, then tear off the secondary weapons with brute force using a draconic claw construct.
Too bad for him that OL is just
that damn
good. The Earth Bullshit
tm helps, of course.
The scarab itself is usually located about halfway up the back. I ram ultra-sharp construct blades through its thinning armour and assimila-.
My construct armour is battered as the scarab explodes!
Huh. that's a surprise. I doubt it was the assimilation specifically that triggered it. A general failsafe against Spectrum energy interference? Or a defence against some other similar power they added in at some point after a particularly messy conquest?
I let it push me away from the centre of the blast, scanning for any residue as I do so. One of the severed arms is in one piece, and we'll be able to identify the host species from the tissue therein. Maybe even the individual if they were from a slave species and we've got their pre-conquest records. But the armour the scarab made is rapidly turning to dust and slewing off.
Marvellous. Another species with a built-in suicide switch to prevent assimilation. Though at least with the Reach they might reasonably have seen us coming and actually worked on a way to prevent it.
Which raises the question of how they found out he could do that? Did he use any Construct lanterns any previous times the Reach could have observed him? Did they have some reasonable predictions of Spectrum energy abilities, perhaps?
"Illustres to Orange Lanterns in theatre, don't bother trying to assimilate Scarab Warriors. They just self-destruct."
I return my attention to the battle to find that it's mostly over. Several bastions are still in one piece, but they're purely on the defensive and trying to hold out as long as they can. Ships and Lanterns are bombarding them and they can't respond. The few surviving Reach ships are being hunted down and… There goes the last one.
Job's a good 'un, Boss.
Cue the victory screen and post-battle scoring tally. Or at least, the Lanterns will probably be celebrating their win...
"Flag Captain, you have fleet command. I need to speak-"
Even muted as his mind is, Dox is easy enough to find.
"-to Commander Dox."
Ouch, not even calling him Clarissi? Then again, Dox's acting as Fleet staff in this operation, isn't he?
