21st November 2012
11:22 GMT -5
Multiple omnidirectional forms of instantaneous communication squawk out across the Dominion, some aiming for my little team, some for other Dominators and others heading for Oa. From the
glow of Jordan's ring, I suspect that he's listening in on some of them.
"Problem?
"
"Not
yet." His ring dims. "Just thinking… The Dominion have been raiding worlds for longer than the Green Lantern Corps has existed. You're making them look like chumps."
"It's like beating Bat-. Ah, a superhero from Earth Sixteen. A very intelligent man who's very good at developing counters to his enemy's strategies. You hit them and you don't stop hitting them until they're dead. If you leave them alive, you can assume that they'll have a counter to everything that you did the first time around within a depressingly short amount of time.
"
"What did you say he was called?"
"Batman.
"
"Ah… Okay."
"Bats used to scare him when he was a boy, so when he wanted to become something criminals would fear, he chose them as his emblem.
"
"No, no, I mean, objectively, it's no worse than what a lot of people pick. I guess bats are kinda scary." He thinks for a moment. "So you're saying that the Green Lantern Corps should have finished the Dominion off?"
"That… Depends. Green Lanterns have a lot of area to cover and there generally aren't that many of you. I could understand your Corps deciding that it didn't have the manpower, or that other things were more urgent. And… You're primarily a policing organisation.
"
"But?"
"I read a
book a while ago. Set on Earth, there was some sort of environmental disaster which caused an outbreak of huge tsunamis all over the world. A group of… I think it was French naval vessels were assigned to evacuate a group of islands which were going to be destroyed. Problem was, those islands were controlled by criminal gangs whose main sources of income were narcotic production and paedophile sex tourism. The rest of the population were their hostages. The French didn't have the resources to carry out a rescue mission. So, the commanding Admiral tells his subordinates that he's taking full responsibility, and orders the marines to shoot through the hostages. In the first ten minutes a lot of innocent people die, then the gangs realise that killing people isn't working and
is ensuring that the French don't take them alive. So they drop their weapons and surrender, allowing the island to be safely evacuated. The total deaths were far fewer than there would have been if he'd ordered a series of rescue missions or just abandoned the place.
"
"So… What, we should just abandon Sectors so we've got the manpower to destroy things like the Dominion?"
"I'd need to know more about your Corps' deployments before I gave a firm answer. I'd probably argue for encouraging Sectors to build up their security fleets and establishing mutual defence pacts rather than just disappearing with no warning, but… Yes.
"
Heh.
"Another example for you. The last wolf in England was killed in Thirteen Ninety. Not because of the destruction of habitat, no. The people hunted them down and killed them with malice aforethought, because they realised that big pack predators were a threat to people and their farm animals. About thirty years later a giant pack of man eating wolves
laid siege to Paris for
three years, before invading the city and doing battle with the city guard, killing at least forty of them. A hundred years
ago, during World War One,
German and Russian soldiers had a truce so they could fight off the giant packs of man eating wolves that were attacking them.
"
"You know where
doesn't have problems with packs of man eating wolves?
"
He nods. "England."
"For now. We're reintroducing them. But the general rule is, deal with small problems early or they can grow. Deal with big problems hard or they'll ruin everything else. When we arrived on this parallel's Earth, Interceptor and two Amazos were right
there in less than a minute. On our Earth something like that might not even get
noticed. And that's after we had to deal with a time travelling invasion fleet.
"
"I guess-."
Behind us, Alan
breathes a sigh of relief, the construct over his ring showing a orbital plot.
"Problem?
"
"Oh, no." He
dismisses the construct. "I was just checking what happened to that rock I threw at the planet in our first fight. They managed to redirect it. I was a little worried I might have to go back."
"And what I just said is something Alan would
never say, and that's one of the reasons why I like him so much.
"
"Ah, thanks." Alan
looks towards our next target. "Are they clustering up, or..?"
"Yes. Combined fleets in position to reinforce worlds we attack, with weak picket fleets around their worlds because they don't think we're going to perform ground strikes. A rational and pragmatic response which would cost them if any of their neighbours had the resolve to punish them for it.
"
I make eye contact with Jordan.
"Jordan.
"
"I'll talk to the local Lanterns when we're done here."
I nod.
"Alan, you can make a zeta tube construct, right?
"
"Yeah."
"That's probably an easier way to get everyone into position than picking them up and carrying them. I think…
"
I create a construct of the local systems… Yes, a rocky planetoid in an uncolonised system in Dominion space.
"Here?
"
Alan considers the image for a moment, then nods. "Looks like it'll do. And we can attack wherever the Dominators have been keeping people in the same way."
"Guess I'd better actually
find them then.
"
But that's simple enough. Finding a Dominator who is interested in humans is impractical. Finding the desire sets normal to humans on the other hand
is well within my abilities. Dominators -even Dominator civilians- just don't think in the same way as humans. If by some miracle the Dominion hasn't killed the majority of test subjects by now then I'll-.
There.
"Found them. Feels like a few hundred.
" I point to a planet on the construct map.
"Well worth rescuing. There might be more somewhere else, but I'm hopeful that we can interrogate the staff or their database for more information.
"
"A few.. hundred?" Jordan's face falls. "But they took-."
"They didn't reach fourth place on my poop list by being nice people. I'll head back and set up the zeta transmitter on Earth. Signal me when you're ready.
"
"Why does that sound so damn familiar?"
