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

9th January
06:26 GMT

Streets… Streets are clear. Sinestro?

An image of the local area appears in front of me. Huh. The cordon is still there, but it's a good deal further back. The surrounding buildings have been emptied out too. That might just be a security measure…

M'gann frowns at my construct. "That's not what they agreed."

"There might have been an alert of some kind."

She raises her right hand to the side of her head and focuses, turning slowly in the air as she scans the Manhunter positions. "They don't know why they've been pulled back."

I nod. "Which is bad for us, because it means that they're trying to conceal it from your telepathy, whereas if it were something legitimate they wouldn't have any cause to."

"Can you bring in any more help?"

"I've already got drones here. They're in stealth mode right now, but if you think a display of force in potentia would be helpful..?"

"Not yet." She takes a small martian device off her belt. Ah, a martian long distance telepathic communicator. "Put me through to the Prelate's office now."

Hm. I don't have a swarm of Construct Lanterns I could send out to probe the area. I could boom tube Orange Lanterns into the city, but they wouldn't know anything about the situation. Heck, I don't know exactly what's going on. I instruct one squadron to spread out to get a better feel for the area.

"M'gann M'orzz. Why have the Manhunters around the theater pulled back?"

She's speaking out loud for my benefit. The actual communication is transmitted from the.. brain in her hand to another like it in the government building. Routing should be automatic; the city authorities know that we're here. They're the ones who gave permission. I doubt that martians are immune to the occasional miscommunication, but this looks deliberate. Someone they believed had authority to do so gave an order.

"Then order them back into position. The fate of our entire world depends on this meeting!"

I'm pretty sure that she doesn't have the authority to make demands of whoever it is that she's talking to. But she's right: if a government official accepts an obligation and then welshes it renders them completely untrustworthy. You go from civil meetings in hotels to meetings in armed camps at best. Parts of the galaxy use hostage exchanges to make meetings like this happen. You'd have to be some sort of short sighted idiot to try something here. If this is a betrayal, that undermines everything I'm working to build here!

M'gann looks around, eyes shining and jaw taut. "Then find someone who can, and get them to do it." She puts the communicator back on her belt.

"Do we need to.. bypass the system?"

"Not yet. Can your ring scan further out?"

I nod. Sinestro?

My construct glitches, then zooms outward. The city… Well, I've never been here before but nothing.. sticks out as being out of the ordinary. I dismiss the construct and increase power to my aero discs, rising higher into the air. Can't see the entire city from here… Can't see anyone. There are a few floating buoys to mark where the Manhunter cordon should be…

I reach up and lower my goggles over my eyes. Not.. a lot different. Almost all Martians can go invisible, but since they're almost all telepathic they don't usually bother. Manhunters are over there… I take a moment to check the tunnel entry points.

"Anything?"

"No. No, not yet." Nothing, nothing… "You?"

She floats up to join me. "Not yet. But it could take hours to find the right official."

"I can open a hush tube to the officer in charge of the picket if you want to interrogate them in person."

She shakes her head. "I'd want more evidence that something was actually wrong before assaulting my superior officer."

"I thought J'onn was your superior officer."

"He's my.. supervising officer while I'm on Earth. Because the Manhunters are usually more of a policing organisation than a military, the command structure is geographic. While I'm in this city, I report to this city's command structure."

I suppose that makes sense. "S'yrra mentioned a 'Marshal'..?"

"The Marshal's office is there to coordinate between them. Some investigations go through more than one city, someone needs to make sure that useful innovations which occur in one city are copied by the Manhunter forces in other cities. And sometimes someone in a city's government is suspected of malfeasance, they're the ones who organise the investigation."

I look around again, becoming a little more concerned. "So there's a mechanism for bypassing local command and control?"

"Yes? We're not immune to corruption."

"If such an investigation were underway… What visible signs would there be?"

"I… Don't really know." She looks around as well, her shapeshifting armour growing notably thicker and extending over her head. "But I imagine that no one in local government would know what the Manhunters were doing."

"And what sort of forces does the Marshal -who S'yrra informed me was preparing for an imminent counterattack against the White uprising- have under their command?"

"Anything he could requisition." She pulls her communicator off her belt. "M'gann M'orzz to City Commander R'oh K'arr."

"Who?"

"Uncle' J'onn's superior. Sort of." Her eyes flicker as someone on the other end picks up. "Sir, I need to know if the Marshal has requested additional forces for an internal review."

I look around again. Sinestro, any ships incoming?

No, Lantern Grayven. All ships are within the confines of their original patrol routes. Two are close enough to this city to support an attack, but neither appear inclined to do so.

Did the locals jump the gun? Were they supposed to wait until the largest possible number of ships were in the area, then pull out as those ships suddenly received simultaneous new orders?

"Sir, I'm overseeing a peace conference of White Martian community leaders. If the Marshal has sent those ships to Pa'leve'ria without a very good reason you need to call them back now."

So where's this sodding attack coming fro-?

I look up, and see a faint shimmer near the roof of the cavern. Sinestro?

As far as I can tell, there's nothing there. So either your soul is playing up, or someone is using magic.

I draw my daiklave and create a fusion cannon construct on my left arm. Now, there could be a perfectly good reason for that shimmer-.

Another shimmering area appears right next to it.

"M'gann, ceiling."

I hold up my right hand and send a weak wave of energy upwards. As it reaches the shimmering area it bends and distorts-. No you don't. This could fuck up everything. SHOW ME.

Something… Breaks, and for a moment I see the forms of four Martian patrol ships appear above us, main guns orientated on the theatre!