Not that the old ships are worse than the more recently constructed ones. Far from it. Rather, they're optimised for fighting Lanterns, targets they stopped needing to specialise against once their war with the Green Lantern Corps ended. Ships whose forward deployment might have been taking by the Guardians as an indication that they were thinking about fighting Lanterns again. Those things are ships that the Orange Lantern Corps has run training exercises about; they don't try and kill Lanterns with direct fire. They usually have some small direct fire weapons for coup de grâce shots, but their primary armaments are things like spatial disruptors which can cover huge volumes of space, or telepathic weapons which interfere with a Lantern's focus and so their ability to create and maintain constructs.
The latter being a weapon we've seen affect OL before - in the form of the modified Brain Bane used on him a year or so ago in-universe - and presumably the 'spatial disruptors' make it hard to maintain the integrity of a construct within the area of effect... Logical enough to use against Lanterns, whatever the colour.
A few ships try firing on us, but the sheer volume of space that they're trying to cover means that there's next to no chance of them scoring a hit. I spot two drone carriers launch their cargoes in our directions, but since they're forced to travel at sublight speeds they won't be in effective weapons range until long after we overtake our quarry. If that's all they can do…
Not that they care much about the ship OL's wing are chasing beyond its' usefulness as a way to get knowledge of the attack...
"Illustres to Clarissi. Reach fleet doesn't appear to have long range FTL weapons."
"Obviously. Empathic results?"
"Blasted human, stating the obvious
again. Is that some trait of their species?"
"Crew well motivated and sure of themselves. They know that they're unlikely to survive, but they believe that they can cripple us. I can't see anything related to a clever strategy or concealed allies."
"Scarabs?"
Helpful. Though I doubt any but the highest commanders would have access to more out-of-the-ordinary knowledge.
"They're blocking me, so they're probably-."
"Understood."
So the scarabs won't be giving their game away when OL fights them. Good to know.
The connections fades. Well, alright, naturally he's paying attention to the only active combat currently taking place. But if he's done an analysis on the weapons the defenders are actually using, couldn't he have shared that with us? He's a far better analyst than me.
"So..?" Velus flies a little closer. "Are you planning on fighting..?"
And not let the Reach keep worrying about what he'll do? Seriously, OL is like the little asian guy in the middle of the brawl right now. You
know he's going to do something, you
want to see him do it, even if you
know it'll be
bad for you...
"Ideally, I won't. Dox has me here for two reasons, but it would be far better for Orange Lanterns who aren't me to get experience in real combat with their rings against our primary enemy."
"Oh? Well, we got two minutes until we're in effective attack range… So?"
No doubt OL will explain in detail about Dox's plans for his deployment. We all know how he loves to exposit.
"We will lose battles during this war. That is practically unavoidable. But this is a fight we're supposed to win, to spur on our allies and potential allies. Losing here is unacceptable. If something strange happens and all other forces we're bringing to bear aren't enough, it's my job to ensure a victory."
"Because you're a super-Lantern."
Hey, once
you've hosted the Ophidian, you can call yourself a Super-Lantern too. Don't sound so snippy.
"I'm not sure that I'm the most powerful Lantern in the universe, but I'm either number one or number two. It.. being understood that raw power isn't the only measure of ability. To the best of my knowledge the Reach don't have anything I can't defeat, but me having to do so would prove that Dox's preparations have been essentially useless. That's bad, politically."
"If you say so. What's the other reason?"
Feh, Politics. Not what the soldiers on the ground care about.
"My usual job. If an Orange Lantern goes crazy, it's my job to disarm them."
"You had to do that before?"
Don't ask him to demonstrate now, you might be needing your ring in a moment. But it's not too hard to learn, I suspect.
"A couple of times. Larfleeze was my first. The others were easier."
"Crazy Orange Lanterns are supposed to get real powerful.
Doesn't matter how powerful you can be when someone can just tell the Ophidian, "Shut this guy down, please, dear?"
"As I said, power isn't the only measure of ability. Clarissi Dox isn't all that powerful, but his understanding of weapons and technology means that he can do more with it. You heard about my fight with Lantern Ragnar?"
"He tells everyone. I think he's proud of it. Do you think you'll need to do something like that here?"
No doubt he's proud. He was bested personally by the leader he now serves. If you look at it the right way, they had to send him to take Ragnar down, because he's the only one who was able to do it.
Just don't mention the fact that OL was more or less the
only Orange Lantern in the field at the time...
"No. I'm just insurance. But I'm trying to stay close to the most worrisome cases."
"Huh. Yeah, I guess that's fair. But all the targets in this system are military, aren't they?"
Suggesting they can go weapons-free on any Reach personnel they see without fear of censure? And note that he missed the unspoken suggestion that the three of them are some of those worrisome cases.
"If you can't identify targets-"
All four of us evade as a.. relatively weak gravity wave erupts outwards from the drive of our quarry. They appear to have accepted that they're not going to escape. Quite clever, really; their ship isn't design to be able to do that and they must have reengineered the thing in flight without losing acceleration.
"-then you shouldn't be in the field."
Huh, more 'Star Trek'-worthy references. They must have one hell of an engineer on board...
But that sacrifice in acceleration for a desperation attack means that we're getting into attack range. Brobranbrak's ring glows brilliantly, then I'm surprised that zhe turns zhe's head away from the target to glance at me. Then zhe forms a… Crumbler ram construct and throws it towards the Reach ship.
"Well done. But-."
Now, now, OL. Don't comment yet, you don't know what zhe's planning. They might be testing the defences with a weak probing attack. Don't assume they're making a rookie mistake.
The ship begins to twist, and the moment it can bring any of its guns to bear it fires at the construct. Brobranbrak winces, but the construct collapses.
"-all Reach ships have weapons precise enough to snipe constructs. You need-."
All you're doing is annoying them. Let them work, OL.
"I do not need you to explain it to me."
Zhe reforms the ram and adds a outer shield before launching it again. I've felt like that before; the lesson is obvious and a person of reasonable intelligence can work it out without a tutor drawing particular attention to it. And zhe might have wanted to weigh up the ship's flak capacities for zheself. I shouldn't assume that Lantern Brobranbrak allowed zhe's contempt for aliens to influence zhe's decision.
More likely that's annoyance at your commentary, OL. You
do seem to have that effect on some people.
So it's good that I don't have to assume things, and I could just check and confirm that's why. Still, I'll call it a win if zhe's abilities are improved by the event. No real need to labour the point.
The Reach ship fires again, but Lantern Brobranbrak remembers to have zhe's construct evade so that the shield only needs to take a couple of hits before slamming into the ship's shield envelope. The shield flares as the smart control system tries to respond to the thing that's hitting it before-. It's gone, and the ram carries on to punch a hole in the hull beneath.
See, now
that's how you do it. I wonder if the Reach have ever encountered anything like Crumbler-tech before? Earth Bullshit
tm for the win!
Worth knowing. For a ship this size, smart shielding is the most efficient form of defence. But the standard 'neutral' defence is essentially an unusually efficient plasma shield, and crumber technology goes right through that.
Guns around the area struck lose power and some atmosphere vents, but that-.
So, is that a mission kill or what? Having a giant drill slam straight into the power-plant would be a pretty effective way to do it.
There's a flare of light from inside the ship, and its motion becomes less controlled. Most ships that side don't focus on internal defences beyond teleport jammers, on the assumption that it the shields and armour have been breached then the ship's doomed anyway. Sticking a fission bomb is usually more than enough to wreck them from inside.
Quick check…
"Kill confirmed."
Good-o. One for Brobranbrak. Four more and you get to be an Ace!
I check the system. The L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet is well inside the system, and will be coming within-.
I feel a new-. A cluster of new lights enter the system on another vector. Not reading L.E.G.I.O.N. transponders. If they're Reach ships-.
Someone else attacking at the same time? A poorly-timed supply run? A Reach fleet passing through on the way to somewhere else? Let's see!
"Clarissi to Illustres. Return to the fleet at once."
"Acknowledged. Returning now."
...Let's see tomorrow!
