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

18th January 2013
22:35 GMT

"Here."

Agnie looks up from the power relay she's working on as I hold out the flask… Palming a spice wafer to her at the same time. She doesn't look at it as she takes it from me and conceals it in her equipment harness. Not a bad try at hiding the motion, and given how direct most Citizens are that's probably good enough.

Turns out that food that isn't blood porridge is hard currency in the Citizenry. As long as no one important spots it. My boyfriend once told me that forcing people into a collective doesn't work because they won't become part of the culture and eventually the people who are would be the minority. The Citizenry is fairly open about how they handle that: the rulers are the ones strong enough to kill anyone who complains.

It's almost refreshingly honest.

Agnie takes a drink. It's just water, but working in this heat means that we're having to be careful about water intake. The Reach decided that heating up the hull will reduce our ability to fight back, and what's left of the ship isn't designed to regulate heat well enough to cope.

"How goes the important repairs?"

The boom tube system, she means. One of the problems of a culture that rewards the warrior ethos above everything else is that other skills get left by the wayside. Most citizens can handle basic maintenance, but for everything else there are… Deals. Pacts where a woman who can read a circuit diagram trades her skills for protection. With the understanding that she's mostly going to be using those skills for the ones protecting her. Major refits are done by temporarily enslaving a technically advanced species and working them to death, not by the Citizens.

Which is biting us in the ass right now.

I smile at her. "Why do you think I'm down here?"

Agnie slumps as she closes the cap on the water bottle, then sets it aside.

"Do you think that we are bait? Is the Commander going to circle around and attack the ships encircling us?"

"That's a bit hopeful." I shrug nonchalantly. "We might be a distraction, if that's any help."

"It isn't."

I'm not senior enough to be allowed on the bridge, so I've got no idea what went wrong with this raid. If I had to guess, I'd say that the Reach got lucky with some sort of gravity weapon, then lucky that the navigator was asleep at her station. Given the way her head was spread all over her station when I checked in with command, she probably did something.

Or maybe not. With commanding officers like ours…

"How are you doing?"

She reaches into the power relay and pulls a lever. There's a quiet hum as the magnetic fields engage.

"I'm not exactly rushing."

The other issue with conscripting people after killing everyone they know and love is that no one is motivated to work all that hard. But if she's going to reduce my chance of survival when she's doing it, then I need to straighten her out.

"This isn't powering atmospheric controls in the captain's washroom. We do actually need this if the plan command are working on is going to work."

"Boarding a Reach ship, capturing it and escaping using their drive?" She doesn't look hopeful. "A fools errand, for those seeking a swift death."

"You have a better idea?"

"She could actually repair the portal-maker."

I make a show of thinking that over for a few moments.

"I.. don’t think she could."

"Then she could stand aside while those of us who might be able to repair it try, without killing us."

Most people would have shouted that last part. But Agnie is far too beaten down to do something like that.

I try smiling at her. "Do you have any ideas that could actually happen, or are we just waiting to die?"

"If the Reach wanted to kill us, they would just have fired. I assume that they're going to board the ship and then turn us into thralls."

"Maybe. So what do you think they're waiting for?"

"Perhaps they want us to eat each other."

"Are we allowed to do that? I'm new."

"The strong survive."

"Okay, but, those who are strong will survive, or those who survive will have demonstrated their strength?"

"I doubt that I would be stronger as a Reach thrall than I am now." She laboriously rises to her feet. "I still have seven power relays to reassemble. Perhaps the Reach will board us before I am done and save me the effort."

I follow her down the corridor as she heads towards her next task.

"Do you want them to make you a thrall? They might just kill you."

"Either would be fine. The first time I ate the porridge…"

"It's an acquired taste."

Honestly, it doesn't taste like anything special. I've had worse soup before. I only eat the wafers as well because I'm not convinced that it has the right nutrients for me to stay healthy.

"I've eaten many times, and each time a little of my soul dies. I would rather not remember. If the Reach make me a thrall, I won't care. That will do just as well."

"If the Captain was occupied with the Reach, do you think you could repair the boom tube-?"

"Hiding, Agnie?"

Three burly Citizens in full armour bar our way. They're armed with bracer blasters and long knives and they're looking for a fight because they can't cope with the implication that they weren't good enough.

I knew they were there, of course. Most Citizens aren't all that subtle, though that does make me wonder if the sabotage wasn't in the ship's systems but in the crew manifest; an entirely predictable result of putting this many unstable personalities together in one place.

"I'm trying to work, Dulcya. Do you want-?"

Dulcya steps into me, with the intent of shoving the fresh meat aside and get to Agnie for… Whatever. I doubt that she has anything approaching an actual plan. Agnie would probably end up dead, and then they'd go to the Captain and boast of their success.

That doesn't happen.

I step to the side, half-turn as I draw my sword and slice, the x-ionised blade passing neatly through Dulcya's upper right arm. Blood spurts as I duck her reflexive punch and slice through her right thigh, sending her crashing to the ground. A slightly awkward stab through her forehead and that's the end for her.

I make eye contact with the other two. They didn't think this through, clearly. Citizenry rules on infighting aren't all that clear, but they were just part of a 'dealing with intrapsychic conflict' squad rather than an actual team. I've proven my strength and since I've chosen to defend Agnie, that's my right. Instead of a fight I get a pair of cautious and respectful nods as they back away.

I flick the blood off my blade and sheath it as Agnie comes forward to remove Dulcya's equipment.

"You might as well have left them. I'm not going to be able to repair the ship enough to matter, and Dulcya would at least have been another fighter."

"Without discipline she would be useless. And I plan on both of us surviving."

Agnie shakes her head. "You're an optimist, Cheshire. But… Thank you."

 

18th January 2013
23:12 GMT

I brace myself as the Lanterns approach me. I know perfectly well that they've been working on something. Let's see how painful this is going to be.

"Colos."

"Zartok. You have something for me?"

He looks smug. And eager. "I have a way onto the Citizenry ship without breaking our stealth field."

That… Okay, if he's managed that, he's got good reason to feel smug.

"How?"

"Allyn."

Lantern Allyn had been hanging back a little, but now he steps forward. "I can use my ring to create New God technology. That's… Designed to let spiritual effects propagate across it. Between me and the magic component of our stealth system, that should let it exist outside of our hull without revealing us."

"You intend to build a bridge?"

"A cable. If it touches the Citizenry ship, I should be able to connect to any New God systems on the ship. Or at least get a general impression of what New God systems they have."

"And if they have a New God?"

"They will know the moment that I start pushing."

Zartok shakes his head. "Who will they tell? The Reach? I doubt that. Their comrades, who have clearly abandoned them? They may even thank us for helping them."

"I thought we were assuming that their boom tube generator -if they even have one- would have to be broken. Can you repair it from here?"

"I don't know."

"Will you be able to communicate with anyone on their ship?"

"I.. don't know."

I give him a moment, but no other information is forthcoming..

"Would you care to expand that answer?"

"I would be able to commune with any New God integrated into their ship. But if there is no New God or if they're not connected to the ship… Perhaps. It depends on how sensitive they are, and… And a number of things."

"Can you communicate with other people on that ship?"

"I-."

"Is it possible?"

"Yes. Certainly. The crew are a community. Imposing my essence on them is what New God technology is for."

"Imposing..?"

He looks a little awkward at that.

"When you serve an Ascendant commanding officer, it is… Not a relationship of equals. My soul encompasses the crew, and my desires become their instincts. There's.. feedback, and.. they can resist, or-. Or mentally separate themselves, once they learn the feel of it, but…"

More mind control. Or perhaps a small scale hive mind with the New God as the ruler.

"Are you doing that now?"

"No! Without the technology we use in our ships, it… We would need to be closely bonded and.. I'm.. not all that good with it. It… When my ship wasn't in combat I wouldn't use it."

I shake my head. "There are Darkstar telepaths in a similar position. Don’t try and use allies as slaves and there's no issue."

He frowns. "Of course not. I-."

Zartok glares at him. "Focus on the topic at hand, Lantern Allyn." And then his eye turns back to me. "Something important is on that ship, important enough for the Reach to delay their attack. We are here to gather information on our enemies. If-."

"If we get control of the boom tube system, what then? Their ship would still need to move in order to evacuate."

"But the crew wouldn't. We can offer them a choice between mindless subservience with the Reach and honourable death with us. After they answer a few questions."

Lantern Drusa twitches slightly. "We could also have telepaths take useful information from their minds, or offer sanctuary to any who didn't volunteer to join the Citizenry."

Allyn nods. "It would also be useful to find out how much New God technology Grayven is sharing with them, and how widespread knowledge of it is."

They're right. It's an x-factor problem. Though our main objective in this campaign is to fight the Reach, we don't know how much of a problem Grayven and his allies could be if they turned their attention toward us. We don't know their strength, their base of operation -if they even have one- or what their aim is. To a degree, the Reach is predictable. Grayven isn't.

My main task here is scout this part of the Reach, but the value of that ship compared to what we're likely to find…

"What is the chance of us being revealed?"

Zartok shakes his head. "The cable will be part of the ship, protected by the same stealth system as the ship. We will have to position ourselves closer, but there is more than enough space between the Reach ships to manoeuvre between them without hitting them. They might be able to detect a change in the hull where the cable connects to their ship, but the connection will be cushioned and slow. The change in hull pressure would be minimal, and we know that they're not examining the outer hull closely."

"And if he can't connect from the outside?"

Zartok takes a small device out of his subspace pocket and holds it up at me. "Do you know what this is?"

I don't, so I access my exo-mantle's computer database. "A crumbler round for the Illustres's railguns."

"A fascinating device. There's no energy release when it works. No pressure wave. No radiation. If we incorporate one into the cable-."

"The Reach could still detect it."

Zartok pauses.

"Yes. The chance is very small, but they could. It is still worth doing."

"And if we're discovered?"

"Their first assumption will not be that it is a N.E.M.O. spy ship. We would detonate the crumbler round and withdraw the cable before moving off. They don't know exactly what the Citizenry's capacities are any more than we do. Most likely, they write it off as hull damage from the battle or a micrometeorite impact. At worst, they have a blast that matches the crumbler rounds they've seen before but no idea why it was here. They'll look, but if they could find us with what they have here then they would have found us already."

"And if they can?"

"Then I get an honourable death."

I regard him for a moment. "You may want that, but I intend for my crew to live."

"Oh, I will die honourably one day, many decades hence. I am not worried about the Reach. And this plan will work."

I take a deep breath, then nod my approval.

I hope that I don’t regret this.