Story 3: Cranial Lightning Strikes Bat Island
This story first appeared in ‘’’Action Comics’’’ #28
Page 1: Metal Lass and Mr. Music
The two teens are in the hospital room with Jandar Cee, who has a bandage over her temple and is hooked up to an IV
(because even in the 30th century you need a way to get fluids back into people, regardless of what you saw on Star Trek)
"I'm Sooooo sorry about what happened,' she says, wincing as she speaks.
"How much to you remember?" says Ode. "I mean... if it doesn't hurt too much to talk ."
Thought balloon: "...everyone's always able to talk clearly and remember everything in the books and vids and holos... but this is real life...
"It's not bad. The scar will be above the hairline at least." She shrugs "I know the scars are supposed to show warrior’s honor but..."
She blinks, then continues, and Ode can see her skin pull taught when she talks. "Right, remember. Not much. I was at a club up the street, don't remember which. Big Noise, Big Light, lot of fun. It was getting late, class next day, had to get back. I headed for the stairs and then..."
She shrugs again, "then it gets all blurry. I remember not being able to find my ID in my purse, getting really confused but the hotel pass had my room number. The next thing I really remember was the stairwell with you, when I got that icky foam in my mouth. That kinda snapped me too."
Dolar nods solemnly at Jandar. “It was fortunate our instructors were concerned about your absence, otherwise we would not have known about your medication. Were the doctors able to find it?"
Jandar bursts into laughter, tears welling up at her cheeks. "They found -Tons-. My medicine, extra medicine, even a doctor who would temporarily up my prescription. It's all in there." She jerks her head sharply towards the IV canister. "I think they're afraid I'll burn down the hospital.
"Which is fair, I guess. But you probably mean the medicine I should have had with me. I don't know; it was in my purse--it should have been my purse. I don't know. When I woke up--in the building--I was too confused. Scared. If they have it--my purse--nobody's told me yet.”
Dolar cups one ear in a thoughtful gesture. “You were able to get back to your room and unlock the door, which suggests you had your key last night. Which in turn suggests that you also had your purse. Which logically puts it in your room…” she winces “…which was on one of the burning floors."
“Still, tell us what it looks like.” Dolar asks, leaning forward. “We might be favored by fortune ."
"Yes, right. My room. My bags. All my clothes...I had blissfully forgotten that part of this nightmare. Although you'd be surprised how much of my stuff is fireproof. Mostly fireproof. On the bright side, I'll get to shop for more clothes! If they don't simply ship me back in disgrace. If I'm not getting cut off for causing an incident. Right, sorry, I was getting maudlin. Room 1622. I remember that; I could get that, but not my name, right before I got to sleep. My purse was chartreuse. Fake scales. I had it in my room; my key was in it. It was awfully light; must have spilled when I fell. But there was medicine in my bags--if I'd not fallen asleep first. I was so tired...I still..." Jandar's face looks wan and pale. "I'm still exhausted, sorry."
If there's a chair, Mr. Music sits in it and strums his guitar absent-mindedly while he speaks.
"I don't think anyone's going to think it's a disgrace," he says. "As near as anyone can figure it, you hit your head. Maybe you tripped. We just need to make sure you're all right, and maybe... I don't know what your medicine looks like, but if it's small enough, maybe you could put a dose or two in a locket or something?
"We can check your room, maybe? If that hasn't already been done, I mean. And the club -- I know you don't remember the name, but you know what street it's on, right? Or a landmark or two? We can ask around, see if anyone turned in anything that might have fallen out of your purse.
"And really, you're doing great remembering this much. Head wounds are really tricky. I mean, not that I'm a doctor."
"Didn't -trip-. Someone hit me! I could've"...she breathes in sharply, then relaxes. "It's a good thing they've got me on OD, I guess. I told you, big light, big sound, can"t mis 'em, right near the Dip. S'good." She dances for a moment in her bed, then relaxes and closes her eyes.
"Hit you?" says Ode, stopping his strumming. He looks from Jandar to Dolar .
Dolar says nothing as she looks back at Ode, but quizzically raises one eyebrow.
Both of Odes and Dolar's communcators chirp with an emergency tag. "Record message: Darvish Mal says that a ship which had her biological specimen Tallag animals - very dangerous - is going to crash after an explosion on board, and the pilot is aiming at Bat Island. Darvish is getting tranquilizers. We're at the University quad now figuring transportation. End recording."
"We need to go," he says to Jandar. Will you be okay?"
"L'be fine," Jandar says. "Go fight the beasties, try not to get eaten. 'specially you. Cute musician; shame if your face got munched."
"Yes, ma'am," says Ode, unaware that he's blushing.
Page 2: Bubble Boy, Diskette, Miss Anima
The three other members of the nascent Legion of Super Heroes are on the quad of Meridian City University, where the sunshine is streaming down through wispy clouds and the student body are in various stages of relaxation on the patch of greenery. It’s as good a place as any to have a discussion about the future of the club, about which there are some concerns.
[BR: Specifically with the pile of positive press you guys got from the last two actions there are now ‘questions’ being ‘asked’ about what the teens may do next; you have also received a friendly note from Solicitor Greyn (the diminutive official that they rescued from a plane crash in the first issue) regarding what steps they might want to consider for legal filing of their Club to forestall future problems]
"I thought last time we talked about it that we needed to worry about equipment and preparation, not organization and legal filings," Jinnjahl says. "And, well, I still think that was right, then -- imagine if our costumes hadn't been fireproofed! But I think now what if we don't decide how we're organizing things, and get filings to say we mean it, we'll get adults organizing us whether we like it not, and we'd probably like the organization we'd come up with ourselves better ."
She adds, "I’m really glad we know an almost-certainly-friendly very good lawyer."
Gorvo grins. "Yep! If we keep rescuing useful people we could have a whole stable of professionals. Do we need to rescue a marketing specialist next?"
"As long as we're saving people, marketing is the least of our troubles," Patin says, "I still think we need to set up an organization sooner rather than later, and I've got some possible by-laws you can look at, but that last fight told me that I need to upgrade my equipment. Specifically, I need to find a sword that won't slow me down when I'm moving, because there won't always be convenient metal splinters around, and if we keep doing this--this won't be the only situation that fights back! And my power isn't useful for fighting, not directly, anyway."
"Your power is more useful for fighting than mine," Jinnjahl points out matter-of-factly. "I can try drawing swords, but I don't know much about them, and you'd probably want the final result made really-real by something other than a basic printer?"
She considers. "If we are to plan for being in direct fights, I would need a distance weapon. I'm fragile by typical- sized-race standards."
"As for setting up an organization ... I think we should talk to our friendly lawyer before discussing by-laws, even tentative ones. We should just figure out what we want to *do* with our organization, then get advice on what we can and can't say under the law, and -- well, the consequences of our choices. I want to help people with my friends, I want my friends and I to be in charge of how and when we help, and I want to cooperate with the Science Police when we're working on the same thing. Oh, and I want to avoid acting like idiots and risking doing more harm than we help. Which we've done so far, but let's not get cocky."
"Are you kidding?" Patin looks Jinnjal. "I'm a better fighter than you; sure; I could probably take anyone in our group. But you can summon almost anything from a picture, right? People, items, energy and motion? High tech weapons? Monsters and soldiers who can fight for you? "I've spent a bunch of time trying to figure out how to make my powers useful, even though it can't do the obvious things a teleportation power would do if I weren't so weak, like teleporting me. But you? You've barely begun."
Gorvo rolls his eyes but nods along with Patin's assessment. "Sure, we all could do with some practice with our powers. Particularly if we're going to rely on them in a crisis. On my world, we learn from an early age how to protect oneself, but not always so much how to help others with our powers. I'd like to think that in a fix I could be relied on to help protect my friends, even those ones who are superlative fighters, eg Patin?"
"You can! You have." Patin says, thinking about the multiple times Gorvo has protected her at this point.
"But even so, maybe we should gear up, think about strategies, and then get back together and practice?"
"Wait," Jinnjahl says, "do we really want to buy weaponry after making everyone not-unhappy-but-nervous with us and before talking to the friendly lawyer? Actually, I *have* to talk to a lawyer first, I have no idea how you get a gun off Slan. And I think I need one. Yes, I can use my powers in to help in a fight, even drew pictures of a couple of Science Police. But I can't use my powers to do any actual fighting. Yes, I could use them to give myself a weapon - anything I've seen and drawn ahead of time. Make energy so that I'm fighting with them directly? It would probably work, but short of bringing sunlight to a vampire nest, it just takes too much out of me. And I'd want a safe place to experiment and practice, first."
Before this conversation can go any further they all hear a loud yell of "Oh No!" from somewhere else in the quad. Everyone else in the spaces stops what they're doing and stares at a young woman who is looking at her communicator in panic.
Gorvo's suspicion that it might be Darvish Mal doing the yelling is confirmed when she holds out her hand a light blue force field bubble snags a pair of binocs from a nearby bird watcher and yanks them to her. She stares up at the distant sky for a moment and audibly gasps. The binocs drop to the ground as she turns to sprint back towards her lab ranting "No, no no no no!"
Gorvo breaks into a run towards Darvish, calling out. "Darvish, wait up! What's wrong?" He spares a look at the sky, hoping to see whatever it was that spooked the Tallag woman so.
When he see her up close its clear that her fear is tempered with rage. She spins, ready to lash out at someone delaying her, then sees its Gorvo. "The transport carrying my biological specimens, Gorvo," she tells him, pointing up the trail of smoke spiraling in the sky nearby. "There was an accident. An explosion. It's crashing. There will be a ship full of Tallag animals on Charrakesh and its all my fault!"
"Splintering Stars! We'd better get people to safety! Do you have any tranquilizers that will work on the animals? We're sure going to need them."
He touches force-fields with Darvish. "Don't worry. It's not your fault, and we're going to fix it. Get to the lab, I'll get to the crash site."
She nods, looking grateful, "You be careful. The pilot's communication was that they were going to try to bring it down somewhere safe. She's aiming for... BAT ISLAND!"
<dun! Dun DUH! OK, there's not actually anything ominous about that other than the in joke for the A&E>
"Jinnjahl! Patin! It's an emergency, a transport ship with dangerous animals from my homeworld on board. If they survive the crash many lives will be in danger. Call the Science Police and let's get to the scene; maybe we can set up a cordon."
Darvish nods "I'll get some tranquilizers set up and catch up with you. The important thing is to get them before they can disperse!"
"Once they are loose in the world nothing will be able to stop them! "
Jinnjahl pulls out her communicator and snaps a picture of Darvish Mal. "Record message: Darvish Mal -" she manipulates the phone to attach the picture she just took - "says that a ship which had her biological specimen Tallag animals - very dangerous - is going to crash after an explosion on board, and the pilot is aiming at Bat Island. Darvish is getting tranquilizers. We're at the University quad now figuring transportation. End recording."
She sends with a maximal urgency / high importance flag to Officer Erin, Dolar, and Odo, and the science police's general 911 number. Same message with with a moderate urgency / moderate importance flag to Solicitor Greyn and an "FYI - any right-now advice?" text-only appended.
She sets the phone to cal Officer Erin live and ring / connect if it gets through (that is, if she answers the phone, do a tone to let me know it's gotten through, but put her through immediately), then looks at Patin. "I can liven up a skimmer for us for a couple hours," she says, "it'll take a minute or two and it'll leave me very tired." She's punching up data as she talks, and continues, "Or I could call one a little quicker and it'll last just barely long enough to get there, and I'd have to hope I have enough energy left to liven it again for the way back. Think you can get a skimmer, or shall I?"
(Of course, if she can get through to the Science Police, they may moot the question either by transporting us or ordering us out....)
[BR: you will not get through to the SP right away.]
"Didn't you hear her?" Patin says, "If they get out into the world, after the crash, nothing will be able to stop them from contaminating the biosphere. This is ecology, right? Not Godzilla?"
Darvish shakes her head. "Godzilla is a little more accurate. Gorvo can fill you in on the way." And with that she's gone, running back to her lab.
"Time is of the essence. Jinnjall, can you summon up a skiff now? If we follow them now, we should be able to contain the damage while it's still containable. We can worry about getting back once we've dealt with the situation."
Jinnjahl reaches for a notebook. She's definitely going to do a long-term summoning, however much Patin wants to hurry: trying to herd animals without a skimmer sounds stupid .
It has not occurred to Jinnjahl that the PCs are being manipulated, but it has occurred to her that the situation is out of control and the PCs don't know enough to be sure they can avoid making it worse.
[BR: don't be paranoid - Darvesh isn't the villain of this piece. And Gorvo knows enough to get you through since this is a spotlight session for him.]
While Jinnjahl gets to work, Gorvo fills in some details about the cargo of Tallag animals on board the freighter.
"There's Korbals, big as a two-person skimmer with a nasty electrical bolt thing in their heads and a few Harun, vicious cat-reptile creatures, about a metre long, that seem to hate all of Creation. And just for fun we have several Cotals to deal with. Think of a cross between a bat, a vulture and a hyena with extra venom sacs for spitting poison at their prey while on the wing. The only good thing about them is they're fiercely territorial and may fight with one another as easily as the local fauna.
Page 3-4: all LSH
The new artist is a fan of double page spreads as we know. The shot this time is an overhead of Bat Island, so named because it's central mountains and eastern expanse of island and western expanse of reefs look, when viewed from above, like a famed 20th century symbol.
The transport ship has crashed into the reef area, which is a blessing since the crew has some water between them and the beasts which have made it to the island part. One wing mounted engine of the transport was clearly blown to pieces by some sort of explosion.
The LSH shuttle is closing in from the upper left of the spread. In the lower right of the spread in the ocean there is another ship in the water. Rather large, strange design. Perhaps some sort of transport. Scattered around the island are three clusters of animals - the closest airborne and approaching the LSH skimmer. The other two are the large beasts with their CRAINIAL LIGHTNINGS and the smaller ones that are ravaging something on the ground.
"...are we supposed to round them all up, alive and unharmed?" says Ode.
His thought balloon reads, "I have NO idea if my music will do anything to calm animals."
Jinnjahl looks up from her sketch. "Don't let them get away and saving the crew are both more important than rounding them up, from what I understand. Though rounding them up would work if we could. But to start, if we can stun the fliers and take away the bridge ... do any of them swim well?" She points at the something on the ground being attacked. "And can anyone tell if that's animal or person?"
Everyone glances down to where Miss Anima is indicating, and Diskette is able to make out what, to her eyes, is indisputably a human arm coming out from the scrum of animals.
Gorvo thinks he remembers warnings about avoiding water when near the hippos with CRANIAL LIGHTNINGS, but he can't really recall if it's because they swim well or because of the unpleasant mixture of electricity and water.
"I think the big fellows are dangerous in the water, but not particularly fast swimmers."
She ponders the sketch, debating if she has enough time to do a slow call.
“We will need to deal with the flying ones first”, Dolar cries.
“Here they come!”
Once again, she pulls the amorphous titanium sculpture from her pack, this time moving her hands in a rapid taffy-pulling pattern that stretches it into a net.
Jinnjahl jumps for the copilot's seat and the autopilot settings, dropping the pencil and putting the pad she'd been sketching on away by sitting on it. (From here she can pilot with a little awkwardness - the controls are in reach but optimized for the seat next to her - and reset the autopilot's controls easily. She expects to be mostly resetting the autopilot for evasion, but she figures it's likely people will need bits and pieces of the skimmer doing specific things and someone has to override the autopilot or tell it to do them, and well, she knows the skimmer best.)
"Maximizing evasion, but I don't know how well we'll dodge spitting venom." (The skimmer is absolutely top-of-the-line, but its top-of-the-line *civilian*, it's not a military or police vehicle.)
Ode starts playing, trying for a general calming effect, having no idea whether this will work. He is standing atop the flying vehicle, with magnetic boots holding him in place.
Patin is lying down with a sponsor-supplied tranq rifle cradled in her arms aimed at one of the birds. "One of these should just make you woozy, bird, and hopefully make it harder for you to zap us. But given how much I'm not a sniper, no reason I can't cheat a little." And a disc appears at the end of the rifle--and somewhere much closer to the bird, right before Patin fires.
Gorvo concentrates on keeping a bubble up between the flyer and the skimmer, hoping to block any opportunistic venom attacks.
The three Coutal approach on what is obviously a coordinated attack run two of them spitting venom at the skimmer while the remaining one is stooping to yank Ode off with its claws. The venom of one attack splatters harmlessly against Bubble Boy’s protective screen but with the speed of the attack run and the erratic movement of Miss Anima’s piloting neither the other attacks even come close.
Ode starts singing, pushing his vocal chords and changing his modulation in the hope of being able to effect these dangerous animals in the air, through the force field. It’s an impossible challenge, but the casually confident conductor of calm comes through, his siren call penetrating the perpetually rage filled brain of the Tellag beast, and one of the three breaks off the attack run to flutter back towards the ground.
[BR: successfully pushed your power, made one attack out of three; 16 Power cost, 29 remaining.]
Diskette takes aim through her teleporational disk and fires, three darts from the air rifle penetrating the hide of one of the approaching Coutal, to no obvious effect.
[BR: 1 power for the disk, 51 Power remaining, 2 ‘autofire’ shots left in the rifle.]
There is a bright splatter of venom all across the front of the force field courtesy of the untouched beast, blocking sight for a moment, but none of the noxious toxin penetrated the field. By the time the wind clears the force field the drugged and groggy Coutal has stumbled directly into Jinnjah’s flight path. There’s a shot of the enormous beast with Ode, outside the gravskim, silhouetted blue against its green plumage, and then IMPACT!
The speed and weight of the blow shatters Gorvo’s force field, driving a lancing pain through the Tellag youth, but no one else on Gravskim feels the impact as the Coutal bounces away.
[BR: 15 Power lost for a ‘broken’ field, 29 Power remaining, but no one takes and damage and you still have your personal field up.]
Miss Anima amazingly keeps her control over the skimmer, pulling down and away to avoid hitting the flying beast a second time. Drugged and pummeled, the Coutal manages a barely controlled plummet towards Bat Island.
The remaining beast turns and, some primal evolutionary instinct telling it that its target’s force field is down, prepares for the attack. That attack dies before it even begins as Metal Lass’ sculpture wraps around its wings, tying them back mid flap and sending that creature as well down towards the island.
[BR: 5 Power for the attack, 39 Power remaining.]
The mighty beast finally musters enough strength to shed the super-humanly enhanced web, but too late - it slams into the tree line with a resounding thud and goes limp.
Miss Anima levels out the skimmer and tells the autopilot to keep us steady, heading - she splits the difference between the scrum on the ground and the remains of the ship. "Palin - Diskette - can you take a closer look at the gang on the ground, if that might be a survivor?"
"I don't know whether they're in the process of being ripped apart or whether they have some protection, but I saw someone struggling animals;” Palin says, "or their arm, anyway. I would have mentioned it before, but I was too busy concentrating on the animals attacking us; the way I see it, either they're done for, or they'll have to last long enough for us to help. They'll have to. Unless… "
Diskette falls silent here, as she tries to work on being able to open a gate to help the poor (presumed) crew member out...when the time is right.
Miss Anima swallows and steers for the scrum, still staying some distance above ground. "Metal Lass, if one of your sculptures got there, could you make a shark cage, to buy time while we evacuate the ship? Bubble Boy, would that at least buy us a few minutes, or would they chomp right through it? I'd rather not split up if we can avoid it.”
Metal Lass is moving her hands in a form that denotes a desire for creativity in the face of a challenge. “There’s not enough metal for a cage in my bag, but there is a great deal of metal on the ground. I will see what I can do with it.”
She leans over the edge of the skimmer, ‘reaching’ toward the shattered engine with her powers and rippling her arms in the pattern Four Streams Enter the Cataract.
Miss Anima veers to drive over a large clump of metal bits, but the skimmer is too high above the ground.
“Cracked Anvils!” Dolar spits. "I cannot reach the pieces!” She writhes through three forms of frustration. "Can we try again, Miss Anima? Either closer or slower should make it possible.”
The gravskim scoots along some 50 feet off the ground where Metal lass has snagged a chunk of the transports shredded engine and wing and is pulling them along, shaping them in mid flight. The metal flows like water under and around the Harun to encase the figure they're savaging, but her first attempt to pull the metal together into a protective cage meets with failure as the speed and strength of the savage Tellag beasts - never mind how one has its jaws clamped around the figure’s leg - make it impossible to drive them back.
“Once more! It should be easier now that the metal is in place!"
The metal suddenly snaps into place, driving the creatures away from the prostrate humanoid. With a chance to see him clearly they can see he is wearing some durable body armor. That armor has been torn to shreds, and his arm is clearly dislocated at the shoulder, but there's very little blood. It's possible whoever it is is still alive.
The harun look extremely unhappy and are turning their gazes towards the skimmer. In the slightly lighter gravity of Charkesh who knows how high they might be able to jump....
Jinnjahl jabs a button on the autopilot which tells it to override the pilot for evasion purposes, turns away towards the treeline, and deliberately bobbles the turn, going about five feet lower before arresting the fall and speeding up. She wants them away from that cage with the maybe-corpse-maybe- helpless-person, and a pretend-sort-of-stumble ought to get their attention.
"Did anyone see any prey animals I could lead them to?" **That person needs medical attention, but how the heck does someone get to him under these circumstances...? Oh OH!**
"Diskette, *after* we've led off the Harum, could you make me a portal big enough to stick a hand and a picture through to that poor guy, and hold it for a few seconds? And could someone take the pilot seat while we do that? The pilot's controls are fairly standard, the autopilot’s set to override to avoid collisions, if you need to turn off the override, that’s this here. Uh. And I think we need to go to the wreck, but I think we need to lose the Harum first -- anyone have better ideas?" --
Gorvo pipes up. "Pit traps! That what we use on Tallag. I've just remembered. If you can lure them into a pouncing attack they land with quite a bump and will easily fall into a pit. Have we any way of excavating a pit quickly? I can lead them off and leave them trapped."
"Can we find something close enough to one here?" asks Ode, thinking of natural dips or pools that could be obscured. "Or rig a snare or net?"
"Can you all just shut it for a moment," Diskette says, her voice lower and more stressed than usual. "I'm trying to...." Her voice shifts to a shout, as she tries to make a gate far larger, and with somewhat more range, than she ever has in her life, between the ceiling of the skimmer and the floor of Metal Lass's cage. "Concentrate!"
[BR: Josh, following up with a push rather than full power, activating the Arrogant tag to make this a d20 vs I rather than d% vs Ix3. This increases the area of your disk 4 fold, or the diameter from 1' to 2.8' feet. PR cost is 10 for the push, current Power is 40.]
There's a thin shimmer in the air as a sheen of sweat appears on Diskette's face, and then the wavering disk snaps into place on the ceiling of the skimmer, matching with the fallen figures head and torso. Gravity itself causes the man to slip through the hole in space and fall head first into the skimmer.
Gorvo's force bubble catches the man before he can hit the floor, lowing him gently to the deck between the seats.
Page 5-6: all LSH
Another two page spread, much the same as the last save for two things – there’s the signs of the prior struggle with the Cuotal in the upper left corner, and the strange waterborne transport ship in the lower right corner is now gone, with some rough surf around where it was.
"I...told...I...could do...it," Diskette says, before catching her breath. "Oh, Prax, I've never done anything that big beforeIDidn'tthibkIcould."
"Yay! Well done, Diskette! You got him," says Gorvo, boggling at the sudden arrival of the injured man. "Umm, does anyone know first aid?"
"A little," Jinnjahl says, "but he probably needs a doctor. I, um, know lots of doctors, and sketched half on them. Someone else get ready to override the autopilot?"
She pulls out one of her sketchpads (well, really, a photograph album with sketches inside) and flips through the pages rapidly. She pulls out one picture as she passes it, skims through again, pulls out a second, finishes the second skim, looks at the two, and starts pouring energy into the first sketch.
(Slan doctor who makes housecalls and carries around lots of equipment loses out to Slan doctor who started as a combat medic, who has less equipment with him but who she confidently expects will understand that no, taking him straight to the hospital is not an option; do what you can with what's here and we'll get him to the hospital when we can. She doesn't know anything about the medic-now-doctor's non-medical abilities, but his medical abilities would include the ability to receive physical sensations on touch; not all Slan can do that, but it's so useful for a doctor that medical schools won't train you if you can't. He almost certainly can pull the "you can't see me" telepathic trick and can telepathically communicate at range, because Slan who have any telepathy and can't do those are vanishingly rare, but he could be an exception. And since she doesn't know, if he's an especially gifted telepath, he's one of those who keep an outer shell that looks normal; most Slan are pretty considerate about telling the telepathically blind about things they couldn't help but notice if only they had functional minds-eyes.)
The skimmer’s engine whines again under the second moment of an extra hundred or so pounds being added to the mass in the skimmer as the Slan materializes into the space. There’s a bare moment of confusion in his eyes before he sees the body, opens his kit bag and gets to work.
“Whatever this armor is, it kept him alive so far. It may kill him now if we can’t get it off….” The Slan says, arranging a small laser scalpel in a desperate attempt to pierce the shell.
Miss Anima takes a look - does the armor appear to be metal?
“Armor?”, Metal Lass gasps, as she lays her hand on its frayed and torn surface.
Muttering, “Just enough…”, Metal Lass throws her arms into the air, moving them in the complex pattern of “The Swarm Scatters Before the Rainstorm.”
[BR: that's 5 power to control the mesh, and it’s a piece of work to get it to shred the armor, but within your capability. Current power score is 29]
There is a purple-grey snowfall in the cabin as the armor disintegrates under the force of the metal mesh disassembling from the inside.
The Slan doctor nods and then goes to work on the patient , who is a mass of bruises, dislocated limbs and some cuts. "I will be able to stabilize him for now, but time is not on his side." he informs them. "In case he does not make it, his name is Tavis Qen; a Wynathian. He and his clutch are a mercenary company. I suspect they would want to be informed of his passing."
Behind them the Harun snarl and spit, with two continuing to savage the cage, three looking confused at the sudden absence of quarry and two looking up at the skimmer. Gorvo can feel the Harun's electromagnetic senses tingling across the force field.
Ode catches Gorvo's eye. "Pit trap time?"
"It works for me," replies the Tallag youngster. "First let's find a big hole in the ground. Then I can lead the vicious Harun straight into it!"
Gorvo looks from the skimmer and scans the terrain for a likely sinkhole or crevasse.
Gorvo's keen eyes quickly locate somewhere that the plan might work - a rift in the body of the island, easily deep enough that the fall would temporarily stun the all but unkillable Harun... assuming they can be tricked into it. The rift is 20 feet wide (why, oh why are we still using imperial measurements in the 30th century?) and runs about 200 feet long, tapering off at the ends. It's somewhat shaded from ground level view by the tall grass and brush, around it. Still, someone is going to have to find a way to lure the Harun into their leaping attacks towards that spot (and possibly find a way to hide the crevasse entirely)
As they are making their plans a message comes through from Darvish. “I’m in route with the Science Police containment unit. Remember, we need to contain four Coutal, nine Harun and five Korbals. Be careful!”
Miss Anima jerks and turns to the sky. "Heads up, there's a flier out there we haven't seen yet.
"Fine," Patin says, slipping into the pilot's seat, "If one of us is going to use this plane to dodge ravaging jumpers and an unknown flier, lets have it be the girl who only provisionally believes in gravity.
"Annie, tell me how to steer this thing"
"Mostly the pilot's controls are like any other gravskimmer, but over here -" Miss Anima indicates three buttons and a lever - "this diamond button activates the contragravity controls. The lever goes from twice normal gravity to half again antigravity (that is, half the skimmer's weight pulls it upwards.) The round button resets the lever to zero grav, the square button resets to normal grav, and the triangular button tells the autopilot to take over.
"Over here are the autopilot controls, currently set to autopilot in this direction. Here set them to full manual, here to override to avoid collisions only."
"Oh, got it. Where do I need to lead the Harun? And, put on your seat belts--it's going to be a bumpy ride."
Miss Anima starts frantically checking under seats, there should be something somewhere to help secure someone prone, but where-?
She finds the crash webbing under the seats and pulls it out with a hard yank
"You are safe from the flyer," the doctor tells her. "Qen and his brothers captured it."
In a soft, tired voice, Metal Lass says, “That’s a relief.” Then her head whips around to look at the animated Slan. “Wait…. What?"
The Harun leap at the skimmer, one of them rebounding off of Gorvo's field and snarling in mounting frustration. Its saliva is spitting and hissing against the field from where it hit.
"They're good and angry now!" says Gorvo. "Over there, Patin, there's a sort of rift. Aim for there and the Harun will surely follow. We can lure them into our trap!"
"If we can get them to follow us and make them leap the chasm, we can halt them with my forcefield and they'll tumble into the rift."
"Right." Patin starts hitting toggles with the confidence of a youth spent in expensive hobbies and self-defense classes, ending with the autopilot. "I'll try to keep the gravy smooth, particularly given our guest. But no promises."
[BR: Gravy? Auto-correct gone mad or 30th century slang?]
[JK: Slang! For anti-gravity, and yes, totally stolen from Howard Taylor, who I talked to briefly in the gaming room today, but mostly I think it's a sensible slang for easily available anti-gravity that if mis-tuned or mis-designed can literally turn you into gravy]
She hits one more switch, and the skimmer abruptly drops towards the ground for a long second, pivoting as it falls, the antigravity generators dampening the sensation of falling for the occupants--just before suddenly accelerating towards the chasm just as the Harun leap towards where the skimmer was going to be.
There’s a sickening lurch but Miss Anima has had just enough time to strap the crash webbing down over the parts of the patient where that would be safe, and she and the doctor’s long Slan digits make it easy for them to hold on to the webbing as the skimmer moves into attack position.
The Harun – at this point all seven on the ground – are in the chase, the pack preparing to leap from all directions and drive down their prey as if it were a Coutal. Diskette’s reflexes and competitive background combine to set them up perfectly, and the snarling beasts leap towards the gravskim the moment they sense Bubble Boy’s force field drop.
There’s a moment of legitimate fear as the Harun close in, but then the blue line of force reappears as an impenetrable wall in mid-air. It’s almost comic as the seven Harun plow into it and then drop, stunned and yelping, feet pinwheeling, into the deep crevasse below the gravskim. The Legionnaires can hear the sound of their impacts, but Gorvo is confident that Harun can live through a lot worse than this….
[BR: Bubble Boy takes spends 7 Power from the impacts, plus 1 from the one earlier, current power is 21]
There’s a crackle from the radio system followed by “They’re getting closer to the ship!” and everyone can see the corona of lightning from the reefs.
"How often can they do that?" says Ode. “How much control do they have over where the bolts go?” Dolar asks. “What if we made lightning rods?"
Gorvo replies. "Korbals can pump out a lot of lightning. Maybe 4 to 6 shots in a minute if they're enraged. And they're really easy to anger. They have to obey the laws of physics though so their lightning earths through a lightning rod like any regular bolt would."
"Dolar, that's genius! Can you fashion lightning rods and drive them into the ground? We could use them as a shield. If you can make a mesh we could even have a Faraday cage! My force field should hold against the lightning but it's not a sure thing. There's a heck of a lot of energy in those big angry beasts."
[BR: Myles is right about that. So is the plan that Gorvo and Ode drop down, Dolar pulls up lighting rods and Jinjall and Diskette are back up?' or are they going to try to find the vanished transport? Or comfort the crew in the crash?
[LP: Send Jinjall and Diskette to help the folks trapped in the besieged ship or find ship/people who are missing (I am vague on who we need to rescue), and if Dolar is needed to move metal off trapped people, hope Diskette can use her power to get to Dolar and bring her to where metal needs to be moved?]
[BR: The crew of the crashed ship are theoretically in danger if the Korbals get out of your cordon. The Korbals are on their way there to eat them and the ship.]
[DK: Not sure Diskette would be able to make a portal quite that big again so soon, but Dolar should be able to manipulate metal through a smaller one.]
The tension and position of Dolar’s body practically shouts a desire for bold ideas yet untried. “Diskette! Could you make an opening between some lander debris and the spot where Mr. Music will play, and hold it long enough for me to pull metal through it? If I could bring enough through, I could make both rods and a Faraday cage to protect these two.”
"I can make an opening; it's up to you to pull stuff through it," Diskette says, "We're going to want to scramble after the drop, since the Korbals will move fast, and even faster if we're together, so you'll want to work on the go."
"So we're going to exhaust the Korbals for a few minutes?" Jinnjahl asks, hoping it's rhetorically, and then continues, completely non-rhetorically, "And then what? Do we try to build a grounded cage? Try to knock them unconscious? This skimmer can't carry the crew of a ship that size -" she hesitates, and her hair-tendrils spread out, which is the body-language equivalent of turning pale - "not and us, too, anyway. If they don't have more than a couple of passengers -" she glances at the Slan doctor, who might be able to tell how many people are alive out there - "the crew *could* take the skimmer back without us. Which ... um, is crazy-dangerous for us, but I'd think is even more dangerous for them. And I could draw another skimmer...."
She takes out a pencil and a blank pad, scribbles on one page, "Tavis Qen, of a mercenary Wynathian clutch; they captured a Coutal" and tears it out and places it on top of the unconscious man. She puts the pencil to the next page.
Page 7-8: All LSH
Based on feedback I guess you’re going with this, in plan, in which case the next two pages are the usual two page spread with overlap panels. Instead of the island, however, the image is of Mr. Music jamming out a guitar chord, front and center, with Bubble Boy and Metal lass flanking him. Bubble Boy is gesturing to keep the extended Force Field dome in place while Metal Lass is in the necessary stance to reinforce the lightning rods. All of these are taking a pounding from a barrage of cranial lightning that fills in all the edges of the panel.
Out of the center of the panel Miss Anima and Diskette are loading wounded and stunned workers into the skimmer, their stylistically similar uniforms making a clear patch of white and rainbow in the otherwise chaotic scene.
Ode's thought balloon: "I... don't think the Brotherhood would approve.... How _do_ they keep generating all that lightning?"
Dolar’s thought balloon: “It’s a good thing I can call the metal back into the rods…these things are MELTING them!"
Gorvo's thought balloon: "Wowee! This is way more fun than labwork! So long as my forcefield holds..."
Patin's thought balloon: "Jammed doors might be tricky--if I couldn't get to the emergency controls with my disks. How -did- the ship crash, anyway?"
JinJall is seen clambering limberly up a tangled pile of cages to position herself to hand people up to Patin.
We see a panel with Miss Anima’s skimmer flying away, with Miss Anima shouting “they’re clear!” and Diskette next to her using a shock probe to hold off a Korbal.
And then way down towards the bottom right hand corner of the spread we see two panels of the team now inside a Science Police skimmer with Darvesh and Officer Erin.
Erin speaks first, looking down at the melted remains of the transport “I can’t believe you crazy kids lived through that”
Dolar gives Erin a serious look, her body posed in a form indicating polite confusion. “We did what any group bound by saak would do . Helped one another to accomplish the task."
Patin smiles, "We had a plan, so we were pretty sure we could survive. If it hadn't worked...well, we would have come up with something else."
Darvish adds, “I am so grateful…but I don’t think you got all of them. There are one of two of each species missing….”
"So presumably, they captured the other missing beasts," Patin says. "That makes them what? Poachers? Saboteurs?"
"'Two of each species'?" Ode repeats. "A male and a female?"
Darvesh nods. "Only one Coutal is missing, but the other species? Yes. They took one of each sex."
She looks visibly shaken. "This is horrible. We have no idea what they will do."
Dolar deliberately shifts into a less-expressive form that Metaxians use during diplomatic negotiations as she turns to the Science Police and asks, “Do you have any idea who might have done this? What use would they have for these animals? And what do you think they might demand for their safe return?”
"I can think of a lot of safer things to kidnap if a ransom was what you were after. Tallag beasts are pretty darn dangerous. I just hope there's not someone out there planning a breed-and-release program. Some Tallag animals have gotten loose on other worlds and caused unbelievable chaos both to the sentient populations and the local fauna."
Ode's thought balloon: "Maybe they're planning a zoo?" His next thought balloon has a bizarre image of a zoo with these creatures, with dark clouds and lightning over the zoo.
Darvesh nods, still obviously shaken, but turning a little angry. "I will have to drop everything else. All the experiments. All the work and planning. But Tellag animals are too dangerous to search for without xeno-biological training...."
Gorvo responds brightly. "I can help! I will hunt for the stolen animals and keep the people of Median City safe !"
The zoo balloon in Ode's head now includes a shaking zookeeper with a food bowl.
The balloon then pops as Dolar's, Darvesh's, and Gordo's words sink in.
"I'll help," says Ode. "They have to feed the animals, right? So, they'll have to be getting food from somewhere..."
Bonus Page 9:
We are back with Mr. Liel, the Wynathian nightclub owner and obvious criminal we saw at the end of Story 1. Detona, the Wynathian woman, is with him. He’s in his embroidered and fur lined smoking jacket, she is dressed in a form fitting purple jumpsuit.
The whole page shot is of an underground menagerie. There’s an aviary section with brightly plumed birds of prey, an aquatic section where some tenticular thing with hooks instead of suckers is waving arms out of the water, a floating spheroid with two eyestalks and a gaping maw of a mouth (that cage has a curtain along one side of it), and now cages with a Coutal, two Korbals and two Harun.
“Well done, Detona,” Liel tells her. “More than made up for the error with Brande. The latest additions to my collection were well worth your price. Now, on to the question of how your precision microbombs can deal with Mr. Brande…”
Detona shakes her head. “No thanks, Mr. Liel. Between your… your… Legion of Super-Monsters and what I saw those kids do this floating city’s a bit too weird for me. I’m heading out until things calm down.”
Liel watches the mercenary woman walk away, and mutters. “I’ll have to deal with Brande on my own. I’m sure there’s a Super-Monster that can make quick work of him…and if need be, those meddling children.”
‘’’CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF ACTION COMICS!’’’
