Alienated
29th September
07:17 GMT -6
Ms
Wor-Ul barely looks up from her weeding as I step off the veranda of her house, a crate containing some of the nicer Kryptonian relics from Amalak's hoard in my right hand. "What do you want?"
I stop on the soil and squint at her tub of weeds. "Why are you
doing that?"
"Preserving my cover." Her hands move
quick, faster than a Human could with any accuracy. Not super fast, though. "The fields need weeding, I don't want to risk hiring someone else to do it."
She-. How did-? Ah, she's not squatting
on the ground, she's floating just off it in a squatting position, moving along as she eliminates the invading plantlife from everywhere within arm's reach. That sort of precise-and-constant-movements-that-she's-not-really-thinking-about flight is pretty hard to do, and I speak from personal experience there.
"And you can't use weed killer be
cause..?"
"Do you have any idea what Earth weed killers do to Kryptonian plants?"
Fair point. Probably. I actually
don't know if they do anything…
"Alright, but you could probably get some sort of drone-weeder..?"
She looks up, frowning at me like I've said something particularly stupid. "How could I justify Kirsten Wells affording something like that?"
"Stealth.. drone weeder..?" Yeah, okay. "Anyway, while I was out going to and fro across the universe and walking up and down on it-."
"Spare me. I get enough bible quotes from the
locals."
"I picked up a few things that might interest you." I hold the case out slightly in her direction.
"Why, did you go to Krypton?" She stands, peeling off her weeding gloves as she does so. "If that's a crate full of glowing rocks I'm not exactly going to be impressed."
"Ms Wor-Ul, I have no desire at all to harm you. I came across some artefacts of Kryptonian origin and you were the first person I thought of."
She frowns as she walks towards me. "And not the boy scout or your friends Kon-El and Match? Interesting choice."
"You're the only Kryptonian I know who's actually
from Krypton." I crouch as she reaches me, laying the case on the ground in front of me. "Of course, if you don't want it I imagine that Kal-El will be only too happy to take it off my hands."
"
Alright." She crouches down in front of the case and opens the clasps. "Let's see what you've found in the galactic flea markets..." She opens the lid and there's a very
slight intake of breath. I can see the shock in her eyes that momentarily breaks through her usually controlled manner. She actually hesitates in commenting on it, gently picking up some sort of.. commemorative plaque and carefully examining it.
"Where did you get this?"
"It used to belong to a mercenary commander by the name of Amalak. He was something of a collector of Kryptonian memorabilia."
Her eyes start to glow. Just a little, but I'm watching for it. "I
think I need to talk to him."
"Do you have supernatural powers? Sorry, heh." I look away for a moment as my desire to quote Terry Pratchett overwhelms my common sense. "I mean, he's dead, so unless you've trained as a necromancer…"
Her eyes turn upwards while the rest of her remains completely still. "
How did he come by it?"
"It's a little hard to
tell; between the Spider Guild and the Crown Imperium's fleet his records were in a poor state when I got access to them. From what I
read-" A data crystal emerges from subspace and floats out in front of her. "-it looks like he was either hunting down surviving Kryptonians himself or-."
"Ro." She takes hold of a headband decorated with Kryptonian characters.
Ah. "I'm… Sorry. Someone you knew?"
She shakes her head slightly, returning it to the case. "Did you find anything else?"
"Yes, but I put the best bits in there."
"I'd… Like to go through it.
All of it."
I nod. "Fine with me. I had a few things I wanted to discuss with you anyway."
I stand, and she takes a moment to carefully return the items she moved to exactly where they were when she opened it before closing the case again. "We knew... Someone was targeting us. I never heard the name 'Amalak'…"
"He was the more intelligent sort of mercenary commander. He was from a planet called Timaron, it was-."
"One of the Possession Worlds." Ms Wor-Ul stands, keeping a solid grip on the base of the case. "I visited it a few times."
"Anything you want to tell me?"
She shrugs as I lead the way back toward the hush tube opening. "No, not really. Technically, they were part of the Kryptonian Empire but we didn't intervene a whole lot in their internal affairs. We paid for supplies, protected their civilian shipping."
She looks around curiously as we walk through the tube and out into the command area of the Hny'xx facility.
My Lanterns overran it a few days after the fall of the Citadel and managed to capture it largely intact. I've had the Genomorphs tidying things up a bit since then.
"You.. missed General Zod's putsch attempt, didn't you?"
"Mm. Heard about it. I didn't like the Science Council either but you didn't see
me turning traitor."
"You went AWOL."
"Sure. That was
my life, but I accepted the results of the election even though I knew it was stupid. And look what happened: Krypton got destroyed and there weren't any ships to evacuate anyone. Maybe if the General had
won then we wouldn't be going extinct."
"As far as I've been able to piece together, General Zod manufactured a confrontation with the government of Timaron and carried out an orbital strike. The resulting dust clouds nearly wiped out the planet's population. Amalak got evacuated as a child, but most of his species died."
Her face twitches. "
Rao. I knew the General was a nasty piece of work, but…
That…"
"Did you ever meet him?"
"He wasn't even
born when I left." She looks around again. "What is this place?"
"This is where they were growing the new generation of Citadelians. Essentially, it's a giant cloning facility." I stop and look at her. "Do you want it?"
She frowns. "Me? What for? I don't have any use for Citadelians."
"As you
said, your species is on the verge of extinction. I have
a staff experienced in cloning Kryptonians and the best facilities you're likely to find, as well as plenty of Kryptonian genetic records. I would rather your species did not slip into non-existence, and I would like a Kryptonian to be in charge of the project.
Interested?"
Her eyes widen slightly. "Defences?"
"Isolated location, and I can have two hundred Lanterns here within a few minutes. And… Ten as a standing garrison? Plus fixed weapons, epic shields and interdiction fields as well as conventional soldiers."
"I-." She averts her eyes and shakes her head. "I'm not a scientist, I can't-."
"You're a military commander. This means that you have organisational skills. And you also have a knowledge of Kryptonian sociology that no one else does. No one else could raise a new generation to be
Kryptonians rather than monochrome Tamaranians."
"It's… A lot to think about." She stares about us. "I'll need to look over the whole place."
I nod. "Of course. I've planned out a tour. Oh, and one other thing. Since you raised the point about defences…" I
generate a construct image. "
You'll never guess what we found buried underneath Texas…"
.
