Post by redsycorax on Jun 13, 2022 4:52:59 GMT
On Earth-518, history went badly wrong. General Horatio Gage rebelled against the Continental Congress and burnt Philadelphia to the ground. Aaron Burr became the first unelected Emperor of the throttled former republic in 1800. What would have become the United States in other timelines metastasised into the North American Union in this one, fighting bitter wars to annex Spanish, French and Mexican territories for much of the nineteenth century. Japan defeated Russia outright in the Russo-Japanese War and took Alaska from it. Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists seized control of Great Britain in 1933, followed by Marshal Petain in France in 1940. By the mid-forties, the last vestiges of democracy were present only in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The NAU launched a nuclear attack on Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal in August 1945. In 1948, it invaded Australia and New Zealand, adding them to its territories and bringing conflict with the Japanese Empire in 1956. The resultant conflict led to the obliteration of the Home Islands. Across the Atlantic, the Pillars of Hercules Alliance crushed democratic Germany and Russia in turn. In 1968, the victorious great powers signed a consolidation agreement and formed a global dictatorship, based in Washington.
The Safeguard Covenant is a group of that Earth's 'heroes'. On other worlds, they would stand accused of grotesque crimes against humanity and be condemned of darkest villainy. Respectively, they are...Jean Dupre, otherwise known as the Black Bat, the Covenant's technological savant; Doctor Dracula, alleged descendant of the infamous Transylvanian revenant; Amos Aries, the Invisible Man, driven mad by his scientific mastery of invisibility, able to kill without detection or mercy; Belle Martin, the deadly mutant better known as Harpy; and finally, the murderous misanthropic tyrant of the undersea atlantide tyranny of Almoza, Neptina. If Earth-518 had ever had any concept of human or sentients rights or civil liberties, these malignant figures would have throttled it in its cradle. By 2022, the Terran Commonwealth had spread its web across most of the solar system, invading and occupying (inhabitable) Venus and Mars in this universe. With accelerated spaceflight technology available, free humanity was forced to flee further outward. One day, near Saturn's Titan, Green Lantern Abin Sur's vessel was attacked by Commonwealth starfighters, beaten off only by Free Human Space Force officer Lieutenant Hal Jordan. Dying, Abin Sur bequeathed his ring to Hal Jordan, who then became Sector 2814's Green Lantern.
++
[4.45 PM, 13 june 2022]
NEW ENGLAND WASTELAND: SAFEGUARD TOWER:
Outside the sepulchural, obsidian black tower that soared above the desolate landscape, nothing moved, sang or grew. Etched on it was the flag of the Terran Commonwealth- a field of fifty or so black stars on a yellow field, with thirteen green and black stripes. Within, the occupants of the so-called Safeguard Covenant sat around their round table. As ever, matters were tense. The organisation was provisional and its inner rivalries threatened to flare into hostility between its various combatants even at the most 'convivial' times- which this most decidedly was not.
"What do you mean, you haven't been able to find a requisite solution to the Green Lantern problem, Dupre? You're supposed to be our lead scientist. And his weapon ring is vulnerable to yellow. Surely that isn't beyond your means?" Doctor Dracula snapped, disgusted at their continuing impasse.
"Because it isn't that simple, Vladimir and you know why. Look at what happened when Amos here tried to blindside him. Jordan used his ring as a sensor and gave him a beating. And his invisibility is one of our key assets." Unlike your bloodlust, you reckless vampire bastard, thought Jean Dupre angrily to himself. That was a major point of contention between Doctor Dracula and his colleagues. Vladimir Karnstein had severe limitations outside a very restricted set of conditions. Flight, metamorphosis, accelerated motion, prodigious strength and near invincibility were all very well as combat proficiencies went, but those abilities only operated during nocturnal hours and were impaired if Karnstein hadn't fed on human blood beforehand. In daylight, within enclosed spaces and against the phytochemicals within garlic, Doctor Dracula was as weak as a kitten. Too often, Karnstein traded on the infamy and murderous rampage of his alleged ancestor, Count Dracula of Transylvania to instill fear in his adversaries. The problem was that Jordan's ring gave him confidence against them, and even its impurities were surmountable, given enough imagination.
Neptina sighed at the ill-tempered rivalries between the two men, and decided to bring the conversation back to the core subject at hand: Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern:
"Look. We're missing the point here, everyone. Jordan only launches momentary raids against the inner solar system. And we never seem to ask ourselves why."
"Yeah, good point, Nepti. I mean, his ring is able to get him past Jupiter, although he avoids Io like the plague, given its sulfuric yellow surface vulcanism. However, I'd bet he's useless at close range solar combat. If I could just get at him..."
"Yes, but he's wise to that golden adaptable environment suit you used last time you fought him, Bella. He still managed to engineer that raid on that Commonwealth supply freighter out to our Pallas base despite you mitigating the effects with that insight." Black Bat commented.
"We're under pressure. Le Pen wants us to achieve results. There have been too many propaganda defeats handed out to the Commonwealth at the hands of Jordan and his rabble recently." Amos Aries spoke for the first time, albeit with difficulty. He hadn't fully recovered from the fierce battle with Jordan two months ago and was aware that his place within the Covenant was marginal after that fiasco.
"Don't you think we don't realise that, Amos? He and that toyshop gimmick of his are keeping the might of the Terran Commonwealth from expanding out into the stars."
Which, of course, we have to do. Putting down the Lunar Rebellion eight years ago wasn't achieved without some degree of sacrifice and hardship. Their mass driver attacks ruined most of the Commonwealth's Western Hemisphere. We still haven't fully recovered and if we don't get out to Alpha Centauri, our glorious regime's days are numbered. Harpy kept these thoughts to herself, but she suspected that each of them privately realised that. Hell, they were only in this to become humanity's new power elite once the rotten foundations of the Commonwealth Chancellery finally collapsed altogether. Privately, she wondered why she was still involved in this dreary, repetitious ordeal. In the Commonwealth, mutants like her weren't persecuted specifically, but life was conducted in a gilded cage and amidst conditions of 'repressive tolerance', beyond which it was unwise to venture. True, they were free from employment discrimination within specific occupations, as well as hate speech from some of the anti-evolution religious fringe and genophobic violence and homicide were harshly punished. But it was still unsafe for those whose mutations were either too overt to conceal or previously disclosed to walk in some areas of some cities or constituent provinces of the Commonwealth.
Neptina was thinking of her own submarine realm and, pensively, about the damage that maritime pollution and unfettered industrial development had done to it. She needed the Safeguard for her own reasons, primarily keeping the peace in her increasingly torn and resentful Almoza. She wasn't a terraphobe, but many of her undersea subjects were. She was accountable to a constitutional court and parliament and they were getting stubborn when it came to bankrolling her membership within the Covenant. While she shared the near-universal disdain for the pretensions of Doctor Dracula, she had some respect for her sister warrior Harpy and her battlefield ardour. She was also grateful to Black Bat for his microbiological skills, averting what would have been an almost catastrophic red algae toxic bloom over Almoza through his introduction of zooplankton predator crustaceans last year. And she knew it was mutual, given there were moments of yearning when their bodies made contact while she was conducting undersea combat training. One day, perhaps she would act on them.
ARDEEN CITY, TITAN:
"And so, that's it. A psychological composite picture of the tensions, stressors and break points within the Safeguard Covenant. Doc Drac's sanguilagnia is all too real, we know that, as are his myotamorph abilities. However, it renders him barely tolerated by his erstwhile companions. Invisible Man's invisibility has led him to over rely on that particular combat point while attacking rebels against the Commonwealth tyranny. Hal overcame that and that has imposed some degree of psychological trauma and ambivalence on Aries' use of his abilities. It conflicts with his psychosis and causes considerable cognitive dissonance- enough to impair his performance in combat. Black Bat's scientific expertise render him a core threat, but that very rationality brings him into frequent conflict with Karnstein over his counterpart's sanguiphilia and his uncontrollable reaction when exposed to fresh human blood. Of all of them, he is the greatest threat to our ranks. Under other circumstances, perhaps he would have made an admirable addition to the courts. As for the two women, do not underestimate them. Each of them are experts within particular theatres of combat- Harpy is highly effective in an aerial context and Neptina is a chief strategic asset when it comes to maritime warfare. However, Neptina is a constitutional monarch in conflict with aquaphile separatists within Almoza and Harpy is worried about the tolerance extended to her as a mutant strategic asset and what its limitations might be. Any questions?"
As Alpha Lantern Katma Tui (Green Lantern of Korugar) shut down the holographier display, Xudar's Tomar Re put up his hand:
"Preceptress, your presentation did not highlight the motivation for their expansionism- namely, the brutal ecological damage that the Commonwealth dictatorship has wrought on their planet and the consequences for public health, food production, atmospheric and marine pollution and runaway industrial development. Although war has reduced their population numbers, they still have to feed nearly three billion people. Even if they do heavily censor their mass media, some dissident narrowcasts still eke out resistance to their regime's ruinous policies."
"Well said as ever, Tomar. Yes, that's true. We are in a race against time here. If the Terran Commonwealth regime doesn't collapse beforehand, Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Epsilon Indi, Epsilon Eridani and Barnard's Star, with all their billions of inhabitants are at risk from interstellar warfare."
[1.15 PM, 14 JUNE 2022]
SAFEGUARD COVENANT TOWER: NEW ENGLAND WASTELAND:
If you looked too closely within the warp and weave of the Safeguard Covenant, you could see what were initially hairline cracks starting to emerge within their facade of unity. Harpy was tormented that evening by dreams of the past. She repeatedly replayed one of the most traumatic incidents she had experienced in her tenure within the Covenant- although she wasn't the only one. Down the hallway, Black Bat shared the nightmare, one that he had lived through with her.
High in the skies above Nicaragua, in a fleet of attack helicopters, Doctor Dracula nodded to his Transylvanian underlings, as a stereo player began to play Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries at full volume. Like a coven full of angels of death, they swept across the Pacific Ocean, descending toward their quarry. In a Nicaraguan rebel village, people carried woven baskets, and a school prepared to discharge its students for afternoon play. A teacher hurriedly assembled the children and they ran for cover as the demonic symphony became closer, as did the sound of helicopter blades. Behind sandbags, villagers hastily assembled rifles and machine guns as the choppers activated machine guns and missiles rained down on fleeing, unarmed individuals. Missile fire indiscriminately rained down on homes, a Catholic church and the school. An anti-aircraft gun downed one of the helicopters, but it was a moment of pyrrhic victory as Doctor Dracula unleashed a fusillade and neutralised the threat. As the inferno shot into the night, the flames illuminated his face, rendering his satanic aspect more than merely metaphorical. And then, it was over, but the nightmare was beginning, as Doctor Dracula and his Transylvanian revenant liege agents alighted, wandering amidst the dead and dying, picking out prey to drain of blood and life as the erstwhile surviving villagers screamed for mercy. They would receive none. The word wasn't in Doctor Dracula's vocabulary, most likely.
"Ah, the smell of defoliant in the evening!" Doctor Dracula exulted. Behind him, Harpy was being uncontrollably, violently sick at what she had just witnessed. Black Bat looked away, aware that these were rebels against the Commonwealth, but then his eyes fell on a quivering, dying woman with her baby squalling in her arms. He shut his eyes as one of Doctor D's henchwomen picked up the baby and bit deep into its neck. They were rebels. They had taken up arms against the Commonwealth. They had killed Commonwealth men and women, soldiers only doing their duty. He tried to keep telling himself that, but the rationalisations rang hollowly within his mind. Around them all, the Valkyrie refrain peaked and resonated in a charnel house as death and destruction had dominion over them all.
TO BE CONTINUED [2.30 PM. JUNE 15, 2022]
APOCALYPSE DAY:
And on the final day, Doctor Dracula stood addressing an engorged crowd of drafted novice members of the Safeguard Covenant, hastily inducted into its ranks. Neptina, Harpy and Black Bat stood apart and looked aghast at their erstwhile new colleagues and ruing that they hadn't had the courage to leave before things had reached this point. There stood Paul Weber, masked as the 'pardoned' serial killer Black Death, a regime enforcer; pyrokinetic George Weber, the merciless Arson Fiend; the psychotic artificial intelligence Cerebex; Hugo Gernsbeck, the assassin known as the Human Fly; Janice Starlin, the venomous mutant vespomorph known to her victims as Wasp Woman; and lastly, Zora, Doctor Dracula's mate and ally in all things. She seemed intent on the deadly objectives and never took her eyes off the self-styled apex predator. Harpy looked over her shoulder at the wounded world below them. On the Earth's night side, many cities festered with yellow pinpoints of light. If one looked closer, one could see pinpoints of red where there were still areas aflame, whether from conventional weapon firestorms or nuclear blasts, cities and their millions of inhabitants sacrificed to the corrupt avarice of the Terran Commonwealth, rather than fall to the Green Lantern Corps. The new inductees were regime loyalists and true believers. They would kill any of them if they defected or left the ranks of the Commonwealth's metahuman shock troops. As Dracula droned on his interminable word salad propaganda speech, Harpy's hand found that of the Black Bat. She softly leant forward and kissed them. Finally, the harangue ended and the forces of the Safeguard Covenant left the planet of the birth, as the ranks of their Javelin interceptors sped to an off-Earth battle. Harpy's eyes were wet with tears as she looked across at Black Bat.
EPILOGUE:
War is not a humane activity and we shall spare our readers the misfortunes that befell many of the figures outlined and mentioned above in the carnage of the Battle of Phobos that followed. Of the Safeguard, Black Bat, Neptina, Doctor Dracula, Arson Fiend, the Human Fly, Wasp Woman and Zora all fell, one by one. Sadly, Doctor Dracula, Zora, Wasp Woman and Arson Fiend took their own coup amongst the Green Lantern Corps. Of those that engaged the Covenant above Phobos, the Corp member casualties included Tomar-Re, Ada, Aegle, Al-X, Alia, Alitha, Amanita, Apros, Ard Rennet, Arrkis Chummuck, B'dg, B'rrr, Barro Cruz, Brevvit, Bzzd, Ch'p, Charqwep, Chasselot, G'nort, Gpak, Katma Tui, Kilowog, Lyssandra, M'hdahna, Olaopet, Penelops, Rak Arranya, Rasa Nekroy, Salakk, Thal Sinestro, Xax... as the list of figures indicates, the fallen amongst the Green Lantern Corps that day included a wide swathe of species, genders, ages, combat expertise, but all of the Corps were united in valour and commitment to the liberation of Earth. And despite the tremendous sacrifice and the mourning of their worlds, their spouses, families and children, that was not in vain. At the end, Chancellor Marine Le Pen killed herself and destroyed the city of Washington DC with a five kiloton device, but enough was preserved to hold other senior regime figures accountable and guilty for their crimes against humanity over the last three centuries of darkness that had engulfed this Earth.
As senior Alpha Lantern, Hal Jordan solemnly shook hands with Harpy, given that Bella was representing the Free Earth contingent when the liberated planet signed a peace treaty abolishing the Terran Commonwealth forever and accepting Earth's ascension to the United Federation of Planets. Harpy and Green Lantern both had nightmares about the events of the war and its last, bloody battle above the salmon-pink skies and desolate terrain of Mars for many years afterward. Unable to remain on Earth without her beloved Black Bat, who had been killed by Wasp Woman after he had turned against the Commonwealth in the midst of the battle, Harpy rehabilitated herself and became a figure of heroism and valour on distant Anthorann in Alpha Centauri's system. She lived sixty years further after the liberation of Earth, but never married. As for Hal Jordan, he was assigned to an expedition to a distant galactic supercluster and is still present there, given the age-mitigating effects of translightspeed travel. At a great price, tyranny on Earth-518 had ended... but it was vanquished.
THE END [3.45 PM, June 18, 2022]
The Safeguard Covenant is a group of that Earth's 'heroes'. On other worlds, they would stand accused of grotesque crimes against humanity and be condemned of darkest villainy. Respectively, they are...Jean Dupre, otherwise known as the Black Bat, the Covenant's technological savant; Doctor Dracula, alleged descendant of the infamous Transylvanian revenant; Amos Aries, the Invisible Man, driven mad by his scientific mastery of invisibility, able to kill without detection or mercy; Belle Martin, the deadly mutant better known as Harpy; and finally, the murderous misanthropic tyrant of the undersea atlantide tyranny of Almoza, Neptina. If Earth-518 had ever had any concept of human or sentients rights or civil liberties, these malignant figures would have throttled it in its cradle. By 2022, the Terran Commonwealth had spread its web across most of the solar system, invading and occupying (inhabitable) Venus and Mars in this universe. With accelerated spaceflight technology available, free humanity was forced to flee further outward. One day, near Saturn's Titan, Green Lantern Abin Sur's vessel was attacked by Commonwealth starfighters, beaten off only by Free Human Space Force officer Lieutenant Hal Jordan. Dying, Abin Sur bequeathed his ring to Hal Jordan, who then became Sector 2814's Green Lantern.
++
[4.45 PM, 13 june 2022]
NEW ENGLAND WASTELAND: SAFEGUARD TOWER:
Outside the sepulchural, obsidian black tower that soared above the desolate landscape, nothing moved, sang or grew. Etched on it was the flag of the Terran Commonwealth- a field of fifty or so black stars on a yellow field, with thirteen green and black stripes. Within, the occupants of the so-called Safeguard Covenant sat around their round table. As ever, matters were tense. The organisation was provisional and its inner rivalries threatened to flare into hostility between its various combatants even at the most 'convivial' times- which this most decidedly was not.
"What do you mean, you haven't been able to find a requisite solution to the Green Lantern problem, Dupre? You're supposed to be our lead scientist. And his weapon ring is vulnerable to yellow. Surely that isn't beyond your means?" Doctor Dracula snapped, disgusted at their continuing impasse.
"Because it isn't that simple, Vladimir and you know why. Look at what happened when Amos here tried to blindside him. Jordan used his ring as a sensor and gave him a beating. And his invisibility is one of our key assets." Unlike your bloodlust, you reckless vampire bastard, thought Jean Dupre angrily to himself. That was a major point of contention between Doctor Dracula and his colleagues. Vladimir Karnstein had severe limitations outside a very restricted set of conditions. Flight, metamorphosis, accelerated motion, prodigious strength and near invincibility were all very well as combat proficiencies went, but those abilities only operated during nocturnal hours and were impaired if Karnstein hadn't fed on human blood beforehand. In daylight, within enclosed spaces and against the phytochemicals within garlic, Doctor Dracula was as weak as a kitten. Too often, Karnstein traded on the infamy and murderous rampage of his alleged ancestor, Count Dracula of Transylvania to instill fear in his adversaries. The problem was that Jordan's ring gave him confidence against them, and even its impurities were surmountable, given enough imagination.
Neptina sighed at the ill-tempered rivalries between the two men, and decided to bring the conversation back to the core subject at hand: Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern:
"Look. We're missing the point here, everyone. Jordan only launches momentary raids against the inner solar system. And we never seem to ask ourselves why."
"Yeah, good point, Nepti. I mean, his ring is able to get him past Jupiter, although he avoids Io like the plague, given its sulfuric yellow surface vulcanism. However, I'd bet he's useless at close range solar combat. If I could just get at him..."
"Yes, but he's wise to that golden adaptable environment suit you used last time you fought him, Bella. He still managed to engineer that raid on that Commonwealth supply freighter out to our Pallas base despite you mitigating the effects with that insight." Black Bat commented.
"We're under pressure. Le Pen wants us to achieve results. There have been too many propaganda defeats handed out to the Commonwealth at the hands of Jordan and his rabble recently." Amos Aries spoke for the first time, albeit with difficulty. He hadn't fully recovered from the fierce battle with Jordan two months ago and was aware that his place within the Covenant was marginal after that fiasco.
"Don't you think we don't realise that, Amos? He and that toyshop gimmick of his are keeping the might of the Terran Commonwealth from expanding out into the stars."
Which, of course, we have to do. Putting down the Lunar Rebellion eight years ago wasn't achieved without some degree of sacrifice and hardship. Their mass driver attacks ruined most of the Commonwealth's Western Hemisphere. We still haven't fully recovered and if we don't get out to Alpha Centauri, our glorious regime's days are numbered. Harpy kept these thoughts to herself, but she suspected that each of them privately realised that. Hell, they were only in this to become humanity's new power elite once the rotten foundations of the Commonwealth Chancellery finally collapsed altogether. Privately, she wondered why she was still involved in this dreary, repetitious ordeal. In the Commonwealth, mutants like her weren't persecuted specifically, but life was conducted in a gilded cage and amidst conditions of 'repressive tolerance', beyond which it was unwise to venture. True, they were free from employment discrimination within specific occupations, as well as hate speech from some of the anti-evolution religious fringe and genophobic violence and homicide were harshly punished. But it was still unsafe for those whose mutations were either too overt to conceal or previously disclosed to walk in some areas of some cities or constituent provinces of the Commonwealth.
Neptina was thinking of her own submarine realm and, pensively, about the damage that maritime pollution and unfettered industrial development had done to it. She needed the Safeguard for her own reasons, primarily keeping the peace in her increasingly torn and resentful Almoza. She wasn't a terraphobe, but many of her undersea subjects were. She was accountable to a constitutional court and parliament and they were getting stubborn when it came to bankrolling her membership within the Covenant. While she shared the near-universal disdain for the pretensions of Doctor Dracula, she had some respect for her sister warrior Harpy and her battlefield ardour. She was also grateful to Black Bat for his microbiological skills, averting what would have been an almost catastrophic red algae toxic bloom over Almoza through his introduction of zooplankton predator crustaceans last year. And she knew it was mutual, given there were moments of yearning when their bodies made contact while she was conducting undersea combat training. One day, perhaps she would act on them.
ARDEEN CITY, TITAN:
"And so, that's it. A psychological composite picture of the tensions, stressors and break points within the Safeguard Covenant. Doc Drac's sanguilagnia is all too real, we know that, as are his myotamorph abilities. However, it renders him barely tolerated by his erstwhile companions. Invisible Man's invisibility has led him to over rely on that particular combat point while attacking rebels against the Commonwealth tyranny. Hal overcame that and that has imposed some degree of psychological trauma and ambivalence on Aries' use of his abilities. It conflicts with his psychosis and causes considerable cognitive dissonance- enough to impair his performance in combat. Black Bat's scientific expertise render him a core threat, but that very rationality brings him into frequent conflict with Karnstein over his counterpart's sanguiphilia and his uncontrollable reaction when exposed to fresh human blood. Of all of them, he is the greatest threat to our ranks. Under other circumstances, perhaps he would have made an admirable addition to the courts. As for the two women, do not underestimate them. Each of them are experts within particular theatres of combat- Harpy is highly effective in an aerial context and Neptina is a chief strategic asset when it comes to maritime warfare. However, Neptina is a constitutional monarch in conflict with aquaphile separatists within Almoza and Harpy is worried about the tolerance extended to her as a mutant strategic asset and what its limitations might be. Any questions?"
As Alpha Lantern Katma Tui (Green Lantern of Korugar) shut down the holographier display, Xudar's Tomar Re put up his hand:
"Preceptress, your presentation did not highlight the motivation for their expansionism- namely, the brutal ecological damage that the Commonwealth dictatorship has wrought on their planet and the consequences for public health, food production, atmospheric and marine pollution and runaway industrial development. Although war has reduced their population numbers, they still have to feed nearly three billion people. Even if they do heavily censor their mass media, some dissident narrowcasts still eke out resistance to their regime's ruinous policies."
"Well said as ever, Tomar. Yes, that's true. We are in a race against time here. If the Terran Commonwealth regime doesn't collapse beforehand, Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Epsilon Indi, Epsilon Eridani and Barnard's Star, with all their billions of inhabitants are at risk from interstellar warfare."
[1.15 PM, 14 JUNE 2022]
SAFEGUARD COVENANT TOWER: NEW ENGLAND WASTELAND:
If you looked too closely within the warp and weave of the Safeguard Covenant, you could see what were initially hairline cracks starting to emerge within their facade of unity. Harpy was tormented that evening by dreams of the past. She repeatedly replayed one of the most traumatic incidents she had experienced in her tenure within the Covenant- although she wasn't the only one. Down the hallway, Black Bat shared the nightmare, one that he had lived through with her.
High in the skies above Nicaragua, in a fleet of attack helicopters, Doctor Dracula nodded to his Transylvanian underlings, as a stereo player began to play Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries at full volume. Like a coven full of angels of death, they swept across the Pacific Ocean, descending toward their quarry. In a Nicaraguan rebel village, people carried woven baskets, and a school prepared to discharge its students for afternoon play. A teacher hurriedly assembled the children and they ran for cover as the demonic symphony became closer, as did the sound of helicopter blades. Behind sandbags, villagers hastily assembled rifles and machine guns as the choppers activated machine guns and missiles rained down on fleeing, unarmed individuals. Missile fire indiscriminately rained down on homes, a Catholic church and the school. An anti-aircraft gun downed one of the helicopters, but it was a moment of pyrrhic victory as Doctor Dracula unleashed a fusillade and neutralised the threat. As the inferno shot into the night, the flames illuminated his face, rendering his satanic aspect more than merely metaphorical. And then, it was over, but the nightmare was beginning, as Doctor Dracula and his Transylvanian revenant liege agents alighted, wandering amidst the dead and dying, picking out prey to drain of blood and life as the erstwhile surviving villagers screamed for mercy. They would receive none. The word wasn't in Doctor Dracula's vocabulary, most likely.
"Ah, the smell of defoliant in the evening!" Doctor Dracula exulted. Behind him, Harpy was being uncontrollably, violently sick at what she had just witnessed. Black Bat looked away, aware that these were rebels against the Commonwealth, but then his eyes fell on a quivering, dying woman with her baby squalling in her arms. He shut his eyes as one of Doctor D's henchwomen picked up the baby and bit deep into its neck. They were rebels. They had taken up arms against the Commonwealth. They had killed Commonwealth men and women, soldiers only doing their duty. He tried to keep telling himself that, but the rationalisations rang hollowly within his mind. Around them all, the Valkyrie refrain peaked and resonated in a charnel house as death and destruction had dominion over them all.
TO BE CONTINUED [2.30 PM. JUNE 15, 2022]
APOCALYPSE DAY:
And on the final day, Doctor Dracula stood addressing an engorged crowd of drafted novice members of the Safeguard Covenant, hastily inducted into its ranks. Neptina, Harpy and Black Bat stood apart and looked aghast at their erstwhile new colleagues and ruing that they hadn't had the courage to leave before things had reached this point. There stood Paul Weber, masked as the 'pardoned' serial killer Black Death, a regime enforcer; pyrokinetic George Weber, the merciless Arson Fiend; the psychotic artificial intelligence Cerebex; Hugo Gernsbeck, the assassin known as the Human Fly; Janice Starlin, the venomous mutant vespomorph known to her victims as Wasp Woman; and lastly, Zora, Doctor Dracula's mate and ally in all things. She seemed intent on the deadly objectives and never took her eyes off the self-styled apex predator. Harpy looked over her shoulder at the wounded world below them. On the Earth's night side, many cities festered with yellow pinpoints of light. If one looked closer, one could see pinpoints of red where there were still areas aflame, whether from conventional weapon firestorms or nuclear blasts, cities and their millions of inhabitants sacrificed to the corrupt avarice of the Terran Commonwealth, rather than fall to the Green Lantern Corps. The new inductees were regime loyalists and true believers. They would kill any of them if they defected or left the ranks of the Commonwealth's metahuman shock troops. As Dracula droned on his interminable word salad propaganda speech, Harpy's hand found that of the Black Bat. She softly leant forward and kissed them. Finally, the harangue ended and the forces of the Safeguard Covenant left the planet of the birth, as the ranks of their Javelin interceptors sped to an off-Earth battle. Harpy's eyes were wet with tears as she looked across at Black Bat.
EPILOGUE:
War is not a humane activity and we shall spare our readers the misfortunes that befell many of the figures outlined and mentioned above in the carnage of the Battle of Phobos that followed. Of the Safeguard, Black Bat, Neptina, Doctor Dracula, Arson Fiend, the Human Fly, Wasp Woman and Zora all fell, one by one. Sadly, Doctor Dracula, Zora, Wasp Woman and Arson Fiend took their own coup amongst the Green Lantern Corps. Of those that engaged the Covenant above Phobos, the Corp member casualties included Tomar-Re, Ada, Aegle, Al-X, Alia, Alitha, Amanita, Apros, Ard Rennet, Arrkis Chummuck, B'dg, B'rrr, Barro Cruz, Brevvit, Bzzd, Ch'p, Charqwep, Chasselot, G'nort, Gpak, Katma Tui, Kilowog, Lyssandra, M'hdahna, Olaopet, Penelops, Rak Arranya, Rasa Nekroy, Salakk, Thal Sinestro, Xax... as the list of figures indicates, the fallen amongst the Green Lantern Corps that day included a wide swathe of species, genders, ages, combat expertise, but all of the Corps were united in valour and commitment to the liberation of Earth. And despite the tremendous sacrifice and the mourning of their worlds, their spouses, families and children, that was not in vain. At the end, Chancellor Marine Le Pen killed herself and destroyed the city of Washington DC with a five kiloton device, but enough was preserved to hold other senior regime figures accountable and guilty for their crimes against humanity over the last three centuries of darkness that had engulfed this Earth.
As senior Alpha Lantern, Hal Jordan solemnly shook hands with Harpy, given that Bella was representing the Free Earth contingent when the liberated planet signed a peace treaty abolishing the Terran Commonwealth forever and accepting Earth's ascension to the United Federation of Planets. Harpy and Green Lantern both had nightmares about the events of the war and its last, bloody battle above the salmon-pink skies and desolate terrain of Mars for many years afterward. Unable to remain on Earth without her beloved Black Bat, who had been killed by Wasp Woman after he had turned against the Commonwealth in the midst of the battle, Harpy rehabilitated herself and became a figure of heroism and valour on distant Anthorann in Alpha Centauri's system. She lived sixty years further after the liberation of Earth, but never married. As for Hal Jordan, he was assigned to an expedition to a distant galactic supercluster and is still present there, given the age-mitigating effects of translightspeed travel. At a great price, tyranny on Earth-518 had ended... but it was vanquished.
THE END [3.45 PM, June 18, 2022]