Showcase: LEGION

Legacy of Tyrants

by Brian K. Asbury

The smooth metal wall seemed to shimmer momentarily as a humanoid figure detached itself from it. She stood and smoothed down her white tunic, taking in her new surroundings. I’m outside at last, she thought. But where on Bgtzl am I?

The answer came immediately: I’m not on Bgtzl! It was obvious – the too-sharply-defined shadows, the lack of atmospheric haze, the brightness and clarity of the stars … wherever she was, this was hard vacuum. This world, planetoid – whatever – lacked an atmosphere!

A moment of panic almost overcame her. If I solidify here, I’ll be dead in seconds from explosive decompression! The almost made her reflexively do just that, but she pulled herself together and held her phantom form. She looked back at the gleaming white wall. Should she go back? To what? The only living being she had seen since picking herself up after the explosion had been a grossly fat green-skinned alien clad in an enveloping purple robe. She shuddered. Had that alien brought her here? And if so, for what purpose?

I must find some of my own people, she thought. They’ll help me.

But where were her own people? Was she the only one of her people on this world? She squinted up at the stars. They seemed familiar enough… but there were subtle differences. The star she knew as Avinquel was too bright, while Seraneth was much too dim. How could that be? The sun, too – it was much too yellow. Not even Bgtzl’s stellar system, then!

She started to walk away from the white dome. Perhaps there were other bases on this world. Perhaps there were people here who could help her. She could at least explain to them who she was and what…

She stopped dead. Explain to them who she was? She was … She was…

She couldn’t remember. Her name … was gone. She couldn’t remember it!

Gods! she thought. She started to run, away from the dome, as if she could run away from whatever was clouding her mind. Or perhaps catch up with the memories which seemed to be missing. She could not recall a single fact about herself – who she was, what her occupation was, even where she lived … other than the name of her home planet, Bgtzl, and the names of a few stars, recalled more by instinct than anything else, it was all gone. All of it!

She slowed as she approached a metal strip across her path. It was shimmering slightly, as if generating some sort of energy, but it could not harm her in her phantom form, she was certain of that. She bounded across it, continued running for a few yards… and then stopped, as if some sixth sense had told her something had changed.

She looked back, and another wave of panic again almost shifted her into solid form and certain death.

The dome was gone! It was no longer there!

No! she silently screamed in her head. This can’t be. It was there, just seconds ago! She walked back on herself, in the direction she had come from … and then suddenly she was crossing the metal strip again, and the base reappeared as if by magic.

She looked down at the strip, realizing what it was. A cloaking field generator. The base is cloaked. It never vanished: I just crossed the threshold and couldn’t see it any more.

But … if this base was cloaked … then even if there were other bases, perhaps they were cloaked, too? In which case, how could she ever hope to locate them?

She stared for long moments at the shining white dome. In that base was air, and food, and water – perhaps even a way to find a way home. Out here, in the vacuum of space, even in phantom form she could not survive for very long. Sooner or later, she would become tired, her concentration would slip, and she would revert to solid form.

Well, she thought. I may not know who I am, but I do know that I’m not yet ready to die. She made her way back to the base and slipped once more through the wall.
***

 

Garryn Bek stared out at the expanding cloud of debris and whistled to himself. “They did it!” he said softly. “They actually blew up Warworld!”

“These humans are nothing if not resourceful,” commented the green-skinned young man standing at a bank of controls to his left. “And it certainly saves us some trouble. We will have to decloak to disembark, and now there will be no-one to see us and investigate.”

Bek snorted. “No-one except half of Earth’s meta-human heroes and a few dozen smaller Alliance ships still buzzing around.”

There was a grunt from the pilot’s chair. “They will be too concerned with each other to bother with us, even if they see us,” said Amon Hakk. “And besides, the ship’s skin is treated with a Durlan compound which lets us blend in with the background of wherever it lands. Even without our cloaking field, we will be hard to spot from space.”

“Enough talk!” growled a voice from the rear of the cabin. “When do we see some action? I could have been with my brother Green Lanterns helping to liberate Oa, but here I am wasting time hovering above a dead rock. How much longer, Dox?”

Vril Dox turned to face the irascible warrior woman. He smiled. “Patience, Boodikka. You had no means to reach your ring-wielding comrades. When I rescued you from your wrecked vessel, I said you would get a chance to contribute towards defeating the alien Alliance, and I am a man of my word.”

“I see precious little sign of that. You should have given me a shuttle and let me go.”

“This ship’s shuttles have no multilight capability, Boodikka, as I explained to you before. Besides,” he added, the smile broadening, “I thought it was the code of your people to trade a life for a life? I saved your life, so I own yours until you repay the debt. Is that not so?”

“It is,” Boodikka scowled. “But this still does not feel right.” She fell silent.

Dox turned to a quiet, robed figure in the observer’s chair. “Zen? Anything?”

The object of his attention swiveled to face him, revealing an orange-skinned bald head, with two round-tipped antennae just visible beneath the hood of his maroon cloak. “Nothing, Mr. President. I have scanned at every frequency the ship’s sensors are capable of, but I detect nothing.”

“We don’t have to avoid Warworld’s scanners now,” Dox pointed out. “You can try the scan beams we couldn’t use before.”

“Already done, sir. Nothing.”

“So what does it mean?” asked Bek.

Dox shrugged. “A humanoid girl, seemingly naked to space, appears from nowhere, walks a short distance, then turns and walks back, only to vanish again in roughly the same place. If she’s hiding, our instruments can’t detect her. That suggests one of two possibilities to me, and I feel we can discount one of them. Teleportation would leave a residual energy trace.”

The sixth person on the bridge spoke for the first time. A hulking, roughly humanoid creature with ridged, brick-red skin and a wide gash for a mouth, he said: “She wasn’t naked, sir. She had clothes on.”

Dox narrowed his eyes in amusement. “I didn’t mean it literally, Garv. I mean, she was not wearing a space suit or any other obvious means of protection. Now, where was I?”

“You were about to say that the only other explanation is that there’s something cloaked down there and the girl must have exited the cloaking field and then walked back into it,” said Bek.

“Precisely. In other words, precisely what we’ve been looking for all this time. A cloaked base or grounded ship. Probably the former.”

“Then this is finally it?” said Boodikka. “We finally get to see some action?”

“It is,” said Dox. “Zen, find us a spot to land where we’ll be out of view from that base – but not too far away, of course. Mr. Hakk, take your coordinates from Zen and take us down.”
***

 

Other eyes were also scanning the wreckage of Warworld and the activity still going on in the space around it. The fingers of the bald man flew across the console as he zoomed in on different locations, seeking a specific target.

“Come away from those controls, Luthor, and have something to eat. Or amuse yourself with the girl. You’ll ruin your eyes staring into that screen.”

Lex Luthor offered no answer, but continued to scrutinize the battle scene. Garguax sighed. “The conflict will be over by and by, and then we can do what you wanted to do – we can go to Earth. With the planet’s defenders exhausted, we’ll have rich pickings … oh, Talskek! What are you trying to find, anyway?”

“Superman,” growled Luthor. “He was there. I saw him. But now I don’t see him. By all that’s holy, if those alien scum have killed him – !”

“I thought that was what you wanted?”

Luthor at last turned away from the view screen, one fist clenched in barely contained rage. “Superman is MINE, Garguax. Taking his life is a privilege that belongs to me, and to me only, do you understand? NOBODY kills Superman but me!”

Garguax’s pudgy, yellow-tinged green eyes were wide in alarm. “Calm down, my friend, calm down! Superman is invulnerable, yes? Therefore even the explosion of something as vast as Warworld could not have killed him. That would require Kryptonite, would it not?”

Luthor glowered at him. “Or magic. Or he could be weakened by red-sun rays, in which case he’d be as vulnerable as anyone else.”

“And do you detect any trace of such things?”

“No, but…”

“Then ergo, Superman is still alive and you can still have the pleasure of exterminating him yourself. Now come and sit down and eat something. We can do nothing until the chaos out there subsides.”

Luthor took a deep breath. Much as he hated it, he could not argue with the green-skinned monster’s logic. He took a step towards the dining area and scowled. “MUST you do that?”

Garguax followed his partner’s gaze. “Oh, the girl, you mean?” He ran his bloated fingers over her smooth, golden skin. “I like to fondle pretty things, Luthor. Don’t you?”

Luthor’s frown deepened. He said nothing as he sat down on another couch and helped himself to some nibbles from the table. Garguax snickered at his obvious discomfort. “My, my, Luthor. You humans never cease to surprise me. I would never have believed that you would be offended by the sight of a member of one species showing affection to another. Or is it that you’d like to play with her yourself? Here – take her!” He pushed the half-naked girl onto the floor. She struggled, trying to move, but flopped around like a grounded fish.

“Come – take her,” the gross alien chuckled. “She’s shot full of so much tranquilizer that she can’t resist at all.” Noting that Luthor still disdained to respond, he added: “Of course, if you prefer them more frisky, I can administer an antidote. However, she might prove a bit of a handful even for you.” He kicked the girl, who was trying to bite his ankle. “I believe she is very, very angry with us, you know.”

“Oh, for – ” Luthor checked himself. Garguax was only doing this to see how far he would go, he knew that. He must not lose control. He would deal with Garguax when the time was ripe, but it was not ripe right now. “Just leave it, will you?”

He motioned to two of Garguax’s plastic servants, who glided smoothly to his side. “Pick the girl up and take her back to her cell,” he ordered. “Give her the antidote to those tranks, but make sure she’s securely chained first.”

The androids bowed and moved to comply. “I really am disappointed in you, Luthor,” said Garguax, stuffing something slimy and dripping into his mouth and speaking between bites. “The girl was good for hours of fun, yet. I also had a mind to take some steaks off her. Her meat is very tasty, you know…”

Luthor jumped to his feet. “What!? EAT her?”

Garguax belched and grinned. “She regenerates, remember? I cut off a few of her larger muscles a few days ago and had my chef prepare a suitable dish from them – but they’ve grown back, as you see! And it was quite, quite, delicious! You should have tried some for yourself.”

Luthor’s knuckles were white, his nails digging sharply into his palms as he fought to keep control. “Damn it, Garguax, I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a goddamn barbarian or a cannibal. Kill the girl, yes, but she’s done nothing to deserve this!”

“So? Your point is?”

Before Luthor could reply, a sharp wail cut the air. Garguax, with an agility that belied his bulk, leapt to his feet and scuttled towards the control console. “What the hell is that?” Luthor demanded.

Garguax signaled to his plastic bodyguards, who clustered more closely around him. He pointed to several bulky figures moving on the view screen. “That’s airlock number nine, Luthor,” he said, a note of mingled anger and fear rising in his voice. “We have visitors, it seems!”

“So who are they?”

Garguax scanned the screen. “Several different species, it seems,” he said. Khund … Bellatrixian … Cairnian …” He paused, trying to make sense of the read-outs. “Something else that the database doesn’t recognize, too. Big, silicon-based …”

“Save the analysis,” Luthor said, heading for the door. “I’m getting the battle suit I built. It doesn’t have the capabilities of my Lexorian one, but it’ll do if those invaders get in.”

“You won’t need it,” said Garguax. “I’ve dispatched a squad of my plastic guard to deal with them. They won’t get far.”

Luthor hesitated. “Who are they, anyway? Refugees from Warworld?”

“Possibly. But as I said, nothing to worry about. There are only a few of them. Probably stumbled on us by accident and looking for somewhere to take refuge.”

“Yeah, right.” Luthor passed through the door, heading for the chamber he had adapted into his workshop during his stay here on the Moon. Garguax’s theory didn’t hold up. This base was cloaked securely. Neither the patrolling Alliance vessels nor Warworld itself had detected it, so how could these newcomers have found their way in? It would have taken technology which the Alliance didn’t possess – and if that were so, then this could be more trouble than Garguax believed.

He entered the workshop and stripped off his outer clothing, signaling for an android assistant to bring him the parts of his battle armor. Within minutes he was encased in metal and plastic and running system checks as he initialized its defenses. Then he strode back to the central hub, where Garguax was looking decidedly nervous.

“Well?”

“I don’t understand it,” the fat green alien blustered. “They’re tearing through my plastic army as though they’re not there! It’s almost as if their weapons are designed specifically to work against…” He turned towards Luthor, fear in his piggy eyes. “Could it be, Luthor? Could it be that these are NOT merely Alliance chancers?”

“Congratulations! Give that alien a cigar,” said Luthor sardonically. “Trouble with you, Garguax, is that you’re predictable. I’ve been studying your records, remember, and you always use the same types of androids in attacking. Sooner or later somebody was going to cotton on to that and design weapons to neutralize them.”

Garguax stared at him. “Are these enemies of mine, then? Do you KNOW who they are?”

Luthor moved to the controls and started pushing buttons. “I haven’t a clue who they are. Just thinking logically, is all.”

“What are you doing?”

“Arranging a little surprise for our friendly intruders,” was the reply. “You know I was looking at creating some new types of your plastic androids?”

“Yes, of course. The Kryptonite ones are quite interesting – but not terribly effective against non-Kryptonians…”

“Maybe not. But THESE are.” He pointed at the image which was now centered in the screen.”

“Talskek!” breathed Garguax. “What IS that?”

“A new generation of plastic men, with some original abilities that the intruders won’t be expecting,” said Luthor with a smirk.

Garguax moved away, waving his arms in exasperation. “Yes, yes! Very good, Luthor! An ingenious design! But we haven’t time to make any! By the time I program the vats and prime them with the right raw materials … well, let’s just say that our enemies will be here before the first one even cools in its mold!”

Luthor laughed. “Yes, I agree. So isn’t it fortunate that I’d already made some?”

“What? You dared – without my permission?”

“Yes – without your permission. You got a problem with that? Because I can always NOT send them against the intruders!”

Garguax visibly paled, realizing he had seriously underestimated Luthor and that he was suddenly dependent upon him. “H-how many did you make?” he stammered.

“Just a dozen,” said Luthor, “but it should be enough. Now,” he said, coming almost nose to nose with his alien partner, “shall I send them into battle? Or would you rather just sit here quaking with fear until those bruisers get here and cut you to bits?”

“S-send them in.”

“Already done,” said Luthor. “The intruders are as good as dead!”
***

 

Amon Hakk lowered his gun. “That was too easy,” he said in his characteristic grunting tones. He holstered the gun on one of the cross-belts on his chest.

“You sure you’ve got enough weapons?” said Garryn Bek, eyeing the array of different guns and other armament on the tall, ruddy-skinned Khund’s belts.

“Weapons are my specialty,” replied Hakk brusquely. “I like to be prepared.”

“Amon is right, though,” muttered Boodikka, checking the remaining charge on her own gun. “This has been too easy. These things just melt when we fire Dox’s guns at them.”

“That was the idea,” Bek said. “We did some research on Garguax before starting out, and the President modified these guns specially to degrade the polymers these things are made from.” He pointed at the slowly-congealing mass of semi-liquid plastic in red, blue and silver-gray spreading out across the corridor before them. “And anyway, I’m not complaining. Easy suits me fine. I like easy.”

“Well, I do not!” growled Boodikka, unsheathing the enormous blade from her back. “Enemies defeated so quickly are no challenge to a true warrior. Boodikka’s sword has not tasted blood!”

A puzzled expression crossed the alien features of the fourth member of their group. “Excuse me,” said Garv, “but these things don’t have any blood. They’re made of plastic!”

Boodikka merely grunted in annoyance. Bek said, with a grin: “You haven’t spent much time around humanoids, have you, Garv? I think you need to brush up on the concepts of metaphor and simile.”

“What are they?”

“Never mind that!” snapped Amon Hakk. He drew his gun again. “Listen. More are coming.” He raised the weapon, ready to fire.

“Hel-lo,” said Garryn Bek as a half dozen featureless plastic androids rounded the corner. “These are different.”

“Only in color,” said Hakk. “They should melt just the same.”

“Perhaps Garguax ran out of colored plastic and had to use white,” suggested Garv.

“Who cares? Destroy them!”

All four of the adventurers fired their weapons. However, the androids suddenly changed from dead white to a silvery sheen. To the astonishment of the four, the beams from their guns reflected back at them!

Moving at a speed that belied his bulk, Garv thrust himself to the front of the group, pushing his companions out of the way and taking all four blasts himself. The force of their impact sent him flying back down the corridor towards the airlock they had entered through.

“Garv!” cried Bek, picking himself up and rushing to the aid of his silicone-skinned comrade.

“I’m OK,” Garv said, sitting up somewhat groggily. “Take more’n that to penetrate MY thick hide!”

“Thank Grok for that!”

Meanwhile, the androids were advancing over the squishy remains of their fallen predecessors. “As I said,” Amon Hakk muttered, putting away the gun he had received from Dox and drawing a conventional blaster. “I like to be prepared!”

He fired at one of the androids. Its head shattered into pieces and it fell. “I like your style,” said Boodikka. “Let them get closer. My sword should be effective against them.”

Hakk offered no reply, but instead fired at a second android, with similar results. “Look out, though,” came the voice of Garryn Bek from behind him. “There’s more coming.”

“Not for long,” said Hakk. He fired again, taking the arm off a third android, then passed the blaster to Bek and drew a laser sword. He nodded to Boodikka and the pair advanced on the remaining three androids in the first group and began to hack at them.

“And just what am I supposed to do with this?” said Bek, hefting the blaster. “I can hardly fire into the general melee without hitting those two.”

“Uh… I think we may have a problem, Garryn,” said Garv, who was now back on his feet. “Look!”

“Holy bokking Grok!” swore Bek. Behind the melee, the two androids felled by Hakk’s blaster were rising again, their shattered heads re-forming as the pieces flew together and reattached themselves. The android which had lost an arm was similarly repairing itself.

“Amon! Boodikka! Watch out! These things regenerate!” he cried.

“What?” shouted Boodikka. She thrust her sword forward and it went into the android before her. “Die, foul -” She tugged at the sword but it was stuck fast. “Oh, Grok, what the -!” Then the android reached out and grabbed her sword arm with a grip like steel. “No, you don’t!” she cried, chopping down at it with her free hand.

The hand went into the android’s arm and, like her sword, stuck. She stared at it in astonishment for an instant – a fatal hesitation, as its other arm lashed out and fastened around her neck. It picked her up bodily and hurled her backwards down the length of the corridor, where she lay still in a heap.

“Boodikka!” cried Bek. He fired at the android and it collapsed, partially destroyed.

It instantly began to re-form itself.

Meanwhile, Hakk was living up to his name, hacking off limbs and heads. But still the androids kept coming, severed parts reattaching themselves with ease. “I could use some help here!” he yelled.

Bek began firing, blasting at the androids and sending them down, one by one. But each time they began to re-form in seconds. And then the blaster went ‘phut!’, its charge used up.

He looked helplessly at Garv. “NOW what do we do?” he said.

Garv rushed forward into the fray, grabbing Amon Hakk and thrusting him roughly back towards Bek. “I’ll try and keep them busy,” he yelled, punching out at one of the androids and knocking it off its feet into the path of one of its fellows. “Get back to the airlock. Help Boodikka!”

“What!” said Bek. “You expect us to leave you?”

“A warrior does not desert his companions!” growled Amon Hakk.

Garv grabbed at another android and swung it around and into another. “Well, unless you know a way to beat these things, you ain’t got much choice!” Yet another android grabbed at Garv, who tried to block, only to find the material of which the androids were composed flowing over his arm.

Bek touched Hakk’s arm. “Garv’s right, Amon. I don’t like leaving him here, but if we stay we’re all going to die. Our weapons are useless against these things and only Garv is strong enough to hold his own against them for a while. If we get Boodikka back to the ship, maybe Dox can come up with something that will work.”

“If Dox is even there,” growled Hakk. “I wouldn’t put it past that conniving son of a Bismollian to be gaining entry to this base somewhere else while we act as a nice little diversion.”

“Don’t be …” began Bek. He halted in mid-denial. He knew Vril Dox better than anyone else, and Hakk was right. It would be just like him to use the four of them as a decoy while he and his tame Durlan Zen pursued a different agenda elsewhere.

“OK… OK…” he said, his mind working overtime. “Let’s do it, then. Help me get Boodikka into the airlock.”

“You do it,” said Hakk, standing his ground. “If we can’t rely on Dox, it’s up to me to find a weakness in these things.”

“How?”

“Just get her into the airlock!” snapped Hakk. He unfastened the combat helmet he was wearing and tossed it away, then pressed a control stud on the frame of the bionic implant which was his left eye.

Bek started to frame a reply, then thought better of it. He moved back to Boodikka and checked for a pulse. Nothing. But then, he thought, she’s a different species. I don’t even know where her pulse should be!

She was definitely breathing, though. He grabbed her shoulders and began to drag her back towards the airlock, which raised open as he touched the control. By the time he got her across the threshold, he was panting breathlessly. Boodikka was a BIG woman, and very heavy…

He looked back. Garv was in real trouble by now, with most of him engulfed in hardening plastic as the androids combined to immobilize him. Then, to Bek’s horror, the big red leviathan went down under the sheer weight of the attack. The remaining androids began to advance on Amon Hakk, who clicked off the device on his bionic eye and started to run back towards the lock.

The Khund warrior leapt across the threshold as Bek thumbed the iris control. The door closed and Hakk lashed out with his laser sword at the controls, shorting them out.

“What in the name of Grok did you do that for?” said Bek. “Now we’re shut in.”

“Only on this side,” said Hakk. “We can still suit up and get back out onto the surface.”

“Then let’s do it. I think Boodikka’s OK. She’s breathing and I can’t feel any broken bones. She’s just unconscious.”

“No,” said Hakk. “Our companion is still out there. I disabled the door only to buy us some time. I think we can defeat those androids yet.”

“You’re dreaming,” said Bek, picking up one of the space suits they had discarded when they entered the base. “If we don’t get the swutt out of here they’ll break that door down to get at us.”

Hakk grabbed his shoulder. “Listen to me, Mister Security Man. We CAN defeat them.”

“How, for Grok’s sake?” But before Hakk could reply, something hammered on the iris door, making a visible dent. It looked as if the androids would be breaking in sooner rather than later.

Hakk ignored the noise and pointed to his bionic eye. “This contains sophisticated sensors, which I used to scan those androids. The reason they seem to be able to adapt to our attacks is that they are not what they appear. They are actually artificial colony creatures – conglomerates of plastic nanites which can reshape themselves at will or even re-form if blasted apart.”

“So how does that knowledge help us?” As Bek spoke, something hammered again on the iris door.

“I believe that they communicate via an ultrasonic frequency. If we can disrupt that, they will not be able to stay combined. They will literally break apart into so much plastic dust.”

Another loud bang on the door. The entire airlock shook. “OK. But how do we do that?”

Hakk released Bek and reached for a device on his utility belt. “This is a sonic probe. I believe I can modify it to emit a suitable pitch which will interrupt their communication frequency.”

“Better do it, then!” said Bek. He pointed. Tiny particles of shiny plastic were starting to drift into the airlock chamber from around the periphery of the iris.

“Just give me a few moments!” Hakk said, frantically disassembling the probe and altering the configuration of some of the components. “I do not believe they will be a danger to us individually, so I should have time to…”

“They may not be a danger individually, but what happens when enough of them get through to form a body?” Bek picked up the Khund’s discarded laser sword and swung it at some of the plastic particles, which were already clumping together. The clumps flew apart, but immediately began to gather together again.

“Just a few moments…” Hakk said.

“We may not HAVE a few moments,” Bek shouted. He hacked at clump after clump, but they kept re-forming, and were getting bigger every time as more and more trickled in.

Hakk’s hands flew across the components, rearranging them almost as if by magic. Bek could not help but stare. Hakk seemed to be an amazingly skilled individual – pilot, technician, weapons expert – but even though he seemed to be more intelligent than most Khunds, a Khund he still was, with all that race’s stubbornness. He’d be up to his neck in plastic nanites and still be trying to reconfigure that sonic probe.

“Hakk, we’ve GOT to get out of here!” he almost screamed.

“Almost there.” Hakk clipped the case back together and attached the probe to his neck brace. He switched it on and yelled: “AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHH!”

Bek dropped the laser sword, his hands flying to his ears. “Holy bokking Grok! What are you -?” He stared at the plastic dust which had been big clumps just a moment before.

“You see?” said Hakk, laughing. “You should have more faith!”

“Yes, I… oh, oh.” Bek pointed. The clumps were starting to re-form once more.

“Damn!” growled Hakk. “The frequency is not right. It only disrupted them momentarily.” He made a further adjustment and screamed again. This time, the clumps flew apart again but only for a few seconds. “They’re adapting to it. I have to find the right frequency or -”

At that moment there was a terrible grinding sound and the iris door was wrenched outwards. Bek staggered back towards the outer door. This was it! It was too late now to get into a space suit, and anyway, the outer door wouldn’t cycle with the inner one now open permanently.

The androids crowded in, reaching for them. Bek tried to make a grab for the fallen laser sword, but one of the androids gripped him by the arms and forced him back against the outer door. Hakk had been trying to make a final adjustment on his sonic device, but he, too, was grabbed and pinned back.

Bek felt the substance of the androids crawling all over him, pushing him back, crushing his body. He closed his eyes. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he screamed.

Then he dropped to the floor of the airlock. He opened his eyes. There was plastic dust all around, but none of it seemed to be trying to form itself into coherent shapes.

Hakk was grinning that insane Khund grin of his. “Ahhhh… he said. “Well done, Bek. THAT was the frequency I needed!”
***

 

Suspended by the shoulders between two blue plastic androids, Stealth struggled desperately to try to regain her coordination, but to no avail. Whatever they had drugged her with, it was effectively paralyzing her major voluntary muscles to a degree that even her regenerative powers could not compensate for. She groaned inwardly. Super-strong these blue androids might be, but they were relatively slow and clumsy. If only she had her normal strength and coordination, she was certain her fighting skills would be sufficient to allow her to overcome them and make a break for it.

And then? And then … she would see about getting her revenge upon her captors, especially that slimy green toad Garguax. She could still feel his repulsive pudgy hands stroking her flesh in places where … ugh! She shuddered at the thought. He would pay for it, though! By the gods of her home world, he would pay! He would die very, very, very slowly, his flesh stripped away bit by bit at her leisure – and unlike her, HE would not grow back the parts which were cut away!

Luthor, too, had a debt to repay. To the seventeen hells of Chaxorix with what Dox wanted – Dox had, seemingly, abandoned Stealth to her fate, so their contract was no longer valid. Luthor had not touched her in a sexual manner, but he HAD tortured her, and she would repay him in kind!

But how? She was helpless – being dragged back towards her cell by two brainless plastic automatons. Once there, she would be chained again and left until Garguax wanted to play once more, or Luthor decided to try again to force her to talk by torture. It was a never-ending cycle of pain and torment – but there HAD to be a way out of it. She was Stealth, one of the best freelance agents in the Galaxy, if not THE best! She had always found a way out of the trickiest of traps. There was no way a grossly obese alien from a destroyed planet and a bald Earthling could hold her! Was there…?

Yet, here she was. A miserable, wretched prisoner with no clear hope of gaining her freedom. Her only hope was that one of her captors would make a mistake, but Luthor, in particular, was far too canny for that. Any attempts by her to use feminine wiles on the renegade scientist had been soundly rebuffed – and while that was an approach that might have worked on Garguax, the huge green butter ball seemed to prefer bestowing his attentions on women who were submissive to the point of being comatose. Hence, the tranks.

A sudden cessation of movement broke her reverie. With difficulty, she raised her head and struggled to open her eyes. What was this? This wasn’t her cell. Why had the androids stopped?

It was hard to focus, but something was standing in their path, a short distance ahead down the corridor. Something black and white. A voice said something in an incomprehensible language. One of the androids released Stealth and started to lumber forward. However, something seemed to pass THROUGH the plastic man to stand between the two androids. It spoke again.

Stealth could only blink furiously, trying to focus as her parched throat tried to voice a warning. The other android had turned and was punching out straight at the head of the newcomer.

Then Stealth fell, released by her captor. She flopped on the ground, one leg pinned by the bulk of one of the androids as it, too, fell. She felt consciousness slip away as she tried to make sense of whatever was going on…
***

 

“They destroyed them!” screamed Garguax. “They destroyed the new androids!”

“No,” Luthor said. “They’re not destroyed. They’ve merely lost cohesion. If I could send a counter-signal to reboot their communications, they’d be able to re-form and…”

“But you can’t, can you?” Garguax said accusingly.

“No,” Luthor admitted. “I couldn’t do it from here. I’d need to get up close, and you don’t have a suitable transmitter that’s portable enough.”

“Well, why didn’t you build one, you stupid human?”

“Because…” Luthor began, angrily rounding on the gross alien pirate, “I was having to work practically in secret because a certain fat slug of a so-called ‘partner’ of mine didn’t trust me! Also, they got lucky.”

“Lucky?” Garguax said, ignoring the insult. “Is that it? We’re going to die because these intruders got lucky?”

“The new androids were this close,” Luthor held up a finger and thumb, “to decorating the walls with the intruders. Yes – they got lucky. They somehow figured out how to stop the individual nanites communicating with one another.

“And we’re not going to die,” he added. ‘You’ve still got your ship, haven’t you?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, there’s a battle going on out there!”

“So? In all the confusion, they’re not going to notice one more ship trying to get away. Send some more androids to engage the intruders…”

“They’ll just destroy them like they did the first wave I sent.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got thousands of the things. They’ll slow the intruders down enough for us to set the base to self-destruct and get clear. Then we hole up somewhere until the invasion craziness has quieted down and we relocate to one of my bases on Earth.”

“Destroy this base? Unthinkable!”

“Really? Well, let’s look at the odds, shall we?” Luthor said coldly, pointing at the view screen. “The two who stopped my new-model androids are unhurt, the big red silicate alien has only minor injuries, and even the valkyrie or whatever she is looks to be coming round. Any minute now they’ll be coming for us. How do you intend to stop them?”

“You’ve got that battle armor…”

“I’ve considered the odds, and I don’t think this battle suit is up to the job. If I had my Lexorian suit, it might be a different story, but whoever these people are, they’re damn good. Who knows what other tricks they have up their sleeve?” He paused. “Unless, of course, you’ve got an ace in the hole you’ve been keeping to yourself?”

Garguax bit his lip. “There was my crystal enslavement ray, of course … but I never did get around to repairing it after the Doom Patrol destroyed it…”

“In other words, no. If we stay here, we’re going to get creamed. No thanks, pal. I’m out of here, with or without you.”

“But the base … do we HAVE to destroy the base?”

Luthor sighed. “I learned a long time ago not to get sentimental about any base of operations.” Even, he added inwardly, a planet where I found true love for the first time in my life, only to lose it again. “A base is just a base,” he said. “And I’ve got several well-equipped lairs on Earth. We can easily set up there to create a new, improved android army without any of the weaknesses that those guys are exploiting.”

Garguax looked uncertain but said: “If you think so…”

“I know so. So go do what I said. Give our unwelcome guests something to occupy their attention until the base goes boom. Meanwhile we get the hell out of here in your ship.”

“Very well,” muttered Garguax resignedly. He began to operate the controls which would send several more battalions of plastic androids into the area where the intruders were. Luthor started moving towards the door. “Wait! Where are YOU going?”

“To deal with one more loose end,” replied Luthor. “I’m going to give that girl Stealth a final choice – she comes with us and talks or she blows up with the base!”
***

 

Rounding one of the many corners in the labyrinthine base, Luthor pulled up sharply as he came across two inert blue plastic androids lying slumped on the floor. Looking around to make sure no-one was lying in wait to ambush him, he reached down to examine them, the servos in his armor whining as it augmented his strength.

One of the androids had had its head bashed in – possibly by the other one, judging by the size and shape of the indentation. The second plastic man’s inoperable state was a mystery as there wasn’t a mark on it.

He turned on the scanners built into his battle suit, which showed him that several of the artificial organs which both powered and animated the android had been crushed, effectively ‘killing’ it. Weird, he thought. What could do this kind of damage from the inside?

Straightening up, he considered the situation. The cell where the girl Stealth had been confined was accessed via this corridor, and two of the super-strong blue androids, just like these two, had been charged with conveying here back to the cell. Could she somehow have escaped and done this damage? It was hard to see how. True, the girl’s alien metabolism was remarkable, and able to regenerate anything less than fatal damage within a day or two. And she was stronger and more agile than a human being into the bargain. There was also evidence that she had some sort of sonic powers which she had not actually manifested during her captivity.

However, she had been drugged into helplessness, and even fully fit was no match for two androids holding her securely. She could not have broken free of their grip, and they were practically mindless, so tricking them into letting go of her was unlikely. Besides, how could she have damaged this one internally? It was as if someone or something had simply reached inside its body and squeezed – yet without breaking its skin!

He began to power up the blasters built into his gauntlets. There was only one possible explanation, and that was that there was someone else involved. Garguax’s security systems had picked up only four intruders, but suppose there were others, using some sort of stealth technology to sneak around the base? In that case, they could be anywhere!

He glanced around nervously. Well, if they did try to waylay him, they’d find out pretty damn quickly that messing with Lex Luthor was very different from taking out a couple of plastic toasters!

Setting all his scanning equipment to maximum sensitivity, he stalked down the corridor towards the cells. Stealth’s cell was empty, but his armor’s motion detectors suddenly started to scream at him, indicating a presence in another cell a short way down the block, which was supposed to be empty. Someone was waiting for him.

A smirk crossed his lips. Think you’re smart, do you? he thought. He moved towards the cell in question, but sidestepped before the door into an adjoining cell. Setting his built-in weaponry, he fired at the wall, blasting a hole big enough for him to charge through.

“Hi, honey, I’m home!” he quipped as he emerged into the other cell, where Stealth lay on the floor, still seemingly rendered helpless by the drugs in her system. She had been hit by shards of plastic from the exploding wall, but did not look badly hurt.

However, there was no-one else in the cell. “What the -” he began. Was Stealth faking, or was…?

A blur of black and white suddenly flew right out of the opposite wall and kicked him in the chest, knocking him back and off his feet. As he tried to get up, another kick to the shoulder knocked him off balance again!

As he rolled back away from the assault, he barely had time to take in that his attacker was a woman, fair-skinned and black-haired, clad in a white tunic over a black jumpsuit. She was evidently skilled in martial arts of some sort, although the style was unfamiliar. Still, Luthor’s battle suit was protecting him from serious harm, and the initial shock was over. Coolly, he took aim and fired one of his blasters pointblank at her.

The blast passed harmlessly through her, instead gouging a hole in the opposite wall. As Luthor reeled from the surprise, she laughed and landed another blow on him, knocking him over once again!

Luthor fired again. And a third time. Both blasts passed through her without affecting her in the slightest.

Another kick slammed him back through the hole he had made and into the neighboring cell. What the hell am I fighting? he thought. She’s solid enough when she hits me, but she seems to dematerialize between attacks. Something about her seems vaguely familiar, though. She reminds me of someone I once met…

As he thought the words, the girl came straight through the undamaged part of the wall and kicked him again from the side. This is ridiculous, he thought. My suit’s protecting me so far, but how much of this can it take before something gives way? It isn’t my Lexorian suit – I hadn’t even completely finished it!

The woman paused momentarily, shouting something in an unfamiliar language. Obviously calling upon me to surrender, he thought. Well, screw that! He fired again, with the same lack of results, but this time rolled back well out of her reach. So you can talk while you’re intangible, can you? he thought. In that case, maybe I can borrow a trick from your friends back at airlock number nine.

As the girl came at him again, he slammed one gauntleted hand down on a control on his breastplate and a sonic scream sliced the air into pieces. The woman stopped in her tracks and clapped her hands to her ears. Then her eyes glazed over and she collapsed.

Luthor got up off the floor. He turned off the screamer and walked up to the girl, giving her a sound kick in the ribs with his metal-booted foot. Out cold: no doubt about it. Well, it looks as if we’ll be taking two prisoners with us, not just one, he thought. I’m going to enjoy taking YOU apart to see what makes you tick!

He studied her face thoughtfully. You really do remind me of someone, he thought. Older … dressed differently … much shorter hair … but you look a hell of a lot like one of those so-called Legion of Super-Heroes from the future – and with the same powers, too!

Did that mean that there were others about? Possibly … but then again, the intruders in Airlock Nine sure as hell weren’t any 30th Century Legionnaires he’d ever seen before. Come to think of it, although there was a strong resemblance, he couldn’t be sure this was the Phantom Girl he had once met. Maybe she was just someone from the same planet who resembled her. Maybe … he thought, with a smirk … maybe this woman is her 20th Century ancestor – in which case…

He raised his blaster. I wonder what would happen if I were to kill her now? Would that wipe out the future in which the Legion of Super-Heroes existed, if only in part?

He lowered the weapon again. The trouble with messing about with time was that it might have unpredictable consequences. Best to leave this until he was away from here and could experiment safely. Acting rashly now might have unfortunate repercussions later – especially if this WAS a grown-up Phantom Girl. The last thing he wanted was for her teammates to come after him to avenge her death.

Leaving the strange woman for a moment, he stepped back through the hole to retrieve Stealth – only to stop dead as he saw two identical golden-skinned, white-haired girls on the floor. “What in blazes???” he exclaimed. He stepped forward cautiously, his gauntlet blasters at the ready. “OK, what the hell’s going on here?” he demanded. “Tell me, or I’ll blow your damn head off!”

He took another step towards the nearest of the two – and then suddenly, the second ‘Stealth’ morphed into a shape out of a nightmare! Something that was all fangs and teeth wrapped around Luthor’s battle suit, then seemed to seep into it and expand. The suit was literally torn asunder from the inside, hurling the renegade scientific genius back in a shower of shards of metal and plastic. Luthor slammed against the back wall, pieces of his shattered armor cutting into his back.

Then, stunned from the impact, he felt himself being lifted to his feet. A grinning face, orange-skinned and sporting pointy ears and antennae, hovered in front of him. “Lex Luthor?” said the Durlan. “My employer would like a word with you…”
***

 

Carried on a litter by four of his super swift silver-gray androids, Garguax reached his ship in about a tenth of the time it would have taken him to walk there with his huge bulk. Various other plastic androids were already busy around the ship, refueling it and prepping it for takeoff.

Garguax motioned for the androids to let him down as they reached the top of the boarding ramp. He paused, looking back. He had invested a great deal of effort over the years in first building this base and then making it secure. It pained him to be contemplating abandoning it like this, just because a handful of unknown aliens had invaded. But Luthor was right – their possessing weapons designed to neutralize his androids did strongly suggest that they were no mere chancers but were here deliberately to get him.

Who had sent them, though? He wondered if it was Zarox-13, his former master, against whom Garguax had rebelled some years before. Zarox was supposedly dead, along with their entire planet, but suppose he had somehow survived to come after his sometime underling, whom he probably blamed for the disaster (and not without cause)?

He sighed. He had become lazy over the last few years, content to dwell here in luxury after his schemes to conquer Earth had been thwarted by the Doom Patrol and his alliance with the Brotherhood of Evil had disintegrated. Oh, yes, he had had other schemes, but he had somehow never gotten around to implementing them. Much of his weaponry, based largely on technology stolen from other civilizations, had fallen into disrepair, and he had not bothered to fix any of it until Luthor had happened along. Luthor had stirred him at least partially from his lethargy, and had been a promising ally – but fate had dealt a cruel blow. What a catastrophic coincidence that Warworld should appear to spearhead an invasion of Earth by the Dominion and others, just when things had been looking up?

Well, at least this would spur him into getting his career back on track, he mused. Without the base, he would have to rebuild, which meant raiding worlds for resources and maybe gaining some new technology in the process.

If Luthor didn’t get a move on, however, then he would not get to share in this new campaign. Damn the human! he thought. He was only supposed to be collecting the girl Stealth from her cell: what was taking him so long?

Well, to the nine hells with him, he thought, stalking towards the control room of the ship. It would take him about three Earth minutes to set the base self-destruct from here and start the ship’s engines. If Luthor didn’t get here by then, he’d leave him behind to be blown to the next life along with the intruders.

He reached the door to the control room. Two plastic men – one blue, one red – stood sentry. “Move aside and open the door,” he commanded.

Neither android moved.

“Obey me!” Garguax growled. He prodded the blue android.

It toppled over, inert, colliding with the red android as it fell and knocking that over, too. “What in Talskek’s name?” gasped Garguax.

He nervously pressed the door control. It slid open to give him a view of the circular chamber which served as the ship’s control center. There were no visible occupants. No! he thought. This is wrong! There should be at least a dozen androids in here, prepping the ship’s systems for launch. Where are they?

He reached inside his purple robe for a hand-held disrupter pistol concealed among its folds and stepped across the threshold, cursing himself for having dismissed the androids which had carried him to the launch bay. Still, the communications controls were only a few paces away. One touch of the alarm button would bring a hundred androids to his aid if he required them.

He quickly closed the short distance, half expecting to be attacked as he crossed the chamber, and waving his disrupter in what he hoped was a threatening manner. He touched the control panel…

… and a violent electric shock coursed through him, dropping him to his pudgy knees. The disrupter flew across the room as he convulsed and screamed.

Behind him, the master control chair swiveled. There was a flickering of light as a personal cloaking field deactivated, and a green-skinned, blond-haired youth appeared in the chair. He held a gun trained expertly on the gross pirate.

“Good morning, Garguax,” said Vril Dox. “I do hope you weren’t intending to leave without allowing me to sample your famous hospitality!”
***

 

“So… are we all met?” said Dox with a smile.

“No thanks to you,” grumped Garryn Bek. “You set us up as a decoy. Why didn’t you TELL us that you and Zen were going to sneak in under cover of a personal cloaking device? Come to think of it, why didn’t you equip all of us with those things? You nearly got us killed!”

“Firstly,” replied Dox, who seemed to have one eye on the mysterious woman in black and white, who was enthusiastically tucking into some of the food they had found, “you’re not a terribly good actor, Bek. You were much more convincing not knowing there was a second front to our attack. And secondly, I only have one personal cloaking field generator and it’s of limited use as it consumes a frightful amount of energy. It was lucky I had a spare power pack for it or it would have faded out long before I had a chance to waylay Garguax.”

“That doesn’t excuse it,” growled Boodikka. “A good leader shouldn’t deceive his troops.”

“I apologize,” said Dox in a slightly distracted tone which seemed also to say ‘I don’t want to hear any more of this argument’. He stared at the young woman. “Who IS she and where did she come from, I wonder?”

“She doesn’t speak any language any of us understand,” said the robed Durlan called Zen. “But she did rescue Stealth, and she possesses remarkable abilities.”

Dox looked at Stealth with a quizzical expression. The golden-skinned beauty, slumped on Garguax’s couch, stirred weakly. She had been administered with a counteragent against the drugs used to keep her docile, but she was still far below her normal vitality and strength. “Don’t ask me,” she said, sensing Dox’s next question. “I’ve never seen her before either. I tried to get her to tell me her name, but I didn’t even manage to get that out of her.”

“Well, we’ve got to call her something,” Bek said, looking her over. “How about ‘Phase’? That at least describes her abilities.”

“Oh?” Boodikka said sarcastically. “You believe in naming people after what they can do, do you? Then should we call you ‘Weakling with stupid haircut’?”

“Hey, I -”

“Enough, children,” said Dox, stepping between them. “Don’t bicker in front of the prisoners. ‘Phase’ will do for now. We can find out who she really is when Amon Hakk gets back from the ship with the universal translator and we’ve programmed it to decipher her speech.” He looked across to the other side of the room, where Garv’s bulk hovered over a disconsolate-looking Garguax and a glowering Lex Luthor. “But enough of our mystery-woman for now. Time to get back to business.”

Stealth had followed his eye. “I’ll ‘get to business’ on them when I’m feeling stronger,” she said. “I’ll make them regret the day they -”

“Hush,” Dox said. “Conserve your strength, Stealth. Leave this to me.”

“You aren’t the one who’s been poked at, tortured and half-eaten by those sons of Denebian Slime Devils,” she hissed.

Dox, however, was already on his way towards the prisoners. “Hello again, gentlemen,” he said. Neither offered a reply.

“How rude,” he said. “Oh, well… I’ll deal with you shortly,” he said in a dismissive way to Garguax. Turning to Luthor, he said. “I’ve been wanting to meet up with you for some time, Mr. Luthor.”

Luthor’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What am I to you?”

“You don’t recognize me, Mr. Luthor?”

“Should I?”

“Look carefully. Do you know who I am?”

Luthor glared into his eyes. “No. I’ve only ever met three green kids in my life. One of them is from the future, and although you’re running around with a Durlan and a Phantom Girl look alike, you sure as hell aren’t him. Neither are you the Changeling or the Kryptonite Kid.”

Dox cocked his head on one side. “I’m afraid I don’t know any of those names. Someone from the future? Who might that be?”

“Stop playing games, kid. No way are you Brainiac …” His eyes widened. “… Five…”

“Brainiac FIVE? Intriguing,” said Dox. “But I see enlightenment dawning, I think.”

Luthor’s face was white with shock. “You’re … him … aren’t you? That was why Stealth mentioned Brainiac. You’re the boy. You’re Brainiac’s kid!”

Dox smiled. “Brainiac is a machine, Luthor. He’s capable of much, but fathering a flesh-and-blood son is definitely not within his capabilities.”

“Damn it, don’t patronize me. I know the story!” snapped Luthor. “I know those megalomaniac computers that created Brainiac gave him a living boy to pose as his son and make his humanoid disguise more believable.”

“That’s right. And that boy ran away, returned to Colu and led the revolution which overturned the rule of the Computer Tyrants,” said Dox. He straightened. “I am, indeed, that boy, Mr. Luthor. And now that we have established that you do recognize me, I have a proposal for you.”

“What makes you think I’d be interested in any proposal you have to make?”

Dox leaned closer. “Because, Mr. Luthor, if you agree to what I’m about to say, I’ll let you go free. If you don’t, I’ll turn you over to Stealth. And believe me, the results of that would not be likely to be pretty!”

Luthor visibly paled. Dox continued: “Let me take you back eleven years, by the way you humans calculate time. July, 1976, by your reckoning, I believe. You used a modified form of a machine you found on the planet Lexor to investigate Brainiac’s origins, as a prelude to rescuing him from the planet where Superman had imprisoned him and offering an alliance against the Man of Steel.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” observed Luthor flatly.

“I have my sources,” Dox said. “What I don’t have is the device you used – nor can I ever acquire it, since the planet Lexor was destroyed three years ago.”

Luthor’s face reddened in anger but he made no reply. Dox went on: “The machine revealed to you that Brainiac was not a living humanoid, as everyone had believed up to that point, but an android computer, sent out into the universe by the Computer Tyrants who once ruled my world to gather samples of sentient life, prior to a campaign of conquest that was never actually undertaken.”

“Thanks to you, apparently,” said Luthor. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” said Dox. “Do you concur so far?”

“Whatever,” Luthor said. “If you say so.”

Dox’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Mr. Luthor, I am aware that Brainiac hypnotized you after the failure of your alliance into forgetting his computerized nature, but I am also aware that said nature became public knowledge a little over a year later, and that your subsequent actions suggest that this had caused the effect of Brainiac’s hypnotism to wear off. So you DO remember all of this, don’t you?”

“Apparently. So what?”

At this juncture, the Khund warrior Amon Hakk reentered the room. “I’ve got the universal translator, Mr. President. What do you want me to do?”

Dox, slightly annoyed at the interruption, waved vaguely towards Phase. “You and Bek take her into another room. Talk to her and get her to talk. The UT should be able to pick up the sense of what she’s saying and build a language database. See if you can find out who she is and how she got here.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hakk. He and Bek approached Phase and indicated that they wanted her to follow them. She seemed uncertain at first, but picked up a handful of fruit and, still chewing, went along with them.

Dox turned back to Luthor. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. The time viewer you used enabled you to actually see Brainiac being constructed, did it not?”

“Just what are you getting at?” sighed Luthor.

“Mr. Luthor, I’d advise you to cooperate. Stealth isn’t the only dangerous lady in my little group, and Boodikka is feeling a little itchy because she hasn’t had a chance to kill anyone. I’m sure she could persuade you if you won’t talk to me, but I’d not recommend her methods. Not unless you want to go through the rest of your life without any arms, anyway.”

“All right, all right,” said Luthor. “So I saw Brainiac being built. So what?”

“You also saw one of the Computer Tyrants suggest a technique which could have advanced Brainiac from being a tenth-level effector intelligence to a twelfth-level one. The technique was rejected by the other Tyrants as it would have made Brainiac more intelligent than themselves, which would have constituted a threat. YOU, however, were later able to use that technique on Brainiac during the period of your alliance, boosting his intelligence by two levels.”

“For the seventh time, so what? When are you going to get to the point of this?”

“Do you think you could carry out the procedure a second time?”

“Yes – but on what? Brainiac, wherever and whatever he is these days, is already twelfth level, and I don’t see another like him.” Something suddenly occurred to Luthor. “Unless YOU …” He stared at Dox as if trying to see behind the young Coluan’s eyes. “Unless you’re not what you seem. I thought you were humanoid, but come to think of it, if you were Brainiac’s kid you’d be older than me. Considerably older! Jesus, you’re not alive at all, are you? You’re an android, just like your ersatz ‘old man’!”

Dox threw back his head and laughed. “Luthor, Luthor, Luthor! How wrong you are! I am as much flesh and blood as you are! I am, I admit, over fifty of your years old, but we of Colu are a very long-lived race. Our life span can be as much as five hundred of your Earth years, which makes me a mere boy by the standards of our species. However, while you have the details wrong, you are roughly on the right track about what I want from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I want you to use the techniques you used on Brainiac on me. I want you to modify my brain, Mr. Luthor, to give me twelfth-level effector intelligence, just like my robot ‘father’!”

“Are you out of your mind?” spluttered Luthor. “In case you’ve forgotten, pal, the procedure you want me to carry out on you was devised for a computer brain, not a living one! Unless you’ve just been lying to me and you ARE a walking computer like ‘daddy’?”

A condescending smile flickered on Dox’s lips. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Either you weren’t watching closely enough when you peeked at Brainiac’s origins or you missed an important scene.” He rolled his eyes upwards. “The Computer Tyrants didn’t want Brainiac to be just a mobile version of themselves – they wanted something that could pass for a real, living, breathing humanoid. Something that could understand other humanoids and relate to them. Something that understood emotions well enough to mimic them perfectly.

“For that, they needed something based on a living brain, and that’s what they manufactured. Brainiac was given a central processing unit which was modeled very closely on the actual structure of the Coluan brain – which, I have to say, is quite different from your Earthling brain. That way they could implant into it an almost exact copy of the personality of a living Coluan, and it could therefore pass among living beings without anyone ever suspecting it was a machine. Even your enemy Superman, with his enhanced Kryptonian senses, had numerous encounters with Brainiac for years before he discovered the truth.”

He paused, as if gathering his memories. “They tried several subjects before they found a real Coluan with the intellect and cerebral fortitude to survive being transplanted into Brainiac without developing severe mental disorders. One such subject even ran away with one of the prototype Brainiac bodies. But I digress. They eventually chose my father as the ideal subject. He was dying, but he was the genius who helped them design the Brainiac android in the first place and he willingly volunteered, knowing that it would achieve a kind of immortality for him. They wiped his memories, so that even Brainiac never knew that he had once ‘been’ a real flesh and blood person, but his personality remained basically my father’s.”

He looked in Luthor’s eyes once more. “The technique to give Brainiac twelfth-level intelligence was designed for a machine, yes, but a machine which was only an electronic copy of my father’s brain. And my brain is close enough in structure to his that it would work on me. Of this I am certain.”

Luthor considered this. “You’d better be,” he said. “If I agree to this – IF, mind – then you could end up a vegetable if you’re wrong.”

“I’m willing to take the risk. There’s a lot at stake here.”

“Oh?”

Dox waved his hand in a dismissive way. “My motives need not concern you. Well, Mr. Luthor? You’ve heard what I want. Will you agree to do it?”

“I’m not a brain surgeon, kid,” said Luthor, forgetting in the heat of the moment that the ‘kid’ was maybe two decades older than he was. “Modifying a piece of electronic equipment is one thing – modifying a living brain is another thing entirely. Do you really want to be operated on by someone who doesn’t even know if his hands are steady enough to do that kind of surgery?”

Dox nodded in the direction of the Durlan, Zen. “My Durlan colleague is a qualified surgeon. He doesn’t even use instruments – he can create whatever he needs by molding his own fingers. Zen will carry out the surgery – all you have to do is guide him.”

“And if I screw up, or it doesn’t work?”

Dox’s reply consisted of one word: “Don’t.” His eyes, moving in the direction of Stealth, who was visibly seething at all this, said the rest.

“I really don’t have much choice, do I?” sighed Luthor.
***

 

Garv was clearly chafing, and that meant that he was pacing the floor, and that his super-dense body was slowly wearing a groove in the plastic floor covering. “I don’t like this, Bek. I don’t like it at all. I’m supposed to be the president’s bodyguard, but Zen won’t let me in there.”

Bek munched on the sandwich he had brought with him into the observation booth. “Of course he won’t, Garv. You’re not sterile.”

“And he is? Look at him – he’s not even wearing gloves!”

“Nothing more sterile than a Durlan, Garv. Their home world is radioactive. Short of those from their home world, which are harmless to any non-Durlan, there’s hardly a microorganism known to exist anywhere in the rest of the universe that will live on them.”

Garv studied the Cairnian security chief. Normally twitchy and nervous, he seemed uncharacteristically calm. Perhaps it was because, for once, he knew exactly where Dox was and what he was doing. “Do you think this will work, Garryn?”

“I don’t know. But Dox usually knows what he’s doing. He’s in good hands with Zen – no better surgeons anywhere than Durlans.”

“But what about this Luthor? Surely you don’t trust him.”

“Not this far.” Bek held up his thumb and finger, pressed tightly together. “But he knows what’ll happen to him if he doesn’t do the job exactly as specified. If I were threatened with being handed over to Stealth and Boodikka, I sure as hell know I’d behave.” He took another bite of this sandwich.

Garv decided to change the subject. “Did you get anything out of that girl – Phase?”

Bek shrugged. “Hakk is still working on her. Stealth is giving him a hand – it’s helping to take her mind off Dox forbidding her to cut Garguax and Luthor into little pieces, at least for now. The universal translator’s made some progress, although her language isn’t like anything in the standard database. It doesn’t help, though, that she seems to have amnesia.”

“Amnesia?”

Bek nodded. “We can make a few words understood on both sides now, and it’s clear that she doesn’t remember her own name. She can recall a few things, but not how she got here. From what we can make out, she just found herself here suddenly.”

“Weird, my friend.”

“She says she thinks she comes from a place called … uh, now what was it? Oh yeah – Bgtzl. That’s what it sounds like, anyway. But she’s not even sure about that.”

“I never heard of a planet called Bgtzl, Garryn.”

“Me neither. But maybe it isn’t the name of her planet – could be the city or the country she comes from, or even the name of her house. Who knows?”

“Or maybe it’s just a very long way away?”

“Like I said, who knows? Oh, look – has Zen finished already?”

They looked down into the operating chamber. The Durlan was replacing Vril Dox’s skull and sealing it with a surgical welding beam, one of the few instruments he condescended to use, and only then because he could not duplicate its function, only its form, with his own morphing body. “Damn, but he’s good,” said Bek admiringly. “Come on. By the time we get down there he should be all done.”

They left the booth and made their way to another chamber, where Lex Luthor, guarded by Boodikka, was standing over a magnifying screen through which he had been watching the procedure and guiding the Durlan.

“Everything go OK, Luthor?” asked Bek.

“So far as I could tell,” grumped the bald scientist. “I could’ve done without that blasted valkyrie breathing down my neck, though. If I’ve made any mistakes …”

“Then you will pay for them with your own life!” growled Boodikka.

“I already got that message, thanks,” Luthor muttered.

Just then, the operating room door opened and Zen came through, guiding a hovering trolley upon which an unconscious Vril Dox rested. Bek whistled. “Smart work, Zen. Apart from the shaved head, he doesn’t look any different. Not a scar to be seen.”

“I pride myself on a thorough job,” said Zen.

“Well, if we’ve all finished congratulating each other, anybody mind if I get some rest now?” said Luthor. “I’ve had a very bad day.”

“No,” Zen said. “President Dox gave very strict orders that he was to be woken up as soon as he was out of theater. And no-one was to go anywhere until…”

“For the love of God!” Luthor swore. “The man’s just been through brain surgery! Let him rest and recover!”

“No,” said Zen. He produced a hypo-spray and injected Dox in the shoulder.

Garv looked at Garryn Bek. He was starting to look twitchy again with the prospect of Dox coming round. Boodikka also looked tense. She said nothing, but her hand hovered on the hilt of her sword in such a way as to suggest that Lex Luthor would be minus his head if anything had gone wrong.

As they watched, Dox’s eyes began to flicker, then came open. They seemed momentarily unfocused, but then they moved from side to side, taking in the other occupants of the room.

“Dox?” said Bek. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

Vril Dox offered no reply. Instead, he suddenly shot bolt upright – and began to laugh like a maniac!

“Oh, Grok!” gasped Bek. “His mind’s gone!”

“I warned you!” Boodikka growled, grasping Luthor around the throat. “Prepare to die, false one!”

“No, wait!” Dox swung his legs off the trolley and let them dangle. He had stopped laughing. “It’s all right, Boodikka, stand down. I’m fine.”

“You are?” asked Bek.

Dox grinned. “My brain has been effectively rewired, Garryn. It took a moment to regain full control.”

“What a relief, boss!” said Garv. “We thought you had brain damage.”

“He still could have,” Zen said. “Please lie down and be still, Mr. President. You have just been through a very serious operation.”

Dox waved him away. “I know, I know,” he said. “But you can’t imagine what this feels like. I … I understand everything now. Things that were clouded to my mind are now clear. It’s wonderful!”

“It won’t be wonderful if you start hemorrhaging!” said Zen. “Please stop jiggling about like that. Give the operation seals time to settle at least.”

Dox stared at the Durlan for a moment, then shrugged and lay down again. “Doctor knows best – except that he doesn’t, of course. I understand exactly what has been done to me and I can tell you that the chances of any of Zen’s seals coming open are precisely one point seven four three four eight two zero zero one nine…”

“OK, OK,” shouted Bek. We get the message. It’s worked. You’re super-smart. Great. So now what?”

“Somebody get me a computer pad and stylus,” Dox said. “I have some urgent calculations to make. And open up a communications link to Colu, of course.”

“Right away, sir,” said Garv, moving to obey.

“And what about me?” Luthor said.

“Oh, you did a good job, Luthor,” said Dox. “I thank you. You can go.”

“I can go,” said Luthor flatly.

“That’s right. Is there something wrong?”

“We’re on the Moon, remember?” said Luthor. “I can’t exactly just walk out the door and go home.”

“Details, details,” said Dox. “Very well, Luthor, you may have the shuttle you arrived in. Boodikka will escort you to it – I’m certain a human of your intellect will have no difficulty in working out how to fly it. But you will take nothing else with you, and I don’t advise you should come back. Ten minutes after you leave, I intend to tell Stealth I’ve let you go. She won’t be best pleased, so I’d try to avoid ever meeting her again if I were you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you don’t need to say that twice.” Luthor turned to Boodikka. “Come on, Red Sonja. Let’s go.”

“WHAT did you call me?”

They left the room. Seconds later, Garv returned with Dox’s pad and stylus. “Now please leave me,” Dox said. “I have to do this as quickly as possible.”

“You sure you can?” said Bek.

“I have to,” Dox replied. “This is what we came here for, remember? If I can’t get this right this time, even with my enhanced intellect, Colu and all the surrounding worlds are doomed to fall!”
***

 

General Tinar scanned through the reports coming in on the screen and his face grew more grim with each one he read. “It looks bad, Amvi,” he said to his second-in-command. “The Khund fleet has broken through in Sector 838. They could now swing about and catch our main task force in the jaws of a pincer. Or worse still, they could come straight for us.”

“I doubt that, sir. Knowing the Khunds, they’ll engage our remaining fleets first. And we still have our planetary defenses, sir,” said Commander Amvi. “With the additional weaponry the president added to the Star Cross defense station before he left, we can hold off the Khunds for some time.”

“In theory, yes. But with Sector 838 lost to us, they can now bring in their allies to reinforce them.” He turned away from the screen, removed his cap and wiped his eyes. “Barring a miracle, Commander, it’s only a matter of time before Colu falls. And if we fall, then the way is open for the Dominion and its allies to take every inhabited planet from here to Pelgaria. Damn it, if only our own allies weren’t so -”

“Incapacitated, sir?”

“Good a word for it as any. With them fighting fit, we could have ripped through the alien fleets like a hot wire, but …” He closed his eyes in despair.

“To be fair, sir, the president didn’t know about their… ah… disability when he invited them here. They didn’t know about it themselves.

“I know, I know. Doesn’t make it any easier though.” The communications console buzzed. “Answer that, Amvi. I don’t think I can stand to hear any more bad news at the moment.”

“Yes, sir.” Commander Anvi switched the audio output to a headset, which he placed on his head. “It’s Colonel Arro, sir. He says they’ve just heard from the president.”

“About time!” Tinar rushed to the console and switched the output back to the speakers. “… and the formula came through a few minutes ago. We’ve rushed it through to our chemists and they’re making it up right now.”

“But will it work?” Tinar almost screamed into the microphone. “Will it work?”

“The president is confident it will,” said the voice of Colonel Arro on board the Star Cross satellite. “But until we’ve tried it on the patients, all we can do is pray.”

“Then we’d better do so,” said Tinar. “For Colu’s sake and any hope of a future!”
***

 

Grand Warlord Wharyak stood before the view port, bristling with pride. “Well done, Admiral,” he said to the grizzled old Khund warrior behind him. The fleet of Colu and its allies is on the run before us.”

“Yes, Grand Warlord,” said the admiral. “But I am suspicious. Instead of standing to fight, they made a break and are now heading directly for Colu itself.”

“Do you counsel caution?” Wharyak said, his one natural eye narrowed. Such an attitude was suspicious in a Khund.

“I suspect a trap,” the admiral replied. “We know that Vril Dox has strengthened the planetary defenses. If the enemy makes a stand at Colu, it will be a more formidable opponent.”

Wharyak beat his breast. “We are Khunds!” he growled. “We have no fear of battle, and we are still stronger than they, even augmented by Dox’s planetary defense grid. Also, this gives our own allies a chance to catch up with us and make us stronger still. We will prevail. We will crush the enemy!”

It was almost a litany. The admiral repeated it. “We will crush the enemy!”

“Good,” said Wharyak. “Now we will…” An alarm sounded. “What is it?” he asked the lookout.

“The enemy is turning about, Grand Warlord,” was the reply. “They appear to have been joined by a few additional vessels out of Colu itself.”

“Battleships?”

“No, Grand Warlord, troop ships by their configuration. Not even heavily armed.”

“Curious,” said the admiral, who had not survived to become an admiral by being stupid. “Perhaps we should…”

“Sound the attack. Now!” barked Wharyak. “Whatever they are up to, we can put an end to it in one decisive blow.”

“But Grand Warlord…”

“Now!”

The admiral moved to obey. Then the lookout officer spoke again. “Sirs, something is happening. The troop ships are opening their bay doors. They seem to be disgorging their personnel into space.”

“In powered battle suits?” asked the admiral.

“No, sir. I’m detecting no power sources from them at all. They’re effectively naked to space.”

“What???”

The ship suddenly shuddered violently. Wharyak turned to the view port to see a nearby vessel explode into a crimson flower of flame and debris. “What? What is happening?”

As he watched, several more of the fleet erupted. “Great Warlord,” the lookout said. “It’s the troops from those new ships. Somehow they closed the distance between us and they’re … they’re RAMMING us, sir!”

“With their bare hands? Are you mad?”

“N-no, Grand Warlord. They’re flying straight at our ships at incredible speed and just… well, just going straight THROUGH them!”

The admiral was by now at a scanning console. “Grand Warlord, they’re creating havoc among us. We’ve already lost nearly ten per cent of the fleet!”

“Well, don’t just stand there talking about it! We have weapons – use them! Fire at them!”

“We ARE firing at them, Grand Warlord. They seem to be invulnerable. Even our most formidable weapons slow them up only momentarily.”

“That’s impossible!”

The admiral strode up to his leader. “Grand Warlord, we lost another five ships while we just had that exchange. Whatever these creatures are, we have no answer to them. If we don’t retreat immediately, we’ll lose the entire fleet!”

“Retreat?” screamed Wharyak. “Retreat? What kind of Khund are you?”

“One who knows when it is impossible to win, Grand Warlord. It is not dishonorable to run in circumstances such as these. Retreat now and we can regroup, study what our scanners are telling us about these creatures and perhaps devise weapons that will be effective against them. Stay here and we lose everything – and what honor can we bring to Khundia by that?”

Wharyak struck him across the face. “How DARE you speak to me of duty and honor, you sniveling coward? We are Khunds. We fight to the death!”

There was a sudden shrill whistling. Wharyak felt himself being sucked away from his subordinate. “Hull breach!” someone screamed.

“Seal it!” shouted the admiral. “Seal it with a force field or…”

The ceiling of the control room caved in and someone came crashing through to land on the deck. Khund warriors rushed to engage the newcomer, a handsome dark-haired man wearing a black uniform with gold trim. He shrugged them off effortlessly and stared upward. The rushing of air suddenly stopped.

“That’s better,” said the invader. “Now – which of you is Warlord Wharyak?”

“I am Wharyak! Die, dog!” Wharyak whipped out his blaster and fired at the stranger pointblank. It had no effect. The stranger grinned and stared at the blaster, which melted into slag. Wharyak dropped it and staggered back.

The stranger strode forward and grabbed Wharyak by the breastplate of his armor, his fingers digging into it as though it were thin cloth. “I am Ral Savond of Daxam,” he said. “and I am here in the name of the alliance between my world and the planet Colu to demand the immediate surrender of you and your fleet.”

He pulled the hapless Wharyak closer, so that they were almost nose to nose. “I strongly recommend that you comply,” he said. “You really wouldn’t like to see what my people could do to you if you don’t!”
***

 

The handsome face of Ral Savond stared out of the view screen. “… and so it’s over, Mr. President. Some of the Khund ships refused to surrender, but my men easily dealt with them. We’re now conveying them back to Colu.”

“Thank you, Commander Savond,” said Vril Dox. “How do you feel now?”

“Wonderful,” replied Savond. “It’s amazing, Mr. President. Just a few hours ago I felt like I was dying. Now I feel like I’m the strongest man in the universe. I could achieve anything!”

Dox smiled. “Well, don’t get TOO carried away, Commander. “As I told you, the serum isn’t a permanent cure for your sensitivity to lead. It’s purged what was in your system, but it will wear off in a few hours, so further exposure to lead could make you ill once again.”

“But the serum will work again, won’t it?”

“Yes, but it will be less effective with each use. I recommend that you use it sparingly.”

“I understand, Mr. President,” said Savond with a grin. “We’re heading back to Daxam after we’ve delivered our captors to Colu, anyway. These powers were a wonderful way of dealing with the threat of invasion, but to be honest, many of my men are uncomfortable with having them. It’s not really the Daxamite way to be heroes. We’d rather live quiet lives as farmers or scholars on our own world.”

“A worthy ambition, Commander,” said Dox. “I thank you again.”

“Thank YOU, Mr. President,” said Savond with a salute. The screen went blank.

“Soooo…” said Stealth. “THAT was what this was all about. You weren’t really interested in rescuing me – you only cared about saving your damn planet.”

Dox turned to face her. “You have a problem with that?”

Stealth sighed. “No, I guess not. It would have been nice to think you’d come all this way for me, but I suppose it would have been out of character.”

Dox smiled. “I would have come to rescue you anyway, Stealth. But I do admit that the threat of invasion from the alien Alliance moved up my schedule somewhat. I rather annoyed the Dominion not long ago, so it was only natural that they and their allies should see Colu as a target. I thought I had the ideal solution to that problem in forging an alliance of my own with Daxam. Unfortunately, however, the Daxamite troops which I expected to become supermen under Colu’s yellow sun instead sickened as soon as they were exposed to our atmosphere. The Computer Tyrants which used to rule Colu were not kind to the environment, and there is a great deal of lead pollution in the air. Its effect on the Daxamites was to make them weak, powerless and severely ill.

“I tried, of course, to find an antidote, but all I could manage to do was slow the symptoms so that the Daxamites didn’t actually die. I knew I could work out where I was going wrong with the formula, but for that I needed to be more intelligent.”

“And so that’s when you remembered me and my mission to find Luthor for you,” said Stealth.

Dox shrugged. “Let’s just say it assumed a new urgency. Now, shall we join the others on board the ship? I’m anxious to get back to Colu.”

“Not so fast, green boy,” said Stealth. “I still have a couple bones to pick over with you.”

“I had an agreement with Luthor,” said Dox. “I could hardly renege on it. Of course, if you want to go after him, I won’t stop you.”

“Maybe later,” said Stealth. “But there’s also the matter of Garguax. He’s mine, Dox. Why have you locked him up in the hold with Garv on guard?”

“What would you do to him if I let you have him?”

“You don’t want to know. You really don’t.”

Dox sighed. “Unfortunately, I can’t let you do that. Garguax is wanted for crimes on a number of different planets, some of whom are potential allies of Colu. He’d be a useful bargaining chip to get them on board, but only if he’s in one piece.”

Stealth’s beautiful face contorted with rage. “So you’re denying me my revenge due to POLITICS??”

“That’s life, unfortunately. If they don’t want him, he’s yours to do whatever you want with him, however brutal.”

“Thanks a whole bunch,” said Stealth, thumping the wall in frustration.

“In the meantime,” said Dox, “your pay for your part in this mission, with a VERY generous bonus, awaits you back on Colu. And I’d like you to stay on, if you would. I’m thinking of putting together an organization to keep the peace in our quadrant of space. It’s obvious from recent events that the Green Lantern Corps can no longer be relied upon to do the job, so I want to recruit a band of specialists, with support staff and troops, to act as troubleshooters, peace officers and law enforcers, and I intend to invite worlds to sign on to subscribe to our services.”

“You’ll need a lot of people for that,” said Stealth.

“I’m already working on it,” Dox replied. “I have a number of people in mind as potential recruits, starting with the team I used here. I also intend to offer a place to in the organization to Phase, if she’s interested – and to you.”

Stealth looked pensive. “I’ll think about it. What do you intend to call this organization of yours?”

“It hasn’t got a name yet. Garryn Bek suggested ‘The Legion of Super-Heroes’.”

“That’s a stupid name,” said Stealth.

“I agree,” Dox said. “But I’m sure we can come up with something better…”
Epilogue

 

A twisted mass of steel and plastic lay slumped on the African Savannah, still smoking from its exhaust. Suddenly a hatch flew explosively outwards, propelled by emergency release charges, and a baldheaded man came tumbling out, coughing. <

Lex Luthor dropped to the ground and started running, determined to put some distance between himself and the wrecked Dominion shuttle in case it suddenly decided to explode. When he felt he was at a safe range, he slumped against the bole of one of the few straggly trees dotting the plain and wiped his brow.

Damn Dox! Oh, yes. He had given him the shuttle all right and allowed him to get away from the Moon, but what he had neglected to tell Luthor was that he hadn’t refueled it. There had been barely sufficient fuel to cross the distance back to Earth and brake to avoid burning up in the atmosphere. After that, he had suddenly found himself at the controls of a glider with all the aerodynamic properties of a brick.

Still, Luthor was a survivor. He had fought the controls with all his strength and, while a crash had been inevitable, he was in one piece.

He looked around him. Grassy plain in all directions. He was pretty sure this was South Africa or thereabouts. There were no animals in sight, but the crash had probably scared them away. They might be back to investigate, and that might well include big predatory cats.

So – order of priority. One: fashion a spear or something to defend himself, just in case. Two: find his way to civilization. With any luck, the crash had shown up on local radar, so there would probably be emergency or military services on the way. Well, Luthor had enough guile to talk them into helping him and maybe helping himself to one of their vehicles and even a weapon or two. Three: get hold of some money and papers. Once he was back in a city – any city – that would be child’s play for someone of his talents. And finally, get back to the USA and get his career back on track again.

He smiled at the prospect. The whole Garguax episode had been unfortunate, but he was alive, he was free and he had learned some new technological tricks while studying the fat space pirate’s inventory. They would come in handy for conducting his revenge upon Superman.

He frowned at the thought of the Man of Steel. Had Superman survived the destruction of Warworld? He still didn’t know. But, like Luthor himself, the Kryptonian was a survivor. If he knew Superman, he’d still be around.

The sound of an approaching helicopter drew him to his feet. He quickly made a decision, and dropped to the ground within sight of the crashed shuttle. Best pretend to be unconscious and let himself be taken to a hospital – medics would be much easier to overpower than troops or policemen.

He grinned inwardly as he lay still, with the rotor noise getting nearer and nearer. Lex Luthor was back – and soon the world would know about it only too well!