ASH: ASH #100 - Starslayers: Chapter 1 of 3

[Dave Van Domelen]

                                 CHAPTER ONE

     The splash page shows the Freedom Alliance very small and distant at
the center of the image, with a combination of Japanese soldiers, photonics
and stone beetles rushing in from all directions.
___________________________________________________________________________

    //||  //^^\\  ||   ||   .|.   COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS
   // ||  \\      ||   ||  --X---------------------------------------------
  //======================= '|`        ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #100
 //   ||      \\  ||   ||            Rising Sun Part 4 - Starslayers
//    ||  \\__//  ||   ||          Copyright 2009 by Dave Van Domelen
___________________________________________________________________________


[July 29, 2009 - Falcon Bay, Venus]

     "All quiet down here," Solar Max radioed to Star Knight, "aside from
Lightfoot's snoring.  How's by you?" he asked, then waited patiently.  Star
Knight had a short-range FTL comm built into his armor, good for
interplanetary distances, so if things really dropped in the pot he'd signal
that way.  But Solar Max's armor lacked such a system, limiting him to the
speed of light, and Star Knight was nearly thirty light-seconds away at the
point where the photonic shell around the Sun was closest to Venus.
     "Just bug-zapping," Star Knight replied after the turnaround lag.  "A
few more Pranir-registry ships are on their way through, headed for
Tritonis.  At least some of them are probably taking advantage of the
emergency to try to smuggle stuff we'd ordinarily catch, but there's not a
lot I can do about that."
     Solar Max nodded.  At the moment, it was taking most of Star Knight's
power just to keep a corridor cleared for communications, as the shell of
orange moths just beyond Venus's orbit blocked radio transmissions either by
accident or design.  A hasty meeting of the movers and shakers of the United
World had agreed that for now, anyone who wanted to use the corridor should
be allowed unless they were obviously hostile.  The political situation
regarding Venus was tense enough without adding the perception that the North
American Combine might take advantage of a chokepoint to keep competitors
from traveling to and from the planet.  Especially since a few of them
realized that evacuating to Venus might be the only way to survive if the
shell stayed up long enough to fatally wound Earth's biosphere.
     "Once he's caught some Z's, Lightfoot should be able to join you out
there," Solar Max replied.  "Essay managed to put together a synaptic
accelerator to duplicate the brain-speeding effect on our VR troopers, so
that's one fewer person tied to our little Rube Goldberg interface."
     The moths had little brain of their own, certainly not enough to
dynamically close rifts and maintain perfect formation as they'd been doing.
Instead, the brain of Goldmind was controlling the entire array from a hidden
location somewhere in the countless cubic kilometers of the shell.  Well,
they were countable, but it got too depressing to try.  Rather than play
"needle in a stack of needles" to physically find him, they'd hit upon a
rather odd plan that combined the powers of several heroes.
     Goldmind's brain was at the center of an optical network, similar enough
to the regular Internet that Nate "Netwalker" Walker's powers could let him
create a pocket reality that resonated with it.  Beacon wore the borrowed
body of a former teammate of Goldmind's, which gave them a way into the
photonic network.  Peregryn had cast spells that both kept Netwalker in a
trance and tapped into mythic events of history to force events in the pocket
reality to follow a script that would favor the success of the heroes...
specifically, the Pacific Theater of Operations in WWII, with most of the
remaining ASH members playing the roles of the original Freedom Alliance.
Essay used her supertech gadgetry to spackle over any gaps, although Solar
Max was pretty sure no actual spackle was involved.  This time.  
     That left only a few superhumans "awake" to defend against the assault
they knew was inevitable once the Light Brigade noticed the intrusion.  At
least the available supers had powers useful against photonics: Noire's
shadow form, Geode's refractory body, Solar Max's gravity warping power.
Other volunteers were armed with "glitter guns" based on one that Essay had
used successfully against photonics in the Battle of Montreal, a sort of
glass-chaff shotgun.
     Unfortunately, even with accelerated mental processes, it was taking the
VR team a long time to get to their goal and take out Goldmind.  Netwalker
had warned that assumed identities in his pocket reality tended to overwhelm
the person using them, and Peregryn's "mythic resonance" spell would only
make it worse.  They could be totally lost in there, unaware of their real
mission and simply trying to win World War II.
     "Solar Max," Peregryn's eyes snapped open.  Most of his spells were
running on "automatic", and he'd been resting while keeping a part of his
mind on the alarm spells he'd set loose around Falcon Bay.  "We have
intruders from the south.  Photonics...and stone beetles."
     "Right," Solar Max sealed his helmet, which had been cracked open to
avoid draining the environmental systems.  "We've got company, Star Knight.
Stay where you are, it might be a diversion."
     And then he heard the rumbling of hundreds of stone legs churning along
the rocky shoreline....

               *              *              *              *

     Mothflame felt oddly naked.  Oh, not in the unclothed sense that had
ceased to be a worry when she left the meat behind.  But in the sense that
none of her "children" were close by.  She'd been warned this might happen,
that once the shell around the Sun got to a certain threshold any constructs
she made would immediately flee to join it, but that was no comfort.
     Nor, really, were the cold stone replacements particularly comforting.
Between Irrlicht's mesmerizing powers and Mothflame's innate connection to
insect life no matter its composition, they'd lured away dozens of the stone
beetles that the titanic Heraclius spawned to act as its eyes.  Slow by the
standards of the light, but quick enough against meat, they made good shock
troops for the assault that the defenders of flesh knew had to be coming.
The meatlings could not be allowed to continue infiltrating Goldmind's
network, and it looked like killing the right one or two people would put an
end to the threat in a very permanent way.
     Whiteout flared brightly in the sky, blinding many of the meatsacks who
had taken up defensive positions around the flimsy metal and plastic
structure sheltering their intrusion team.  Mothflame was unaffected, of
course, since you couldn't blind light itself.  And her disposable stone
pawns didn't need to see to find their targets.  Nor did they really need to
find targets, as their whole purpose was to BE targets.
     A part of Mothflame wondered if she and Whiteout had been sent along
with this diversion because Irrlicht saw them as being as dispensible as the
stone beetles...or worse, because she realized that they might have their own
plans for when the Lord of Living Light returned.  Whiteout idolized the
ideal of grand supervillain too much to be satisfied for long as a
subordinate, and Mothflame...had her reasons to deviate from Irrlicht's
plans.  Reasons she'd tried to downplay and conceal, but which she could not
possibly hide completely.
     A woman made of shadow flew through the air under the power of a
gravity-negation burst, aimed at Whiteout, but the theatrical shining star of
the Light Brigade dodged her with contemptuous ease...only to find himself
nearly shredded by a burst of refractive chaff fired by a clever gadgeteer.
Mothflame remembered that weapon, it had been used in an earlier form to kill
Zone during the attack on Montreal.  She hadn't been present, of course, but
they'd all learned what they could about any weapon that could hurt a
photonic life form.
     The mage who was one of the primary targets was also participating in
the battle, but he had a clearly distracted air about him, so he must have
still been necessary to maintain part of the system the meatlings were using
to assault Goldmind.  Mothflame directed more of the beetles in the mage's
direction, only to find them beaten back by a woman in a blue and gold
bodysuit.  The woman appeared to be a mere brute, but quite effective against
the beetles.  It wouldn't do to have them all destroyed before the second
prong of the attack was in position.
     "You were wise to dress in reflective material before facing us, meat,"
Mothflame taunted as she suddenly appeared in front of the brute.  "But it
would have worked better had your uniform been entirely gold, and not merely
accessorized with it.  The rest of you will burn!"
     Mothflame had never gotten particularly good at projecting light from
her body as an attack, but she didn't really need to.  Not when she could
simply embrace a target and burn into their flesh.  The sizzle this created
sounded like thousands of insects moving across the ground...it was a sound
she'd found she liked.
     The strongwoman said nothing as her uniform burned away.  No cries of
pain, nor even much acknowledgement that Mothflame was even there.  She
simply kept smashing her fists into the stone beetles.
     Suddenly both Mothflame and her foe froze in a moment of shock as the
burning orange light ate through the armored blue fabric and struck polished
quartz facets.  Mothflame's chest merged partially into the crystal woman's
back, and she was filled with a sensation she'd not felt since she was
separated from the meat.
     Intense, almost blinding pleasure.  It was like sex.  No, it was better
than any sex Solange Cruz had ever had before she'd become Mothflame.  For a
moment, she forgot everything, and just wanted to lose herself in...side....
     "NO!" Mothflame shouted, exploding outward and away from the crystal
woman.  Ecstasy was replaced by utter revulsion, memories of the time spent
trapped in the optical Klein bottle by Doublecross.  He had punished what he
had imagined was her disloyalty, and it had been torture.  And for all the
sweet temptations it offered, the crystal woman had sought to trap Mothflame
just as certainly, just as completely.  Worse, it would have been a trap she
wouldn't have wanted to escape, which made it that much more horrifying now
that she was free.
     Ordering all the remaining beetles to attack the crystal woman,
Mothflame fled.  She couldn't hide her hatred now, and if Whiteout realized
that she only wanted to revive Doublecross so that she could torture her
former master, he would certainly find a way to use that knowledge against
her.... 

               *              *              *              *

     While it was likely that the defenders of Falcon Bay were equipped with
ultraviolet sensors to let them detect Oblivion, he could dim himself to the
point that he'd fade into the background sunlight.  Similarly, Irrlicht would
will her own light to fade away, much as the mythical will-o-the-wisp she
took her name from.  That made the two of them ideal for the true assault on
those who were trying to find Goldmind's mind and shut him down.
     Ironically, for all her scheming nature, Irrlicht had picked the teams
solely because she and Oblivion were stealthy while Whiteout and Mothflame
were flashy.  She liked to think that this made her a better lieutenant to
Doublecross, not letting her concern over her own position override good
tactical sense.
     The two approached slowly, carefully, aware that there had to be
numerous alarms around the immobile forms of Netwalker and the other humans,
both technological and mystical.  The purpose of the overt assault was to
distract the defenders from those alarms, or render them unable to respond in
time.  All they needed was a clear line of sight and a fraction of a second,
and Oblivion would simply reduce Netwalker to crumbling dust.
     Some commotion nearby.  Mothflame was fleeing from the woman Irrlicht
knew as Geode...and her codename now made much more sense, seeing the crystal
body underneath the all-concealing uniform.  Excessive refraction could be
painful to a photonic unprepared for it, but it shouldn't have been enough to
make Mothflame flee.  She would have to have words with the woman after this
battle.  
     "Oblivion, go now!" she commanded.  The diversion was starting to wind
down, and even now it appeared that several of the defenders were returning
to that which they hoped to defend.  Including that damnable shadow-woman,
Noire.  She didn't seem to have the power possessed by Noir of a previous
incarnation of the Light Brigade, but that didn't make her any less
dangerous.  Still, it would take her several seconds to cross the distance,
seconds that Oblivion didn't need.
     He was inside the structure now, and Irrlicht could feel the intense
glow of ultraviolet light escaping through cracks in the blacked out windows
and doors as he prepared to generate the disintegration field that made him
so perfectly deadly.
     Solar Max reached out a hand ineffectually.
     Peregryn tried to cast a spell of some sort.
     Essay looked down at her chaff gun, wondering if it would even affect
Oblivion.  
     Geode struggled under a heap of stone beetles.
     Whiteout smirked, as if trying to decide who to shoot in the back.
     And Noire...
     ...exploded...
     ...into an inky dome.
     Darkness rushing outward like a photographic negative of an atomic bomb,
darkness so deep that Irrlicht knew it would be fatal should the merest
fringe of it touch her.  Irrlicht threw herself backwards as fast as she
could, as did Whiteout a fraction of a second later.  Whiteout howled as he
felt Oblivion die, the two having shared a bond that even Doublecross hadn't
fully understood.
     "Damn!" Irrlicht spat.

               *              *              *              *

     Marshal Sara Jane Howard felt more than saw Oblivion preparing to kill
Netwalker.  When she was in shadowform her senses worked a little
differently, something the Academy instructors described as the "supernatural
analogue effect."  She wanted things to work the way she was used to, so
regardless of how her shadow body took in data, it got interpreted as things
like sight and sound.  But anything that her shadowform could sense that her
normal body couldn't tended to translate strangely.
     Still, regardless of whether she was seeing or feeling it, she knew that
Oblivion was about to kill Nate Walker and put an end to what might be their
only chance to save Earth.
     And she also knew there was no way she could reach him in time.
     "Please, this would be a great time to find a new power," she pleaded to
no one in particular.  Never particularly religious, it didn't even occur to
her to pray to God, but it still felt like a prayer.
     "You had only to ask, Noire," a whispered voice replied from somewhere
that felt like it was both inside her and outside the world.  A sussurating,
inhuman yet oddly female voice, like an echo of Sara Jane's own.
     And then it was as if Noire had become a floodgate opened between the
real world and one of pure night.  Darkness poured from her in all directions
in a rush, covering everything.
     She could feel the darkness hungrily consume Oblivion before the
ultraviolet photonic could react.  And it WANTED Beacon.  It wanted to devour
the ASH member far more than it had wanted Oblivion.  It was as if the
darkness had an abiding grudge against George Sylvester.
     Noire struggled to make the shadows part and flow around Beacon, and
they reluctantly obeyed.
     If only it hadn't felt so much like they obeyed because someone else
told them to, Sara Jane would have felt a lot better about the whole
situation.

               *              *              *              *

     Slowly, the shadows dissipated, becoming a cloud and then a fog and then
burning away entirely under the light of the Venusian Sun.  Irrlicht could
tell that both Whiteout and Mothflame had fled back to space, but enough
stone beetles remained in action for one last distraction, one last throw of
the dice.  Irrlicht had let Mothflame manage them, but it had been her own
hypnotic powers that swayed them in the first place, and Irrlicht could
command them just as easily.
     Then the ground started to tremble.  Perhaps it had been trembling for a
while already, but the battle had distracted everyone.  Irrlicht was drifting
as a wisp and tended not to notice such things herself, but she could see the
meat people looking around in consternation as their footing became less
certain. 
     "Heraclius!" the mage Peregryn shouted, gesturing over the horizon.
     Perfect.
     "Go, my stony pawns, fight the meat to your dying breath.  Or whatever
it is you do instead of breathing," Irrlicht whispered, sending her actual
commands to the beetles through rapid pulses of light that were below the
level of normal perception.  Heraclius was coming for its children, and he
would find them locked in battle with the meat, blaming them for the
shattered bodies all about the field.
     There was no way this would distract them so much that Irrlicht would
have a chance to kill the stolen body of Squadron's, but she could certainly
take advantage of the confusion to gather information on how that body was
being used to "hack" Goldmind's network.  And that, in turn, might let
Goldmind deal with the problem himself....

               *              *              *              *

[April 1, 1945 - Okinawa, Japan]

     "Doesn't feel right, fighting on Easter," Centurion grumbled as the
landing craft bucked in the surf.  The III Amphibious Corps of the U.S. 10th
Army was making its landing on the western side of Okinawa, the first piece
of Japan itself to undergo direct ground assault in the war.  While not part
of the main group of islands, it was considered as much a part of Japan as
Hawaii was of America.
     "Heck, I'm not sure I like doing it on April Fool's," Johnny Angel
quipped.  "I keep waiting for Jesus to pull a prank on us or something.  Now
that I think about it, he sure pulled one on the Romans on Easter morning the
first time around, didn't he?" Johnny smirked.
     Conversation ceased as one final salvo from the Allied naval units
softened up the beach defenses in preparation for the landing, and by the
time people could make themselves be heard again the mood for conversation
had passed.  It was L-day, time to land.
     The landing craft crunched into the shallows and came to a stop, the
ramp unlatching in preparation for dropping.  Lady Lawful hefted a slab of
metal, half of a landing craft door that she'd salvaged from a wreck after
the last landing operation.  It was a bit of an effort for her to carry it
while wading through the shallows, but she'd found out the hard way that her
invulnerability stopped at some point below emplaced machineguns.  Not to
mention that several of the Alliancers weren't bulletproof at all.  The
improvised shield was expected to last long enough for them to get ashore
where their mobility would make up for lack of armor.
     "Go, go, go!" Minuteman urged as the ramp dropped and the Freedom
Alliance leapt from the landing craft, followed by a detachment of the 6th
Marines that had jokingly dubbed themselves the Thirds after Corporal Red's
"Second Squad" and their own membership in the III Corps.
     Almost immediately, a unit of Japanese defenders surged out from behind
cover and headed for the Alliance, firing controlled bursts from their
submachineguns and throwing grenades.
     In a flash of instinct, Lady Lawful gestured at one grenade and the
golden aura of her belt spread out like a tentacle and slapped the device
away, to explode harmlessly in the ocean.  As she did so, she lost her
concentration and the armored door section slipped from her other hand.
     Minuteman caught it far more easily than he should have been able to,
even given his physical conditioning.  "Eyes front, everyone," Corporal Red
warned.  "New powers may be handy, but don't get distracted!"
     Johnny Angel hadn't jumped into the surf at all, simply vanished thanks
to his powers.  He now reappeared next to Minuteman.  "They're just kids!" he
gasped.  "I popped in to drop a grenade, but...damn, they couldn't be old
enough to shave!"
     "Dey des'prate 'nuff ta throw KIDS at us now?" Centurion frowned.  
     "Intel says they've been training middle school brigades," Corporal Red
nodded, "but all indications are that those units are last ditch defenders,
and wouldn't be sent out of the urban areas.  As far as we can tell, they've
still got plenty of regular troops on Okinawa."
     "Psychological warfare," Red Widow growled, holstering her pistols and
uncoiling her whip.  "The Japs figure we won't shoot kids, but the kids'll
shoot us just fine."
     As if to emphasize the point, a number of bullets spanged off the
armored plate Minuteman was now holding up.  
     "Good aim, too," Gauntlet noted.  "Maybe they're elite troops disguised
as kids?  Or part of some Bakajin program that retarded their aging?"
     "I don't care if they're clones of Emperor Hirohito raised to rule over
Brazil," Corporal Red snarled.  "They're the enemy, we take 'em down, HARD.
Now let's go!"

               *              *              *              *

[July 29, 2026 - Skopje, Kingdom of Q'Nos]

     Most of the other centaurs didn't like working around the former capital
of Macedonia.  The rocks pulled from the sky a generation ago had torn up the
ground quite badly, resulting in terrain only a goat could love.  But
Entelaus liked the challenging footing...even if he didn't particularly like
the jokes his herdmates made about his father being a satyr and passing down
his goat feet.
     Still, the humans had largely abandoned the area thanks to the ruined
lands and other strangeness that had followed.  The name "Shattered Hellas"
applied doubly to much of Macedonia, and it had been an easy conquest in the
early days of Q'Nos's push to unify the area.  Few lived there even now,
although a few colonies of that strange intelligent fungus had taken root.
What could be salvaged of the city of Skopje had been turned into a sort of
port of entry from the Eurasian Union to the Kingdom of Q'Nos, and most of
Entelaus's herd patrolled those streets.
     The humans had a term Entelaus liked to use to describe his herdmates:
wimps. 
     Still, there was hardy and then there was stupid.  And the reason
Entelaus was out patrolling the turbulent land at the moment was the second
thing.  Skopje was filling up with humans wishing to swear fealty to Q'Nos in
order to gain access to the only bright sunlight that now shone on Earth, the
light of the Titan Phaeton.  And some of them thought they could simply get
in without oaths, sneaking across the fences or around the edges of the
city.  Entelaus was there to save them from their own stupidity...wander into
a xenochrome colony and you could find yourself feeding them with your
colorless corpse.  
     Entelaus looked up at the swollen orange orb that had replaced the Sun
and shuddered.  To the south shone a second Sun, smaller but much brighter.
He was too young to have served the Titans himself, but he appreciated what
Phaeton was doing.  And anything to thumb one's nose at Zeus and his brood
would make just about any centaur happy....

               *              *              *              *

[July 29, 2026 - Mount Olympus]

     "So far, the xenochromes admit to five 'regrettable incidents' at the
borders, and we know about three others they're not admitting to," Simon
Smith shrugged, looking up from his handcomp as he reported to Q'Nos.  "Odds
are there's a few dozen more, despite our expanded patrols.  The problem with
minefields, even clearly marked ones, is that desperate people will think
they'll be the lucky ones to get through unscathed.  And I don't think a lot
of our erstwhile invaders take the xenochromes seriously in the first place." 
     "Their mistake, their doom," the man-bull shrugged from atop his simple
backless throne.  "How is the legal immigration processing going?"
     "Bottlenecked like you wouldn't believe.  Well, maybe you would believe
it, all things considered.  Right now, we're trying to cherrypick the
applicants for ones who'd likely have wanted to get in under normal
circumstances, since we'll be able to trust them more if the situation
normalizes," the mage explained.  "I expect a few outright spies are getting
in, but it's not like we're not riddled with spies already.  All nations are,
it's the way of things.  I'd be more worried if other nations weren't trying
to take advantage of the situation to sneak in more agents, it'd suggest they
have reason to think we won't be a threat soon."
     "Indeed.  And they've certainly made their concerns with us public
already," Q'Nos nodded in the direction of a television monitor set up behind
an arras in the throneroom.  "Demanding we share Phaeton, like he were some
sort of cheap whore."
     Neither commented on that, although privately each thought that the
label fit the fallen Titan fairly well.
     "Is there anything else about the situation on our borders that you
think merits my attention?" Q'Nos asked.  When Simon shook his head, the
demigod leaned forward and asked, "In that case, I'd like to hear your
insights on the nature of this," he gestured upwards, indicating the sky.
"I've let you keep your past a secret because it doesn't particularly matter
to me, but now it IS a matter of concern."
     Simon blanched slightly, then recovered.  "Yes," he admitted, "I was
once the man who called himself Doublecross, and who was cast down by Apollo
for my arrogance.  I've known that for a while now...I should have told you,
but..."
     Q'Nos interrupted with an amused snort.  "I can tell when someone has
been punished by the gods, having suffered it enough myself.  I knew who you
were before *you* knew.  But, as I said, that doesn't matter.  You were
Doublecross.  This shell about the Sun is made of hardened light insects, the
creation of one of the Light Brigade members recruited by your...echo, let's
call him.  What do you think they seek by this?  I have some ideas of my own,
but I would like your insight."
     Simon nodded, swallowing and feeling more nervous than he had in some
time.  "It takes a great deal of energy to convert humans to photonics, and
that seems to have been the aim of my 'echo' as you call him, turning as much
of humanity as possible into beings of pure light, shedding the meat.  I know
I was obsessed with that for a time, although even with my memories returned
the passion behind them, the madness, is gone.  I suppose I should thank
Apollo should I ever meet him again.  But this Dyson-style sphere is
overkill.  As he demonstrated, a relatively small soletta is enough to
attempt the conversion of all of Paris.  This has to be a bigger plan.
Something on the mythic level, apotheosis or the like."
     "Phaeton certainly thinks there's a return to full godhood in it for him
should he steal the power being gathered," Q'Nos nodded, "though he likes to
think I don't realize he plans this."
     "But I'm not sure any of the surviving Light Brigade members would even
want to be gods in their own right.  They're cultists for a now-dead god, the
echo of Doublecross.  I think they may be seeking to tear asunder the gates
of Hades and bring their lord back to the land of the living."
     "But that cannot work, as you are already here, yes?"
     Simon shrugged.  "Maybe it would.  Maybe the power would seek me out and
revive Doublecross in that fashion.  Maybe my echo developed its own soul and
really has passed beyond into the afterlife.  Maybe it had my soul, and I'm
the echo, although I suspect I would have realized by now if I were
soulless.  But I do think that THEY think it will work.  And even if it
doesn't, the side effects could still destroy Earth...."

               *              *              *              *

[July 29, 2026 - Tirana, Kingdom of Q'Nos]

     Tirana made Skopje look like a holiday resort.  Even in 2052 it'd still
been a hellhole, Chiaroscuro reflected.  It'd missed out on the bolide fun of
the early 1990s, but being so close to one of the hotspots of the Godmarket
when your form of government is "oppressive dictatorship" is a bad
combination.  Toss in Set's Wardogs...well, if a hundred humans called the
shattered city home, it was proof that at least a hundred people were both
very stupid and very lucky.
     However, the naturally hostile territory meant even the most desperate
of the current crop of immigrants didn't try to enter the lands of Q'Nos via
Tirana, and there was virtually no security.  Not that Chiaroscuro couldn't
have dispatched any force Q'Nos could have devoted to such a hole, but he
wanted to avoid...complications.
     "We could help," a voice whispered out of the darkness in his mind.  He
did his best to ignore the voice.  Yet another of Akuryu's demons, making a
bid for freedom, most likely.
     Chiaroscuro had always thought demonology was a particularly stupid path
to power, and Kid Ebon had proven it back in '51.  Forward.  Whatever.  It
was a future that wouldn't happen now, although the demons that consumed Kid
Ebon along with most of Trafalgar Square were probably out there somewhere in
this time.
     Demons, regardless of their origins or powers, fell into two categories:
ones you could control, and ones that could control you.  And it was
impossible to be 100% sure which kind you were dealing with, since it amused
some demonlords to sandbag as cringing minions until the Exact Wrong Moment.
And if you were powerful enough to bend even a demonlord to your will, what
did you need demons for?
     Besides, demons were smallfry, Chiaroscuro grinned as he looked hungrily
to the east, where a miniature Sun glowed.  Once he had consumed the power of
a fallen sungod, the shadows inside him would have to shut the hell up....

               *              *              *              *

[April 15, 1945 - Okinawa]

     "What's the good word?" Gauntlet asked the radio operator assigned to
the Freedom Alliance's support squad.  The radio guy liked having Gauntlet
around, since the living battery could charge up the backpack radio set in
seconds rather than the operator having to crank it for several tedious
minutes. 
     "The sixth are almost done clearing Motobu, the Japs' thirty-second's
had its keester kicked, and the flyboys say they've finished pounding the
Yamato into scrap," the operator replied, glancing down at his code pad.
"Operation Ten-Go is Ten-GONE.  Unexpectedly fierce civilian defense of
Okinawa town, though."
     Gauntlet grimaced.  They'd expected some civilians to take up arms...
the enemy had been pushing propaganda in that direction long enough, after
all, and someone had to bite no matter how hopeless it seemed.  But they'd
all been caught off guard by the ferocity of it.  Memories of women and
children screaming and running forward with hunting rifles and makeshift
spears still kept him from getting a good night's sleep.  The areas the
Freedom Alliance had fought in had lower civilian death tolls because the
mysterymen were used to dropping people without killing them, but most of the
American soldiers were forced to use lethal force.  
     "Any news on that freaky eclipse we had before the landing?" Johnny
Angel asked, but the radio operator shook his head.
     "Last time there was an eclipse not in the almanac was because of that
darkness cult that Beacon was always fighting," Gauntlet pointed out.  "You
suppose that cult's still around, and working for the Japs?"
     "Enough of that sort of talk," Corporal Red admonished.  "The old gods
have stayed out of the Pacific Theater of Operations so far, so until and
unless we have solid proof let's not go seeing things that aren't there.  The
boys back in Washington are on it, if there's an answer and we need to know
it, they'll tell us.  No need to borrow trouble, the Imperial Japanese Navy's
got plenty enough set aside for us already."
     "Amen," Red Widow nodded, a bandage covering one eye.  A shockwave had
burst some blood vessels and it looked pretty nasty when the bandage was off
for changing, but the medics were confident that she'd have full use of her
eye back in a few weeks.
     Assuming she was still alive in a few weeks, of course.
     The radio operator looked like he was about to say something when he
suddenly bent back to his set.  "Holy..." he spat.  "We got...something...
coming from the south-southwest!  Blew the holy heck outta our rear support
and, wait, FLEW off for Okinawa!"
     Minuteman leaned in.  "Some sort of hidden jet aircraft?" he asked.
They'd run across a number of "wonder weapons" during the campaign, many of
which were still prototypes or even just hastily destroyed mockups in
abandoned labs.
     Sirens started to sound.
     "It's...a battleship?" the radio operator's jaw dropped.  "A flying
battleship?" 
     Gauntlet pulled down the telescopic optics on his helmet and scanned the
sky, quickly spotting a dot in the air that shouldn't have been there.  It
grew rapidly, and within seconds he could make out the otherwise distinctive
lines that were now broken up by a number of spars sticking out at strange
angles.  Well, strange for a battleship, but perfectly sensible for a
Saturday matinee spaceship.
     "Well, looks like it's our turn in the barrel, boys," Gauntlet spat.
"Somebody's been busy.  It's the Space Battleship Musashi."


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                    TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER TWO!

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