Introducing
The Legion of Justice
This story includes references to events in Legion of Justice Prequel. While you don't have
to read the Prequel to enjoy this story, some of the events might leave you
wondering, otherwise.
Part 1
Chapter 01
"Kid Terrific: monitor duty. Hourboy,
Hawk Boy, WildCat: Ready Team. Star Lass: Officer of the Day. Sandy and Timepiece,
you have the day off. You seven dismissed to your assignments." General
Urbane, Supreme Arbiter of Federal Justice, and Supreme Commander of the Legion
of Justice, never used two words when one would do.
The seven heroes quickly shuffled out of the briefing
room, deep in the Citadel of justice. The four remaining paid close attention
to their Supreme Commander. Today's mission was their baby.
'Damn!' thought Canary as she waited for
details. 'I really could use a day off - or even a day as part of the Ready
Team. And why am I teamed with that foulup Greenfire again? What good is being
senior member if I don't get any perks?'
"Canary, Greenfire, Teleteen,
Chemique!" General Urbane, Supreme Arbiter of Justice, called their names,
even though they were the only members left in the Briefing Room. "Easy
one, today. There's a subversive group holed up in the Idaho mountains and
you're going to arrest them."
Canary was tired and cranky today. She took a
risk. "General, I don't understand it. Why would anyone ever become a
subversive?"
If the general was tired and cranky too,
she'd end up doing some scut jobs tonight after the mission. But she got lucky.
General Urbane smiled.
He had been Supreme Commander of the Legion
for at least 50 years and he still looked in his mid-twenties. All the most
important government officials had access to life-extension technologies, but
there were rumors that Urbane was much older… Sometimes he punished a
Legionnaire who asked questions at the morning assignments meeting. Other
times, he answered the questions. Today seemed to be one of those other times.
"That's a good question, young lady! I'm
as puzzled as you are, Canary. Citizens of the Utopian States of America have
the highest standard of living on the planet. It's hard to understand how
anyone could become so ungrateful. We give them everything!" His anger at
these social malcontents was clear.
"Sir, what are they charged with?"
Greenfire asked. Canary winced. She was the oldest, which made her in charge,
and it reflected badly on the team leader when a team member asked questions.
The reason behind a mission was usually 'Need to Know' and usually the Legion
of Justice didn't need to know in order to do their jobs. But Urbane answered
seriously. There must be some lesson he was trying to teach…
"Atavism, son, for one thing. They have
reverted to the outlawed practice of preparing their own meals, rather than
eating Easy, Healthy and Free" (the name of the government's mandatory
food program).
Next to Greenfire, Teleteen shuddered.
"Wow! Don't they know the dangers of cooking their own meals? Obesity,
trans-fats, clogged arteries, cancer…" his voice trailed off. Everyone
knew how dangerous unsupervised cooking could be.
General Urbane shook his head. "Anyway,
atavism in meals would be enough to bring them in, but it gets worse. They are
also doing unsponsored research!"
"How can doing research be wrong,
General?" Greenfire asked. Canary winced. This one was going to get him
blasted! And, as team leader, she was going to take crap for it too. She wanted
to kick him, but if Urbane caught her doing that, it would be even worse.
But Urbane surprised her again, answering
calmly. "Research is dangerous, Greenfire. You, if anyone, ought to know
that!"
Drake Burroughs had almost been killed by an
explosion while working as a research assistant on a government project. They
had been attempting to find out more about the Starheart meteor. Burroughs had
just placed the glowing stone into an analysis chamber when there was an explosion.
A rescue team had rushed into the chamber, but when they passed through the
inner door of the radiation lock, they were stunned to discover that the
chamber was now filled with a gigantic, pulsing green flame, the heat of which
threatened to incinerate them. They dropped all their rescue gear, including an
emergency radiation suit, and scurried back through the airlock.
Somehow or other, Burroughs had managed to
meld his mind with the green energy, and the suit was a perfect containment
vessel. He had immediately been recruited into the Legion of Justice.
Urbane was still talking. Canary thought she
detected some impatience in his voice now. She hoped Burroughs would pick up on
it too, but she doubted it.
"More than half the funding for that project
went into safety measures - and yet your team still managed to destroy the
greatest potential energy source of all time - and almost get you killed as
well. What kind of disaster might be unleashed by amateur researchers
performing dangerous experiments with no regard for safety precautions or
possible consequences?"
Canary could tell from Burroughs' 'body
language' that he was about to retort in anger - and then they would both
regret it. She knew how much he hated it to be constantly reminded that the
current energy crisis in the US was due to his carelessness. She took another
risk - she didn't know if Urbane could tell when she used her sonic powers or
not, but she took her role as team leader seriously, and the leader is
responsible for the safety of the team members.
She projected her voice into the hearing pods
on Drake's helmet and whispered urgently
"Drake, shut up! If you say any more
we'll both be punished. And I'll make sure you regret it for a long time
afterwards!"
Drake jerked slightly in surprise - he hadn't
known that she could use her sonic powers this way, but he did shut up. He was
probably more worried about her threat than the official punishment - and he
had better be! Still, she knew she'd hear about it from him later. But it was
better for all of them if he vented to her in private.
"Now, if I may continue?" The team
knew Urbane wasn't actually asking for their attention this time, but warning
them to shut up and listen. "Worst of all, they've somehow obtained a
supply of Lifextend and distributed it freely to all the members of the
commune!"
There were several gasps from the team of
Legionnaires. The life expectancy for the general public was 110 and holding
steady, and it was more difficult every year to keep the population fed.
Uncontrolled access to Lifextend would inevitably lead to end of civilization
in the deadliest and most destructive wars in human history, as the
potentially-immortal humans battled over dwindling resources.
So Lifextend was rationed - only high government
officials who had proven their commitment to the Utopian States of America
though their public service had access. The Legionnaire knew that one of the
rewards for their heroism would be access to Lifextend when they completed
their terms. When they had _earned_ it, not stolen it like these parasite
subversives!
Urbane gave them the important details, and
briefed them on the mission plan, and then they were away. Riding a sub-orbital
ballistic transport, they were in Idaho in less than an hour.
On the flight, they had studied orbital
surveillance photos of the subversive 'village'. It lay in a large valley
ringed by miles of mountains, a few dozen small houses surrounded by tended
fields. The only visible sign of subversion was the lack of a monorail spur,
which meant it would be almost impossible to reach this village except by
helicopter. It seemed almost unthinkable that anyone would want to live cut off
from civilization - even if it wasn't a shocking violation of Constitutional
Rights to deny easy access to public transportation to any citizen!
They landed miles away, and commandeered a
monorail car to carry them as close as possible. From there, they flew in, low
and slow. Teleteen created a telekinetic force field bubble to enclose himself,
Chemique and Canary, and then Greenfire pulled the bubble behind him. Canary
thought he should have been able to use the Starheart energy to create a bubble
and spare the strain on Teleteen, but Burroughs was very close to incompetent
in the use of his powers.
He should have spent years in the Legion
Academy in training (as she had, from 8 until 14, the minimum age for a
Legionnaire), but he hadn't gained his powers until he was already 16, so she
was stuck with a bumbling idiot for a teammate! At least, flying below tree-top
level, he was able to avoid most obstacles, and Teleteen's bubble protected
them when Burroughs didn't swerve fast enough. As far as she could tell, they
were undetected when they reached the edge of the fields surrounding the village.
The surveillance photos had shown no guards
and no fortifications. Canary was suspicious - surely they knew that sooner or
later they would be discovered, so how did they plan to protect themselves? She
wished Invisio were with them - but his term of service had ended last month on
his 20th birthday, and he'd moved on to the interstellar colonization program.
And none her current Action Team members had the power of Invisibility.
Burroughs should, blast him! She was going to work him to exhaustion when they
got back. He should be their most powerful member, not a constant liability!
Well, then, if they couldn't hide themselves,
speed was the next best option. Teleteen could support their weight for a short
distance, and she could use her sonic power to generate thrust. With her
pushing and Burroughs pulling a weightless team, they should be able to cover
the 2 miles from forest's edge to the village in less than a minute.
"OK, team, on my mark. 3…2…1…Mark!"
She was facing away from the village, and she
opened her mouth and sang her loudest, in the ultrasound range, well above the
range of human hearing. Burroughs started forward. This was all part of the
mission plan, but it fell apart in a second.
Before they could pick up any speed, the air
in front of Greenfire turned flat black, and he smashed into a gently sloping
black wall. The shock broke Teleteen's concentration, and the 3 non-fliers slid
down the side of the wall to the ground.
The bewildered Legionnaires quickly realized
that a giant flat black bubble now covered the village, and that bubble
wouldn't let them pass. The bubble was eerie - it absorbed all light that fell
on it, and they couldn't really see it at all… it was like looking directly
into space, except there were no stars. Chemique shuddered, this intense
gigantic nothingness scared her.
"No wonder they don't have sentries or a
wall!" Canary said ruefully. "A giant force field! There goes our
surprise!" She realized that they probably wouldn't find anything when
they finally reached the village. This shield was only good for one use. The
villagers had to know it couldn't be sustained forever, with the forces the
government could bring to bear, so they must have some kind of escape plan set
up.
And then she realized something else.
"We are SO screwed! Especially me." Urbane wouldn't accept any
excuses. As the leader of the assault team on the ground, it was her
responsibility to make sure the team didn't set off any warning devices or
traps! The debriefing and punishment following this mission were going to be
unpleasant. Unless they could salvage the mission somehow. They had to reach
the village before the evacuation was completed!
"Everyone, we need a way through this
field, fast! Find out more about it, hurry!"
"Canary?" Burroughs spoke up
tentatively.
"Quiet, Drake! You go aloft and keep
watch!" Everyone else in the group could use their powers for analysis,
but all Drake was good for was brute force. He didn't have the control over his
powers he needed to help them now.
Canary bombarded the field with different
sound frequencies, checking for any distortions that could indicate weak
points. Chemique tried to analyze the chemical composition, and Teleteen
strained to find out if there was telekinesis involved.
"Gina!" Greenfire was more urgent
now. The use of her first name was a breach of protocol while on a mission.
"Why aren't you keeping lookout? I told
you, Drake, let us work!" She let her anger show in her tone.
Burroughs pointed at a nearby boulder. Green
energy pulsed from his hand and the boulder exploded! His green aura kept
shards from lacerating his teammates, but the nearby plants and trees were
totally shredded by the rock shrapnel. Canary turned towards him, furious!
Before she could say anything, he pointed to another boulder, and it also
exploded.
"Damn it, I have something to say, and
you are going to listen!" Burroughs pointed at a rock that was near
Canary's feet. With great effort, she restrained herself from speaking.
"We used a force field that was smaller,
but otherwise visually identical to this one in my research facility. The right
combination of sonics can cause a temporary local softening of the field, and
then MightyMind Boy here should be able to force an opening for us."
"You could have just said so!"
Canary yelled at him. The rock at her feet vanished in a puff of green flame,
and she yelped as she jumped away from the intense heat.
"You could have just listened in the
first place" Burroughs responded, coldly. Behind her back, Chemique and
Teleteen smiled at each other. Canary sometimes got on their nerves, too.
She was listening now. Burroughs gave her the
exact harmonics she needed to sing. She hoped she could produce; she had never
practiced singing chords in the ultrasonic range. She would remedy that in the
future, working herself as hard as she planned to work Burroughs, but she
needed to do it, at least for a few seconds, right now, without practice. She
began to sing. They watched the force field closely.
"It will change color, becoming gray, as
you get close to the right frequencies. When it becomes really light gray,
Tommy, pull it open and we can all jump through. But be ready, it's going to be
dark inside!" His teammates often forgot, but Burroughs had been a
competent scientist before his accident.
Canary used her voice like a battering ram.
She knew how to do this; she practiced it all the time, only in the
human-audible range. She started at low power - no use in wasting energy until
she knew it was going to work. Her teammates watched the field intensely for
any sign of color.
"There!" Chemique pointed excitedly
at a gray patch. Canary put more power into her inaudible song, and the gray
spread. She sang louder than ever and it became the size of a manhole cover.
She waved her arms imploringly, begging her teammates to act, as she knew she
wouldn't be able to keep this up for long!
Teleteen pushed a small cylindrical force
field probe through the center of the gray spot. As soon as he was sure it had
reached the inside, he expanded the diameter until there was a hatch-like
opening through the field. He scrambled through, then turned to help Chemique.
Drake flashed through and then turned, straining to use his power to help
Teleteen. Canary couldn't hold the pure notes she needed to while crawling
through the opening, and the pressure on Teleteen and Greenfire's minds was
suddenly tremendous as the force field tried to solidify. They focused all
their willpower until Canary was through, then relaxed and the opening snapped
shut - leaving them in total darkness.
Chemique caused a chemical reaction in the
ground near them, and it started emitting a pale red light. They could barely
see each other, just black outlines against the oh-so-pale red.
"Geez, Miqui, couldn't you brighten it
up a little? I can barely see my own body." Teleteen complained.
"C'mon, Tommy! What does your training
say?" Canary snapped at him.
"Oh, yeah - use dim red light in total
darkness, it helps your eyes stay dark-adapted! Say!" he said brightly,
anxious to redeem his mistake. "Can't Chemique speed up the dark
adaptation process in our eyes? It is a chemical reaction!"
"Good thinking, Teleteen!" Canary
was approving, now. "Miqui, can you do that?"
"Easy as pi!" the Regent of
Reactions giggled. She concentrated, and the heroes (except Drake) found that
the light seemed to be growing stronger, at least near them. But they couldn't
see far. She spoke again, hesitatingly
"I'm pretty sure I could totally alter
the chemical reactions in the cones of our eyes so they respond to IR instead
of visible light… that should let us see much better."
"You're 'pretty sure'? Have you ever
done that before?" Teleteen asked in alarm.
"Nope. But it wouldn't be hard!"
"Well, practice on somebody other than
me!" he said emphatically.
"Yeah, we don't need you to try that
just yet, Mick!" Canary agreed. "Get someone on the training staff to
investigate it, and when you've practiced it, we'll have another tool to use on
future missions! Great thinking!" She looked around. "Say, where's
Greenfire?" In the dark, she hadn't noticed he was missing.
"There!" Teleteen pointed, and they
turned towards the town. Much nearer to town, high up, they could see the green
glow that always surrounded Greenfire when he used his powers. Even without
their dark-adjusted eyes, in total darkness that dim green glow would have
stood out like a bonfire!
"The idiot! I didn't tell him to scout
ahead!" She switched her command headset to Greenfire's frequency.
"Burroughs, you fool! Your green aura stands out like a beacon in this
darkness! Land and power down NOW!"
It was too late. Brilliant streaks of
lightning flashed UP from the town and speared Greenfire. The green aura
vanished. And the other 3 Legionnaires were left temporarily blinded.
"Great! Just freepin' GREAT!"
Canary shouted in frustration.
Legion of Justice Chapter 02
"Greenfire! Respond!" she tried
frantically to raise her teammate over the radio.
"Relax, Leader Lady" his voice came
through the radio, and he sounded amused. "C'mon, you know electricity
can't hurt me. Want me to take out those blasters?"
"No, damn it, I want you to wait for the
rest of us!" She was angry with him, as usual. "I sure wish we could
see!" That last was a rhetorical musing, but Greenfire responded anyway.
"Would a bright green sun, right up
under the top of this dome, be of any help?"
"You can do that?" Canary asked
incredulously. "OK, then, do it!" she ordered. "You'd better not
be joking!"
He let his actions answer for him. A bright
green light, like a flare, rocketed upwards, and stuck to the underside of the
dome. Then it grew brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at it. They
could see, but with only green illumination, the landscape was bizarre.
"Not that I'm complaining, Burroughs,
but is there anyway you could make that star white?"
Canary gestured and her team moved out
towards the village. It was difficult to make out normal shapes, and they
stumbled and tripped often.
"You…always…complain." Greenfire's
voice over the radio sounded strained. "It's what…you…do. Sorry,
but…green…is all I've got."
She was concerned about the pain in his
voice. "Can you keep this up?"
"A few minutes…is all." He stopped
talking entirely for a second. "Better…hurry."
They stopped talking and moved as fast as
they could. Within a minute they came across a well-maintained road leading
towards the village, which allowed them to start running flat out.
Gina hated this part. She was a superb
athlete, one of the best in the world, in top physical condition, but she was
easily the slowest member of the team in a flat out race such as this. Teleteen
could lower his weight telekinetically, which allowed him to easily move twice
as fast as she, and Chemique's android body was much more efficient than the
best conditioned human body could ever be. Hell, in a straight line, even
Timepiece's prosthetic chair could float faster than she could run.
Still, even slowed as they were by the pace
of their merely-human leader, they neared the village in under 10 minutes, none
of them breathing hard. A 2 mile run was nothing compared to the training runs
Urbane put them through on a daily basis. During that whole time, Greenfire was
silent. Canary hoped that having light was worth the cost!
Canary was expecting an attack, and before
they reached the buildings, she was on the general radio band, issuing
commands. "They'll probably ambush us just as we pass inside the first
line of houses. Drake, when I give the signal, shut off that light. Miqui, how
sure are you about the IR eyesight thing?"
"Oh, no, not on me!" Teleteen
protested.
"Shut up! Orders!" Canary barked at
him. He knew better than to argue.
"I've been practicing on my own eyes
since I thought of it. I can switch back and forth easy. No problems,
boss!"
"How long does it take?" Canary
didn't want to think about the fact that Chemique's android eyes were composed
of artificial materials - Miqui knew that, and should be taking it into
account.
"Easily less than a second."
"OK. Instead of running out between
these houses, you're going to adapt our eyes, Drakes' going to douse the star,
and we're going to hit the ground and roll to the sides in the dark. Locate
your cover now!" she had picked a ditch, well off to the side of her current
headlong rush. "Miqui, now!" The landscape around her changed weirdly
and she stumbled as the road seemed to writhe. "Drake! Now!" The
green light died before she hit the ground.
An instant later, lasers and lightning swept
through the air where they should have been running, and then started blasting
the ground at random. As Gina had hoped, the enemy wasn't prepared for the
sudden darkness, and they were temporarily blinded - though she was sure that
condition wouldn't last long. The three heroes rolled into their preselected
cover positions, and waited for Canary to give further orders. She scanned the
darkness around her, a little spooked at seeing in IR without night vision
goggles. She could make out the features of buildings, and as far as she could
tell, there weren't any people in the open nearby. There were glowing white
spots where people must have been waiting only seconds ago, but nothing
human-shaped that she could see.
"From the weapon flashes, there's at
least 6 shooters. Tommy, can you locate them?" Tommy couldn't read minds
but sometimes he could 'feel' them and place their approximate positions by
feel. "If you can, send us their positions".
Tommy turned his head, sweeping his
perception over the darkness in front of him. He was able to feel some human
minds in the village.
"Marking their positions…" he
entered direction and distance into a small keypad on his wrist, and his
communication computer automatically send the coordinates to the wrist displays
of his teammates. He located six, and then, something odd…
"Canary, there's a whole cluster in Town
Hall" he named it automatically, and then realized that his teammates
might not know what he was talking about "that big building in the center
of town. Well, not really - they are well below ground level."
"They must have some kind of escape
tunnel. Concentrate on the ones on the surface!" Canary commanded.
"Mick, can you take out any of those weapons?"
Chemique concentrated on the closest of the
indicated positions. She tried to speed up the decay of any electrical
insulators in that location. After a few seconds, she turned to the next one.
And then the next. There was only one more she could affect, the others were
too far away. But now Canary had another command.
"Pick one of these guys and short the
battery in his gun".
"But that could kill him…" she
started to protest.
"Orders!" That tone in Canary's
voice sent chills down her spine. She couldn't disobey. She concentrated on the
last position in reach, and there was a violent explosion.
"Take 'em!" Canary shouted on the
command frequency.
As she had been giving orders, Canary had
been creeping closer to one of the positions from which she'd see a weapon
flash. As she yelled to her team, she crashed through a window into a room in
one of the buildings, and immediately attacked the man she found hiding there.
He wasn't much of a fighter, and she was able to kick the gun from his hands
before he could use it, but none of her punches or kicks was able to touch him.
She battered him and he fell back, and he couldn't escape or attack, but she
was having no effect on him otherwise. And then she was blinded by bright
visible light!
She moaned in agony, and collapsed on the
floor, writhing. The light had felt like a knife, stabbing deep into her head!
Her opponent took advantage of her blindness
to rush past her, and out of the house.
When the explosion occurred, three of the
enemy tried to fire their weapons, which grew very hot, very quickly, but
didn't fire. They threw their guns away as their hands were burned. A single
laser beam flashed out and vaporized the ground where Chemique had been laying
only an instant before, but she was already gone. Teleteen leaped out of his
hiding place and rushed towards an enemy, using his power to push the barrel of
the opponent's gun out of line, so when his gun spat lightning, he blasted a
crater in the ground rather than hitting the hero.
And then the light blinded them, and like
Canary, they fell to the ground in agony. Instead of attacking their helpless
opponents, though, the subversives all ran towards Town Hall. Two of them
helped their friend whose gun Chemique had exploded. He seemed to be dazed but
otherwise uninjured.
When Chemique realized that the dome had
vanished, allowing sunlight to light up the area that had just been shrouded in
total darkness, she immediately reversed the chemical change in her own eyes.
Still, it was several seconds before she could see again. With no enemies to
fight, she looked for her teammates. She found Tommy first, still rolling on
the ground in agony, and just when they discovered Canary, stumbling blindly
out a door, they were deafened by a tremendous roar. The Town Hall was blasted
apart and a rocket flashed skywards from inside. As they watched it rise,
Greenfire flew down and joined them.
"Geez, I wish they hadn't done
that" said Teleteen sadly.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. We are SO
screwed!" Burroughs replied.
"US?!?!" Canary was incredulous,
stunned by his callousness. "What about them?"
"They're high enough! Cover!"
warned Chemique. All but Drake turned their eyes downwards. A half dozen lines
of bright, ruby-red light sprang into existence out of nowhere, high in the
sky, and converged on the climbing rocket. Which exploded, violently.
Canary slugged Greenfire, as hard as she
could, in the facemask. "You're right, damn you. We ARE so screwed. But at
least we're still alive…"
Legion of Justice Chapter 03
Action Team A: Canary, Greenfire, Chemique,
Teleteen Ready Team: Star Lass (Officer of the Day), Hour Boy, Hawk Boy, WildCat
Monitor Duty: Kid Terrific Off Duty: Sandy, the Golden Boy, Timepiece
"Star Lass, we've got big problems! A
Legion of Doom Smash Squad is attacking the Heritage Day celebration in
Yorktown, Virginia." Cathy Beamish, a.k.a. Kid Terrific alerted Theresa
(Star Lass) Knight, the Legion of Justice Officer of the Day.
"How many, and when did the attack
start?"
"Five; 3 minutes ago."
"Noted. Recall Sandy and Rexford. Alert
Reserve 1 to be on duty in 10 minutes, max. Notify Transport to have Dart 1
standing by in 5 minutes. Update the Dart's onboard strategic systems with
everything you've got, and have Transport patch it in to the Yorktown Guardian
channels."
'Done!' Kid Terrific thought, as her hands
flew over the controls of the monitor station. 'No trace of hesitation or
excitement in your voice, or worse, stress or panic. You're doing great, kid,
don't stop now!' Though she couldn't say this out loud, Kid Terrific approved
of her less experienced teammate's actions and demeanor.
Being Officer of the Day could be a very
stressful job when there was an emergency such as this. Especially when you had
to give orders to more experienced teammates. She knew General Urbane did this
on purpose, so the younger Legionnaires would be ready to lead after their
older teammates 'graduated'. Urbane was ruthless and deadly but he understood
people better than anyone she had ever met.
Theresa continued, "Notify all Guardian
units within 10 miles to dispatch their SWAT teams to Yorktown, Stat 1."
Local law enforcement agencies had been renamed to Guardians years ago, long
before Star Lass had been born. "Patch your board through to Rex's chair.
He'll take over monitor duties remotely as soon as he acknowledges recall. At
that time, you report to Launch and assume command of Action Team B. Go!"
Theresa had done a great job, Cathy was proud
of her. Star Lass would be the senior Legionnaire, and de facto team leader, in
a little less than a year, and she should do a bang up job. Kid Terrific
finished up her orders. As she had expected, Rexford was in his lab, so she
remoted the monitor board to his chair. He should reach the control center in
minutes.
She got Liberty Lad on the first try as well.
As Commander of the Legion Academy and leader of Reserve 1, he was always ready
for a chance at some live action. He and Equal, one of his instructors, and the
4 most senior Legion Cadets, would reach the control center only a few minutes
behind Timepiece. She locked down her board and headed for the Assembly Room in
Launch.
After she entered the lift, Cathy checked her
wrist display and made some selections on the touch screen. She reached to her
belt as a small memory module, the size of a 20th century dime, slid out of a
slot in the buckle. She lifted her long red hair, revealing a small square
plastic patch set into the back of her skull. There were two circular dime
sized bumps on it, and two circular dime-sized depressions. With the easy skill
of long practice, she touched the memory module to one of the depressions and
it sunk in slightly, forming a bump that matched the others. She closed her
eyes and stood quietly for a second, as she accustomed herself to the new
module, and when she opened them again, she was the world's leading authority
on the Legion of Doom.
Only a tiny percentage of the population
could be fitted with this type of memory enhancer, as most people's immune
systems quickly rejected the device. Most of those who could tolerate had to
concentrate intensely to make use of it. Only one person in a billion, perhaps,
could access it as easily as any other part of their natural brains. Cathy was
one of those lucky few.
Her belt held hundreds of these modules, the
ones she felt she might need as an on-duty Legionnaire, and with only a few
keystrokes she could be an expert on virtually anything almost immediately. And
she had access to a library of millions more. General Urbane had assembled a large
research staff which constantly updated the data stores. Each night the modules
stored in her belt were refreshed.
Action Team B was ready when she arrived.
Star Lass addressed her formally.
"Action Team B ready for your command,
ma'am!" Again, Cathy was proud of her younger teammate. As Officer of the
Day, Star Lass could have designated herself as leader of Action Team B, but
that would have been the wrong move, and she would have been given demerits for
it later. She quickly examined her team.
Star Lass, Sandy the Golden Boy, Hour Boy,
Hawk Boy and WildCat. She winced at the last pair - hawks and big cats were
natural enemies and these two were rarely assigned to the same Action Team.
Well, they would work together under her command, or she would bust their
heads! But this team was much more powerful than Canary's team. Good, because
Smash Squads are tough.
Dart 1 would have them in Yorktown in 20
minutes. She hoped the local Swat teams could at least contain the Legion of
Doom Smash Squad and limit the damage!
Legion of Justice Chapter 04
Action Team B: Kid Terrific, Star Lass,
Sandy, the Golden Boy, Hour Boy, Hawk Boy, WildCat
Over 7000 cities spread across the 3
continents and thousands of islands of the Utopian States of America sponsored
annual Heritage Day celebrations - but not all on the same day. Every day was
Heritage Day somewhere, in about 20 different cities spread throughout the
nation today, and then 20 more tomorrow, and so on, and then start the cycle
again on New Year's Day. All members of the producer class were required by law
to attend at least one Heritage Day celebration each year. Without pay, of
course, since they weren't working.
Yorktown's Heritage Day Festival and
Celebration was very similar to celebrations in other cities. Large outdoor
auditoriums with 3D holostages were set up throughout the Colonial National
Historical Park on the bluffs above the Yorktown River, and members of the
producer class were treated to a day of spectacles and free food. Today's
feature presentation was a live broadcast of a SWAT team training exercise on
an island in the Yorktown River. The training grounds on the island was dotted
with holographic cameras to catch all the action.
"Modern SWAT Teams are equipped with
military grade battle suits, which greatly increase the strength, durability
and firepower of the individual officers. A fully-trained 5 member SWAT team
equipped with these battle suits is the equal of a 20th Century Army
regiment." The hired PR flack was really getting into his spiel, but at
that instant, a large figure materialized in front of the waiting teams.
"But how do they stack up against the
Legion of Doom?" It was Boomer of the Legion of Doom. In short order, 3
more Doom Legionnaires blinked in. "Well, not the whole Legion - just
us." The Guardians immediately recognized their deadly opponents:
Bluefire; Absolut0; Smashin; Boomer; Sonix. This Smash Squad was as deadly as
they came!
The crowds at the remote theaters thought it
was all part of the show, but the professionals involved knew differently. Even
the PR flack didn't think that 5 fully trained and equipped SWAT teams could do
more than slow down a Legion of Doom Smash Squad, so he quickly alerted his
command that they were going to need reinforcements. The SWAT teams quickly
spread out to surround their opponents.
Bluefire and Absolut0 usually worked as a
team, hot and cold. Bluefire burst into blue flame and took to the air, raining
fireballs on the Guardians. Absolut0 iced up and shot streams of cold at the ground,
coating it with slippery ice, and trying to freeze the Guardians in place,
making it more difficult for them to dodge the fireballs. Their shields were
able to deflect the flames and their battle suits could protect them from
temperature extremes for a while. The flames crashing to the frozen turf melted
the ice and soon the Guardians fighting the Temperature Twins were enveloped in
a dense white fog. Which was fine with the villains - Absolut0 lowered the
temperature and the Guardians were now frozen into a giant block of ice.
Boomer pointed at the bunker where terrorists
were supposedly holding hostages, and it exploded violently! Three Guardians
charged him, moving far faster than normal humans could. Another blast knocked
two of them down, but the third tackled him and began pummeling him. His
teammates recovered and closed, and the three Guardians and the super villain
were soon involved in a vicious hand-to-hand combat. Boomer was stronger than
any one of them, and his power gave him high resistance to injury, so it seemed
to be a fairly even fight. But every time one of his punches connected, there
was a nasty explosion, and the SWAT suits were taking damage.
Smashin yelped in glee and leaped into the
air, spinning and tumbling, and came down between two Guardians. They both
charged at him and he jumped again, just high enough so they crashed into each
other. He landed on top the two and leaped again, cackling and laughing
manically. Two more charged at him, and he landed flat on the ground and rolled
between then, tripping one into the path of the other.
Several officers fired at Sonix. Projectile
weapons disintegrated in the air as they approached him, vibrated to dust by
his high frequency sonic barrier. Laser and lightning weapons were equally
ineffective - laser blasts reflected dangerously off his costume, and the
lightning was somehow shorted directly into the ground at his feet. A powerful
aimed magnetic field slowed him down but didn't stop him. The Guardians facing
him noticed that their armor was starting to slow and the joints were heating
abnormally. If this kept up they would be frozen in place shortly.
The biggest problem for the SWAT teams was
that they were equipped for a training exercise. They hadn't expected to need
live weapons today, and their power and ammo reserves were low. So far the
fight seemed to be a standoff, but that would change shortly.
And even worse news, the SWAT reinforcements
that Kid Terrific had called from weren't going to get here in a hurry. Many of
them were committed to the same type of live demonstrations these teams had
been involved in, and they wouldn't arrive until well after the Action Team B.
When Cathy heard that news, she totally changed her battle plans, and told the
pilot to blast at emergency hypersonic speed all the way. Instead of landing,
they would eject from the Dart over the island. By driving the Dart at emergency
speed and skipping the landing, they could be there in less than 10 minutes
rather than the earlier conservative estimate of 20 minutes.
Kid Terrific got on the radio to the
commanders of the SWAT teams and ordered them to withdraw. They were… reluctant,
but her boss outranked their bosses. The Dart roared over the island giving
them one last quick look at the tactical situation. Hour Boy vanished from the
cabin, carrying a knapsack of antipersonnel weapons, and then the remainder of
Action Team B of the Legion of Justice launched into action!
The results of Hour Boy's sneak attack on the
Smash Squad were immediate and impressive. At the exact instant he disappeared,
a number of things happened.
A small bomb filled with quick expanding
flame retardant foam exploded in the air near Bluefire. It was about 15 feet
off target, but there were several hundred cubic feet of foam compressed into
the bomb, and Bluefire was drenched. The foam around her instantly hardened,
and she fell to the ground.
An electrified crowd control wire mesh net
erupted from its container only inches from Absolut0 and wrapped around him,
jolting her with current designed to stun up to 20 people captured in the net.
The ground around Boomer's feet suddenly
writhed with hundreds of snakes, which were attracted to his body and crawled
all over him, leaving trails of sticky thread behind them. In seconds he was
solidly wrapped in a cocoon of steel-hard threads.
Hour Boy himself materialized directly in
front of the capering Smashin, and before the villain could spin away, landed a
solid kick to the jaw of the Freakish Fiend.
Unfortunately, whatever trap Hour Boy had set
for Sonix had no effect.
Legion of Justice Interlude 01
Gloria/Mekanique was conscious again. But she
was still trapped, and even worse off than before. She had no physical
sensations whatsoever - none of her 6 human-style senses, or the other 4 that
Rotwang had created for her, were working. She floated in an empty universe.
She had no way of knowing how long she'd been unplugged, though it really
didn't matter.
She focused her mind and sent a mental
command (it was the only kind of command she could make right now!) to a
specific portion of her positronic brain. And got a response! She activated the
nanites that were hidden in one of her positronic brain cells, and sent them
out to explore.
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