Chapter 1: The Stone of Damocles

Green Lantern had always thought of monitor duty as a necessary boredom, and as he kicked back in an oversized leather chair in front of a bank of video screen in the JSA's Gotham City brownstone, he couldn't help be chuckle at the aggravation Wildcat always went through when it was his turn. Still, he couldn't fault the man.

Despite it being a necessary boredom, he could see why his teammate held that opinion. Several years ago, the team had set up a 24-hour public hotline, equipped with cutting edge communications technology, and staffed by highly trained emergency service operators, which made it possible to be in contact with an active member of the JSA within seconds regardless of where he, or she, was in the world.

For a while, the team had agreed to let the members of the Jr. JSA deal with monitor duty, under the watchful eye of Ma Hunkel, but since the battle with Vic Valor that trashed the surrounding neighborhood, the Mayor of Gotham insisted that one of the active members of the JSA be at the brownstone at all times. In order to maintain good public relations with the city, Hawkman readily agreed, and thanks to the magic-using members of the team, all team member, regardless of where they called home, could be instantly transported to the brownstone for their turns at the monitors.

One of the main duties of the hotline operators was to screen out false alarms. Out of the hundreds of calls every hour, all but one or two a day were referred to other organizations, local police, fire departments, etc. The team that they had assembled to man the phones—and Alan considered them a team—was particularly good at separating the crank callers from the rest. Perhaps one, or maybe all of them, had some sort of latent psychic ability. Regardless, the call that had just been forwarded to the brownstone had the "sound" of a crank call, but the hero decided to take it anyway. If nothing else, it would help liven up the evening.

"This is Green Lantern; how can I help you?"

There was an instant of hesitation on the other end of the phone before the caller began to speak. "Mr. Lantern, sir, my name is Scott Rumstay. I'm an astronomy student at the Massasoit Institute of Technology. I've been doing a lot of observations for my undergrad thesis, and I've discovered what I believe to be an "Earth-crossing" asteroid. That's an asteroid with an orbit that crosses Earth's orbit, Mr. Lantern." The youngster sounded nervous, and GL couldn't blame him; he probably didn't talk to a lot of super- heroes at MIT. Alan knew what an Earth-crossing asteroid was, but he didn't want to make the lad even more nervous by interrupting him. "There are probably thousands of this type of asteroid, but this one is going to hit the Earth in 7 days."

Green Lantern was more than a little skeptical, but he decided to try and allay the young man's fears. "Why hasn't anyone else discovered this, Mr. Rumstay?" he asked. "I'd think that an asteroid that close to us would have been seen by a lot of people." Actually, Alan knew the vastness of space from personal experience, but he still couldn't believe that of all of the thousands of people worldwide who watched the skies on a regular basis, one lone student was the solitary observer of something so important.

"I'm using some…novel observational techniques as part of my thesis…" Rumstay was hesitant, and GL realized that the student was probably talking about techniques no one else believed in. "…And I've been examining areas of space that are well out of the plane of the ecliptic; places others wouldn't normally look. Isn't that the purpose of a thesis—to do what no one else has done before?" The young man sounded defensive, almost pleading. "This asteroid is very unusual; it has very low albedo. That means that it doesn't reflect much visible light…"

"Mr. Rumstay," Green Lantern interrupted gently. "In my civilian identity, I am an engineer, and as Green Lantern, I've had a lot of experience in outer space. This will go a lot quicker if you just assume that I know the terminology. If there is something I don't understand, I will ask for an explanation."

If the kid had been flustered before, now he was absolutely flabbergasted. The older man decided that if he were going to get any more information, he would have to calm the young man down.

"Scott, son, take a deep breath. I promise I'll look into this personally, and whatever it is, I'm sure the JSA can handle it. It won't be the first asteroid we've deflected." The hero's calming tone, combined with his absolute confidence, had the desired effect. Scott felt like his favorite uncle had just calmed him down, but he knew it was for his own good. He took a deep breath before continuing. He had been so worried about being thought of as a crank that it was hard to believe that the world famous super hero Green Lantern was actually taking him seriously!

"MIT is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and through my thesis advisor, I've been able to get some access time on the Astron Space Telescope, a Russian orbiting observatory. I've been working in the UV, making observations that can't be made from Earth due to the oxygen in the atmosphere," Scott said.

As the young man continued, Alan learned about Rumstay's discovery of a moving UV source inside the solar system. He was impressed to learn that the young man had used techniques of his own devising to determine that it was a non-reflective asteroid, nearly invisible in the visible spectrum, and that he had realized that the UV light he was observing was a reflection of the Sun's UV output - meaning the asteroid was almost a perfect mirror when viewed in the UV. He had calculated its orbit and determined that the Earth had a mere 7 days before impact.

"Well, actually," Rumstay continued, apologetically, "there is really a 95% probability that it will pass within 250,000 miles of the Earth. That puts it inside the orbit of the moon. The math gets too complex to be 100% sure, but the Earth's gravity will have a continual influence on the asteroid's orbit over the next week. I honestly believe that the gravitational pull will bring it down on us." He was on the verge of becoming frantic again.

"Don't worry, son," GL told him. "The JSA will take care of it. Give me the relevant orbital parameters, and I'll check it out." As the young man told him what he needed to know, Alan was already contacting one of his teammates—one who had a lot more experience with orbits and astronomical bodies.

* * * * *

Were it possible to start at the center of the Sun and follow a line from there through the center of the Earth, and then proceed another 1,000,000 miles, you would end up at the L2 Lagrangian Point. To some, it is but a name on a diagram of local outer space, but to Ted Knight, the JSA's Starman, it is a place of serenity. From his deep space observatory floating in space at L2, shielded from the glare of the Sun by the Earth's shadow, beyond the distortion caused by Earth's atmosphere, Ted has been privy to sights few others will ever see.

For several hours, his attention had been focused on `Bernard's Runaway Star', and it probably would have for several hours to come had it not been for an annoying beep that startled him and caused him to turn from his observations. A small flashing red light kept time with the beep, further distraction from his work. Although he liked his friends from the JSA, he still found it irksome when they disturbed his work. He crossed the floor and tapped a button on the console. Immediately, the flashing and beeping ceased.

"This is Ted. Go ahead," he said, then waited. The round trip communication delay to Earth was just over 10 seconds.

"Ted, its Alan. We just received a call through the Hotline, and I thought it might be something you would be interested in checking out," Alan said.

As his friend began to repeat the conversation he had had several minutes earlier, Ted's irritation began to fade with each new detail. Earth-crossing asteroids were not an everyday event, especially one that was invisible to the naked eye, so Ted was quickly becoming intrigued by this phenomenon and the mysteries that accompanied it. He also realized that this meant they would probably be saving the world again.

"Could you get in touch with Fate, or possibly the T-bolt, and see about getting us some magical transportation out to that flying mountain?" Ted asked, once the Green Gladiator had finished describing the problem. "It would take me the better part of a day to get there under my own power, and it sounds like we can't afford such a delay."

He had always before ignored the 10-second communication, but after hearing the news, Ted could feel himself getting a little antsy during the wait. When the reply came, he could tell that his teammate sounded a little put out.

"I'll see if I can contact Dr. Fate, then join you as soon as possible," Alan said.

Alan had clearly expected Ted to handle this investigation himself, but after a few moments of reflection, he realized that he shouldn't expect his friend to fly solo on this. Not only might the task require more power than Ted could supply, but solitude could quickly become loneliness when traveling alone in the empty vast black expanse of deep space.

While Ted waited for Alan to arrive, he packed some provisions from the observatory's pantry into a gravity lens, then turned his attention to studying the asteroid Scott Rumstay had discovered.

It took Alan almost an hour to locate Dr. Fate and explain the situation to him. By the time he and Fate appeared on the observatory, Ted had learned quite a bit about the asteroid that Rumstay had named Damocles. First was the confirmation of its very existence, more importantly there was the data that showed it would indeed pass close enough to be drawn into the Earth's gravitational pull. After adjusting the settings of a few of the automated observational instruments so they would continue to gather and organize information, he was almost ready to go.

He took a few extra moments to change into his costume, then gave his teammates a nod indicating he was ready. It only took a few seconds for the Golden Guardian to whisk them away into deep space, while Fate himself returned to Earth.

* * * * *

Green Lantern and Starman appeared as tiny specks floating near to the vast asteroid, one glowing green and the other gold, wrapped in shimmering force fields supplied by their signature icons, Power Ring and Cosmic Rod. Within these fields of protection, the temperature remained a constant 72 degrees Fahrenheit, they were protected from the impact of the multitude of micro-meteors that were pulled along in the wake of Damocles—the name Scott Rumstay had given the asteroid—and the two men could communicate simply by talking. Although the two men, each clad in a tight fitting red, green, and yellow caped costume, appeared motionless as they floated near the spinning asteroid, this absence of motion was just an illusion. Along with Damocles, they were moving towards Earth at almost 600,000 miles an hour.

A dozen giant searchlights, creations of Alan's Power Ring and Ted's Cosmic Rod, tried to illuminate the mountain-sized asteroid, but to no avail. Wherever the light struck, it was as though Damocles absorbed it like a thirsty sponge.

"It reflects UV rays!" Alan said, suddenly remembering what Rumstay had told him.

Instantly, the green and gold spotlights went dark. Energy constructs in the form of goggles appeared on the faces of both men. These goggles, one set magical in origin and the other technological, stepped down the energy of the incoming UV light, converting it into the visible spectrum. Jagged rocks, rugged peaks and treacherous gouges now stood out boldly on the surface of the massive rock.

"Is it just me," Alan asked, "or is this thing moving awful fast for an asteroid?"

"By my calculations," Ted replied, "it appears to be moving about 3 times faster than the average comet, all of which move much faster than normal asteroids."

"Wouldn't it be easiest to just blow it to smithereens and be done with it?"

Ted could sense that GL was getting impatient, and possibly even a bit nervous. "We can't risk that for two reasons. The first is that if we just smash it, all of the pieces will continue to follow the same trajectory and we will have millions of possible impacts to deal with—which could still wipe out all life on Earth. Our best bet is to divert it—use our powers to push it into a different orbit so that it will miss not only our planet, but other planets in the solar system."

"What's the second reason?" Alan asked.

"We need to study it," Ted said. "Look at the way it responds to light. Think of the applications for a material like that."

"Are you talking about non-military applications?" Green Lantern asked, sarcastically. "I, personally, can't think of a single valid civilian application for that kind of stealth technology. I thought you'd given up building weapons, Ted."

"That wasn't necessary, Alan, and you know it," Ted barked back. "Just because _you_ can't immediately think of any civilian application, doesn't mean there aren't any." Due to his work on the original A-bomb, weapons and the military were still a very sore spot with Ted.

"Aw, geez," Alan said. "I'm sorry, Ted. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just that I can't see a reason for saving this thing for study."

Ted willed himself to calm down; he knew that his friend wasn't just taking pot shots at him. The size of Damocles, alone, was nearly overwhelming and it was affecting his responses. Ted regularly observed the largest objects in the universe, but there was a difference between watching a star, made tiny by incredible distance, through a telescope, and floating as an insignificant speck next to one of the smallest possible astronomical objects. 'Still, the significance of the human mind isn't limited by mere size!' he tried to reassure himself.

"I'm sorry, too, Alan!. I didn't mean to flash at you like that. I'll admit that it is possible there won't be any civilian applications for what we could learn from it, but such knowledge might come in handy should we encounter something like this again. I think we might be putting the cart before the horse anyway. We need to move it to a safe orbit before we do anything else."

"That means we've got to figure out how to stop it from spinning first," Alan said.

"By my calculations, we've got about 55 hours before we reach the point where any actions will be useless," Ted said. "Let's land and get started."

The protective nimbuses around the heroes flared, the gold of Starman's somewhat subdued in comparison to the brilliant emerald of Green Lantern's, and the two men began to drift around the asteroid. They continued to adjust their speed, and in a few moments, the "rolling" surface below them slowed, then became stationary, while the stars began whirling around them. Once they were hoving over a single spot, they dropped gently to the surface of the asteroid. As they touched down, Ted was giving Alan the final details of his plan.

The two men began excavating a tunnel slanting into the rock approximately 100 feet long and aimed in the direction of the spin. At the end of the tunnel, they created energy constructs like giant rocket engines, mounted on pads of green and golden energy that overlaid the solid rock, aimed to fire back along the shaft and out the entrance. Once the rockets were completed, the two men lifted from the surface of Damocles, moved a safe distance away, and ignited their engines. As the thrust built up, a geyser of green and gold energy erupted from the mouth of the tunnel, and the heroes could see the surface of the asteroid shudder as the massive rack was shaken by 'damoquakes'. As the rock continued to spin, the residual energy in the exhaust began to wrap around the surface. In a few revolutions, there was a misty green and gold aura surrounding Damocles.

"Thousands of times more powerful than any rocket ever invented, and silent in vacuum," Ted commented, his voice holding a touch of awe. "We're releasing more power every second than hundreds of atomic bombs, and it will still take hours to stop the rotation."

Only someone who knew him well would have recognized the pain in his voice when Ted mentioned atomic bombs.

The truth was that neither man knew how exactly long it would take. They didn't know exactly how much thrust their energy-based rockets were delivering, and they didn't know the exact mass of the asteroid. This would be a seat-of-the-pants operation - they would just watch the spin closely, and as the asteroid slowed, they would be ready to cut off thrust at any time.

Constant concentration was required to keep the rockets firing, and after several hours, the two men knew they had to take a break. Not only were they dealing with the mental strain of keeping up this tedious battle with the asteroid's momentum, but also their physical strength was beginning to lag. Most importantly, Alan mentioned that his ring was due for a recharge. Their protective auras flared again, and the violent geyser of energy stopped erupting from the tunnel. The two men gently drifted back down to the surface.

Green Lantern turned his attention to a nearby cliff on the rugged surface. Again, his emerald aura pulsed, and a glowing green jackhammer materialized out of the hard vacuum. As he began to dig into the rocky wall, Starman used the Cosmic Rod to pull the debris out of the hole and send it spinning into space, away from the direction of the Earth.

"Air lock?" Green Lantern asked his fellow hero, counting on the rapport they shared after almost 50 years of association to convey his entire meaning.

"I don't think we'll be here long," Starman replied. "I'll supply the walls and door if you supply the furniture."

Alan grinned. "Deal." They kept digging.

* * * * *

It wasn't exactly "just like home", but it was pretty fancy for a temporary shelter on a lonely asteroid millions of miles from Earth. When they finished, they had a man-made cave, lined and sealed by the golden force field of the Cosmic Rod, which also supplied the shirtsleeve environment. A green table, thick shag carpet and a pair of plush green recliners appeared courtesy of the Power Ring.

"TV or radio?" Green Lantern asked his friend. "We should be able to pick up the news, even from out here, with a big enough antenna."

"Let's skip it for now" Ted replied, fatigue showing in his voice. "If anything important comes up, the JSA can contact us directly."

As Ted settled gratefully into one of the recliners, Green Lantern commanded his ring to open the private magical pocket universe he had created earlier in order to bring along his Lantern. He removed the glowing green artifact and gently set it on the table.

Ted had witnessed this short ceremony before, but it never got old. In a sense, he found the whole thing as invigorating as Alan did—after all, reading of Green Lantern's exploits was one of the reasons he had donned the Starman uniform.

Green Lantern stood before the table, made a fist of his left hand, and slowly extended his arm until the Power Ring on his middle finger came in contact with the green lens of the of the lantern.

"I shall shed my light over dark evil."

Tendrils of emerald energy emerged from the lantern and swirled around Alan until he and the Lantern were both wrapped in a glowing green flame.

"For the dark things cannot stand the light."

The light within the lantern began to pulse until it was keeping perfect time with Alan's heartbeat.

"The light of the Green Lantern!"

The moment the final syllable had passed his lips, there was a noiseless, forceless, explosion of green energy that erupted from the Lantern, and the green flame expanded to totally fill the small room. It then began to shrink, condensing and glowing more brilliantly as it condensed, and transformed into a green stream, flowing into the Power Ring. To Ted, it seemed as if time was standing still, and this transformation was taking a long time - but when the last wisp of green energy was absorbed by the ring, he knew the whole process had taken only a few seconds.

Ted couldn't help but grin at the smile that appeared on Alan's face once the glow that had surrounded him had faded. More than anything, that smile showed the true mark of Alan's long association with the magical Green Flame of Life. As he watched his friend, Ted knew that the affinity he had with his Cosmic Rod and the energy that powered it could never affect him like that. Still, and he grinned at the thought, it was his pride and joy, and he was quite satisfied with his own powerful icon.

After discovering that Green Lantern was dragging around a pocket universe, Ted was almost abashed as he used the Cosmic Rod to dispel the self-sustaining gravity lens he had created to carry his supplies. The gravity lens was invisible, it had no mass and almost no inertia, and time passed differently inside the "pocket" it created—but it was no pocket dimension by a long shot! Still it served its purpose, holding supplies that Alan hadn't thought to bring. Ted set out a picnic lunch, and the two of them fell to. They continued to discuss their plans as they ate.

"Did you notice that the low albedo is a surface effect only?" Green Lantern asked his friend. "Seems kind of strange to me."

"I did notice that. As soon as you started digging, you revealed regular rock. I checked in some other locations, and it's the same everywhere I looked. There is a layer of some kind of dust on the surface - dust that makes Damocles almost impossible for humans to see, especially against the background of space - and a normal asteroid underneath." He stopped for an instant to think. "This rock seems to have fallen in from the Oort Cloud - maybe somewhere in the outer system there is a cloud of this stealthy stuff, and our asteroid, here, flew through it and picked up this stealthy coating on its journey towards the sun. Maybe."

"But you don't believe that, eh?" Alan didn't sound like he believed it either.

"An asteroid that just happens to be completely coated with something that makes it virtually invisible to humans? Moving three times as fast as you would normally expect? And on a multi-billion mile flight that is aimed exactly at the Earth… What are the odds?"

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. " Green Lantern mused thoughtfully. "Three times is enemy action, Mr. Bond!" he quoted from `Goldfinger'.

* * * * *

The heroes decided that even though they suspected enemy action, making sure Damocles would miss Earth still had to be their first priority. They could search the asteroid for clues to their enemy once it was in a safer orbit. After their rest period, they headed back to the sky to restart their retro-rockets. Once again, they witnessed the awe-inspiring energy geyser, blanketing the worldlet in a yellowish-green glowing haze. As the rotation got slower and slower, Green Lantern landed again. He used the Power Ring to create a stable platform just above the surface of Damocles, shielded from the damoquakes, then created a surveyor's theodolite. He got a line on a star - and the instant the star stopped moving, he signaled Starman and they stopped their retro-rockets. The ground continued to shake for a while, but an hour after the rockets were stopped, things had quieted down, and Green Lantern was able to verify that Damocles was no longer spinning.

The next step was to move the asteroid into a new orbit. Green Lantern used his surveying tools to locate specific spots on the surface of Damocles, based on specifications provided by Starman, and this time, they set up a dozen energy-construct rocket engines. Once again, they watched geysers of glowing energy blast into the sky, giving Damocles a glowing tail like a comet. They kept at it for 18 hours, with rest periods as required, and they used Green Lantern's ring-created surveying tools to check the stars. Several times, they tweaked the thrust of various rockets, refining Damocles' new orbit until finally even the finicky Ted Knight was 100% satisfied.

"Shut them all down!" he ordered - and they did. Once again, Damocles moved through space silently, unaccompanied by any glowing energy vapors. Floating in the sky 'behind' the worldlet, the two turned to shake hands over a job well done. But at that instant, without warning, Damocles exploded in a silent holocaust of glowing green energy!

Chapter 2: A Pair of Booms!

Ted's force bubble protected him from a fierce blast of brilliant emerald radiation, and then he was battered by a barrage of large boulders, smaller rocks, and even pebbles, hurled from the explosion at incredibly high speed. He was shaken violently and knocked wildly across the sky, almost instantly losing sight of Green Lantern as he was enveloped in the violent tsunami of shattered stone. Still, as designed, the force bubble absorbed most of the impacts and the force cushions lining the interior protected him from major damage. He managed to change the shape of his bubble from a sphere to a wedge, with the point aimed 'upstream' allowing the field to deflect most of the impacts rather than taking them 'broadside'. He wasn't going to be able to take any useful action until he was out of the flying debris field, so he waited impatiently, enduring the battering, and tried to figure out what had happened.

The Cosmic Rod showed that the original explosion had emitted massive amounts of Kryptonite radiation - not Power Ring energy as he had originally thought. Apparently whoever had set Damocles into collision orbit with Earth had set other traps as well, including one for Superman and Power Girl, and that trap had been turned on him. Ted needed to stop underestimating his unknown foe, now!

His first priority was to find Green Lantern. The Cosmic Rod immediately located a powerful energy source, approaching him with the speed of a missile. But it wasn't emitting Power Ring energy!

A house-sized boulder in that direction exploded, as the humanoid figure that was radiating so much energy decided to go through it rather than around it. Ted saw the arms move, and then two fist-sized chunks of rock slammed into his shield, moving so fast that he had barely even seen them coming. He was knocked backwards and started tumbling. This newcomer was dangerous, having already displayed some Superman-like powers!

Still, Ted had some dangerous powers as well! A golden cylinder flashed out and caught the invader in the chest, knocking him tumbling backwards. 'Two can play at that game." Starman thought, with grim satisfaction. "Let's see what you got, buddy!'

He launched a barrage of exploding energy spheres, and the villain was knocked around for a short time. But the explosions were relatively minor, and the stranger quickly recovered. He ignored more blasts, and again rocketed towards Starman.

At the last instant, Starman zoomed aside, and the villain flashed by him. Ted got a better look: the villain appeared to be human, wearing a silvery skin-tight costume topped by a transparent spherical helmet, except that his skin was green. But he wasn't human, and Ted had once again underestimated him.

The villain's right arm stretched until he could reach Starman, and then his fingers elongated to snare Starman inside his force field bubble. The stranger squeezed, and his strength was such that Ted could feel the pressure build up. It wasn't critical yet, but Starman was being dragged along with his foe, and the stranger was turning to engage in close combat. Starman quickly commanded as much energy as the Cosmic Rod could channel and expanded his shield. Realizing that his grip was about to be broken, the stranger whipped his arm around and threw Starman, force field and all, at the closest giant boulder, which shattered when Ted struck with stunning force!

Ted needed a few moments to recover. He used the gravity control powers of the Cosmic Rod to exponentially increase the gravitational attraction of the stranger's body, and suddenly, all the nearby debris started slamming into the villain with battering force, and then burying him in a ball of rock. Starman hoped his foe would be rendered helpless - he couldn't channel this much power for very long! He held out as long as he could, until several thousand more tons of rock had slammed into the growing ball, then blasted the ball with a heat beam, hoping to melt the surface rocks and more firmly bind it together.

For a few seconds, he thought he had won, but then the ball of rock exploded. Once again Ted was bombarded with fragments of the shattered asteroid, and once again his force shield protected him. He was surprised when the Cosmic Rod reproduced the sound of his opponent's voice.

"Earthman, surrender. You are strong but no match for Quork, 'The Mangler from Mars'!" Ted could hear the quotes around the arrogant title the Martian gave himself "And my allies approach even as we battle."

Through the debris surrounding them, the Cosmic Rod was able to identify moving power sources that appeared to be spaceships, surrounding the two foes. He turned his attention back to Quork, but his opponent had vanished! An instant later, his now-invisible foe slammed into his force bubble, wrapped it in the elongated fingers of one hand, and started pounding on it with the other. Ted could feel the power in those awesome blows through feedback from the Cosmic Rod, and he quickly realized that his shield wouldn't last for long - this guy had strength in Hourman's class, at least!

Any one of those blows would kill him instantly, if his shield failed. Ted unleashed a torrent of high amperage electricity on the surface of his shield, but Quork seemed to be unaffected. But the sparkling, glowing current had done its part, outlining the invisible figure for just an instant. Hoping his next action wouldn't be fatal to his foe, Starman slammed Quork's helmet with 2 solid beams of energy, striking from opposite sites - and the material of the helmet shattered!

Quork instantly became visible, and his body snapped back to its normal form - and then his head withdrew into his spacesuit, and he clamped his hand over the hole at the neck. The hand grew to become a patch, and Quork managed to survive brief exposure to vacuum. Ted heard a sort of humming noise, coming from Quork and transmitted to him by touch, and then the villain disappeared. At the same time, one of the space ships blasted towards him at high velocity, seemingly intent on ramming. Ted was much more maneuverable, and easily slipped aside, but once more he had underestimated his enemy. When the speeding space ship was only yards away from the hero, it exploded violently. And finally, this explosion was enough to knock Starman unconscious.