2013.07.01 - Sagan with a side of Gar-liq

-24 hours ago-

Long range scans of the Milky way galaxy detects a warship approaching Earth at FTL speeds. That LRP sends detailed information back to the computers of its owner and creator on Earth..

-Now-

Hal has been after this particular warlord for almost six months. He started his conquest in Septoid IV, a moon surrounding a small colony world at the edge of Sector 2814... and has sense decided to hit the Lantern where it hurts.

Home.

It's the kind of 'men in black' tale that the people of Earth would shiver in their boots about, if they were to ever find out it was happening. A lone Intergalactic Police Officer against an Cardian Attack Ship? Insanity.

Hal doesn't seem to think so. Hovering out in the black of space with the faint green glow outlining him as he stares down the heavily armed war machine. "Last chance to do this the easy way, Garliq." His name is Ga-Rliq... Hal just can't help calling him Gar-lic. It gets him so riled up.

It wasn't as long a trip as Reed had expected. The upgraded engines of the 'Sagan' worked perfectly. Cutting the normal 24 hour trip in half. But 12 hours at hyper-speeds was enough time for him to go over the scans of the 'buoy' left behind months ago.

Sitting on the bridge of the space craft, Reed continues to go over the information from the 'Aeryn' DSP. Yes, hes a nerd and naming things after scifi helps him keep track.

Sue Storm didn't have nearly as much to keep her entertained as Reed did, so when her two movies and the several dozen books on her e-reader stopped holding her interest, she decided to take the time to take a nap. That's where she is currently, laying down asleep along a low bench space probably built for this very reason. She's been asleep for a good few hours already.

-24 hour in-flight movie-

Tactical data indicate this Warship is built of an unknown alien compound similar to Earth's Inconel 625. One star system in the 'known' Galaxy is said to have stores of this element, Cladia Alpha. One of a series of six planetoids surrounding a White star nearing the end of its life. The life forms of the only inhabitable planet in that system, from diagnostic scans of the interior of the ship, would be have hardened exoskeletons similar to an Earth scorpion or other insects.

They would also have a sulfur based ecosystem, making them particularly resilient to fire.. Their proximity to their sun makes it likely that their planet would be relatively equivalent to Earth's oceans... only it's lava.

-Now-

This becomes important almost immediately.

The Lantern is probably a difficult thing to spot against the crimson hull of this ginormous ship fashioned in the shape of some carapaced creature... but there Hal floats, facing down this vessel as if it were nothing more than a flea.

It's just a flea that starts launching 'other' fleas... small manned 'mechs' with independent flight systems begin to swarm out of the things mouth... and it's eyes glow red.. the heating system inside heating the munitions it fires to the temperature of a young star... and fires these projectiles through a magnetic rail system at the small green glowing figure positioned in front of it.

"I guess that's a no?"

Reed had been looking through the readings and scans when something popped out at him that surprised and got him in an excited fluster. Getting up from his seat on the bridge Reed makes his way to the quarters to which Sue took as hers. Then in a giddy of knocks he beacons to the woman beyond. *knock knock knock* "Susan?" *knock knock knock* "Susan?" *knock knock knock* "Susan?"

Sue Storm wakes up at the first knock, by the time he finishes the third, she's looking at Reed with a particularly unimpressed expression. "Seriously, Reed?" She then dismisses her annoyance. "What did you find?" Because really, he wouldn't have woken her without a reason. She rubs at her neck while waiting for his explanation.

The Lantern swoops out of the way of the super heated projectiles and spins in mid flight, a green hand extending out from the middle of his right fist to grab hold of one orange glowing bullet and hurl it back at its origin with blinding speed. Turning his whole body into it and flying off in another direction with both fists extended out ahead of him and a light emerald trail tailing behind him.

"Always want things to be difficult..."

The Mechs have a smaller version of the rail gun and pepper the ring barer as he flies past them. Most sail past harmlessly, but others are caught in a giant green net woven in the black of space. Once the net disappears they're like still, glowing, land mines peppering the battlefield.

The return to sender rocktoid batters against the slow moving capital ship. It blackens the hull and leaves a sizable dent near one of the two forward arcing cannons.

Looking like a kid who got his first lil scientist do-it-yourself supercollider, Reed holds up the small device and pulls his hand away revealing a holographic planet. He looks to the sphere then to Sue again. He's excited. "Sentient species, Susan." He says in almost a giggle. Sure he's met aliens on Earth, but this is different. "And by my calculations we'll be there within a few minutes." And with that Reed scurries back off to the bridge. "Just be ready for a first contact situation!" he adds as he runs off.

Sue Storm simply stares after Reed for a moment before shaking her head and following him. "Have you checked for communications signals already?" It's probably a dumb question, but it was the only thing she could think of on short notice. Hey, she just woke up, okay?

First contact.

Hal bull-rushes right into one of the mechs and tumbles with it through the blackness of open space carried by the momentum of his flight. Both feet plant into the heavily armored chest and push it away from himself and send it tumbling end over end. His ring grabs hold of one of the smaller glowing projectiles and hurls it right at the suit as it tries to right itself with thrusters and cracks the environmental seal, venting their sulfur gas out.

A glance up at the ship as it powers up another pair of shots... easy when they're smaller, not so much from that thing. Clearly, it isn't designed to miss.

Communications? There's communications alright.

"This is Green Lantern of Sector 2814 to all friendly vessels in the area. Cardian fleet inbound.. bring up planetary defenses." Which is on repeat, to various star systems within jump range of the warlord.

Must be a cop thing.

As soon as Reed sits back down the jump clock has all of five seconds on it. That is when the communications panel slides up. -Green Lantern... *krackle* all friendly vessels... *krackle* are.. *krackle* Cardian fleet... *krackle*- As Reed hears this he spins in his command seat to watch Sue come towards the cockpit. There is is. Ready?" he says excited. As soon as he spins back around the 'Sagan' drops from jump space.

Sue Storm settles into a vacant seat and starts fiddling with the Sagan's communication systems, trying to make the incoming signal less staticky. "Reed, what are the chances of other worlds speaking English with a midwestern accent?"

Right into chaos.

The Sagan drops out of FTL amidst the wreckage of several of the mechanized swarmers that spilled out of the warships mouth, bits of their carapace still glowing where their own projectiles were used to bust open the armor. They are not, however, dead... which is likely the strange part. Some have been surrounded in glowing green orbs to keep the atmosphere breathable within.. others weren't damaged badly enough that the suit couldn't lock off the leak.

But each one of them is still alive inside.

A streak of green flashes across the glass of the Sagan, chased by something almost the same size and glowing bright enough to do some JJ Abrams level lens flaring as it passes.

The Lantern spins in mid-flight to eye the new arrival. "Unidentified vessel, this is the Green Lantern of sector 2814. Th-" Both hands come up as the projectile hits him and he barely has enough time to bring up a stronger shield before it cooks him from the inside out.

His face goes tense as he draws on every ounce of strength to slow the orange 'bullet', encase it in green energy, and again hurl it back at the warship from which it originated. His aim is pretty good too because he's hit the same spot leaving a bigger crater and a much darker scorch in the plating.

There is... however.. another of the ships projectiles flying 'RIGHT' at the Sagan. With the Lantern way to far away to intercept it! DUN DUN DUUUUN

Reed's face goes from excited of first contact to that of thoughtfulness and worry. "Good point." As he says this he quickly reinforces the hull shielding and readies for the drop. "Susan. The shields have been upgraded, but only for exploration. If this is a combat situation." he says as he looks at her. "I apologize for dragging you out here. Now hold tight." As the 'Sagan' drops out of the jump Reed's eyes go wide as he sees the projectiles coming at them. "Oops!" Then grabbing the controls Reed puts the ship into a div, followed by a roll before pulling up and into a spin. He's no Han Solo, but Ben taught him some things that's for sure. As Reed does his best to navigate the battle he looks over to Sue again.

Sue Storm is staring out at all of the ... stuff around the Sagan when the green-encased man stops the middle of everything to address them and has to fend off a rather major attack. She gasps and hangs on to the console in front of her even though the Sagan has decently good inertial dampeners. She can't really do much to help at this point. Except... "Reed, do you want me to try and block it?"

Hal again flashes past the Sagan's polarized viewport in pursuit of the projectile that nearly took the vessel out save for Reed's quick thinking. Barrel rolling in his flight path as a pair of the mechanized swarmers attempt to pepper him with more inferno rounds. His fist goes out, lips pressing tight with the effort of stopping the forward momentum of the big chunk of lava rock and hurls it right after the one he threw a few moments before.

"Seriously, Garliq, this is getting silly... Just turn your ship around and head back to Cardia Alpha... I promise your soldiers get a fair trial."

FINALLY the warlord speaks...

In some strange language that practically assault the Sagan's communications with it's guttural clicking and growls. It doesn't sound like an affirmative, though.

See, now there's a new target to attack. One that will split the Lantern's attention dealing with all the mechs, the warship AND trying to protect the newly arrived vessel.

Several mechs peel off of pursuit of Hal and instead head towards the Sagan, charging their weapons as they approach.

Coming back around the Sagan dives again. Reed visually scans the area quickly. "If you can Susan." he says as he continues to watch. "But I may need you for something risky." he adds ad he pulls up. "Find the Green Lantern fellow on the scanner and put it up where he is on the HUD. And when we get a chance. We're going to catch him in the airlock. Like Johnny did that Christmas when he put your car in your aunt's garage sideways." As he's speaking his eyes are darting around watching for attacks. "You up for this?" he asks her as he again looks to her.

Sue Storm takes a shaky breath, then nods. "I'm ready." And, just in case, she does something equally risky first: she puts a force field around the Sagan then abruptly makes it expand outward by several yards, pushing everything around the ship away before the field disappears again. The gamble costs her, though, as she winces and has to hastily wipe away the first indication of a nosebleed.

Hal is flying right at the warship, sparing a glance back as the Sagan does some pretty fancy flying around the swarmers who peeled off to intercept it. "Note to self... say something nice to the pilot..." Then he's facing back forward, rolling out of the way of smaller lava munition shots from a mechanoid that came up from beneath him.

His body twists, back turning to the glow of the orange barrels on the warship and grabs hold of the mech, still turning the whole thing is thrown right at the same scorched dent he's been hammering with the ships own weaponry.

Another mech flies past him on its way to engage the Sagan and catches smashes into a huge orange wall. He's deliberately keeping his constructs simple, short bursts of power in this prolonged fight, but the bubbles he's using to keep the damaged mechs 'safe' is draining the rings power entirely too quickly.

So when the ship fires again he doesn't brave trying to catch another burst, he instead flies away from it.. leaving a green trail behind him.

The expanding bubble around the Sagan is amply timed it would seem. Several of the mechs were powering up their guns on the ship and, instead of their target, end up having the molten hot projectiles thrown right back at them. Not to mention being sent into a dead uncontrolled spin when the shockwave temporarily knocks out their thrusters.

On the HUD, the Lantern is like a bouncing green pinball, but for a few seconds he passes right in front of them... if there's a risky trick to be pulled it looks like this is the time to pull it.

As the Sagan jostles from the attacks Reed keeps track of the green dot on his HUD, with glances to Sue. "Okay Sue, drop your bubble and get to the airlock. I need you there as a buffer because he will be coming in fast and I need you to slow him down." As hes talking Reed starts to type into a panel beside him. "Once he's in be prepared to put your shield up just a millimeter inside the ships shielding on my mark. Okay?" He's up to something. She should know this by now.

Sue Storm keeps one hand squeezing her nostrils closed as she nods to Reed and scrambles toward the airlock. She's not totally following where his mind is going, but she trusts him more than enough to do exactly as he says regardless. She gets to the airlock and with one last thoughtless wipe at her nose, she puts her hands on either side of the airlock door and seals herself and the door in a force field, so no matter what happens the rest of the ship won't lose air pressure. "Ready."

Bringing the Sagan in close to the Lantern as safely and as calculated as possible, Reed pulls hard on the controls causing the ship to turn sideways. He doesn't compensate for the momentum and puts the ship into what can only be called a slide. -Open the airlock in five, four, three, two, one... Open! And catch!- Reed's voice echoes over the ships intercom. Its all on Sue now. He waits for a few breathless seconds. All the while still typing something into the panel at his side.

Hal is pushing himself to the very edge of oblivion on this one. He should have called in for backup, he shouldn't have tried to take on the warship alone. Inside, he knows this, but he cannot bring himself to admit it. Another mech comes at him, swinging it's over sized fist hard enough to crack stone... a death blow, that is swatted away by a giant green hand, which deftly wraps around the swarmer and hurls it back at the ship smashing into that same spot with enough force to 'finally' crack the hull...

It's not going to bring it down, not by a long shot, but it's definitely going to leave a mark... Sulfur gas start venting out of the open wound immediately and the pressure inside that ship is dropping like a rock in a water pool.

"I warned you..."

Someone should say the same to Hal. So focused on attacking the ship that he only sees the Sagan sliding in towards him a half second before he's sucked into the open hanger. His momentum has him twirling and bouncing in the sudden change of pressure and his concentration is stretched so thin keeping the bubbles active that he's barely got the where wither not to face plant on the deck plating.

Sue Storm knows she's not fast enough to put a force field where Reed needs it to be while the Green Lantern is 'falling' into the Sagan, so she stacks the deck. She puts a force field around the green-shrouded man before he reaches their ship and the moment he passes through the hull into the airlock his force field fills the airlock space around him and traps him there for the moment. Leaning her forehead on the inside airlock door, Sue maintains the two force fields and yells at Reed, "Got him! Go!"

Hearing Sue, Reed pushes a pulsating green button and punches the engines into high so hard that they start to hum loudly. Even he knows they'll need an overhaul after this escapade. Twenty seconds. During the whole 'run like a rabbit' maneuver, Reed was working on two things at the same time. One was amplifying the shields, at the cost of shutting down all the other systems temporarily. The other was the reconfiguration of the energy output on one of the Sagan's probes. Ten seconds. Like most insects, be them earthbound or sentient they have an uncontrollable need to go towards the brightest light. "Sue! Shield now!" Especially when that light turns out to be a man made pulsar. A pulsar is a bright light that emits high doses of radiation. The ships shields should protect them, even with Reed's tweaking, but with Sue as backup he'll feel better. With his order given Reed hops out of the pilot seat, closes off the bridge behind him and runs to Sue.

One. Times up. As soon as Reed reaches her the ship systems go dark, the engine hum goes quiet and everything stops working. The outer airlock closes of course and the inner opens.

Sue Storm reaches one hand out to Reed and the moment she has physical contact with him, both the force field surrounding them and the one around the Green Lantern go completely opaque.

The Lantern, now righted by Sue's shield, gives her a stern look and then holds his hand out towards the open hanger doors and encases the Sagan in the same green shielding as surrounds himself. More so when he feels the energy building outside.. he's no scientist, but he can see those mechs peeling away towards something exceptionally bright...

The shield, especially with Sue adding to it, is strong enough for this thing to pass through a black hole if the need arises. To skirt the edge of the sun.. it's also strong enough to tax Hal to the point of huffing deep breaths and to leave him leaning against the wall when the lights all go dark.

Outside the mechs head, not towards their port of harbor, but the pulsars bright light.. The warship pulls backwards and stretches out into lines as it jumps away instead of trying to brave whatever weaponry the Sagan has fired to attract it.

Inside the ship, The Green Lantern gives off a continuous green light from the shield that always surrounds him while the ring is active.

"Please tell me you don't speak English and, therefore, didn't understand the 'do not enter' message I was broadcasting?" This, instead of thank you.

He's cocky.

Holding onto Sue, Reed looks at her, concern covering his face. She's taxed herself many a times but never like this. As he looks at her he clears a few stray hairs from her face as well wipes the blood from her nose. "Your message was garbled. Perhaps due to the black hole." Reed says, and he is a scientist. And cocky don't work on him. Lifting Sue in his arms he stands. "I do apologize for our intrusion. We came on a recovery mission for one of my LRP's." he states as he takes Sue back to her suite. As soon as he places her on the bed the power returns to the ship. Taking another glance at her he leaves the suite and looks at the Green Lantern. "My name is Doctor Reed Richards and that young lady there is Susan Storm. We are both from Earth. I meant no harm in coming out here. Just picking up my trash..." Reed looks past the Lantern to a screen. "It seems that my ploy worked. We even had enough momentum to drift away from the gravity well."

Obviously, the force fields Sue created are now gone. And Sue herself doesn't seem likely to wake any time soon.

Hal pushes off the wall with a jut of his shoulder and follows a few steps behind Reed and Sue as the former takes the latter to her suite. "Is she alright?" He asks first. There are any number of other questions he can come up with, for sure... His fists raises, green light pulsating from the ring on his middle finger. "I can heal her." Offered, but he's not letting the other questions go so easily, "I've heard of you, Doctor..." Even if he weren't from Earth himself, anyone who builds crafts that converse the Sector he protects is pretty important information to the Lanterns.

"I'm the Green Lantern. Sorry to seem unappreciative. We don't get a lot of Earth visitors this far into the galaxy. Caught me a little off guard, is all."

"It's alright you were just doing your job. And she is." he says as he looks over his shoulder to Sue again. "I just asked her to push her self too far. She just needs to rest now." Reed adds as he looks back to the panel. Radiation levels are dropping the hull can absorb that with no problem. "So what were those insectoids doing? I take it, judging by their attacks, they're a warring species looking to expand their colony?" Yeah he's using earth science to explain the outer reaches of the galaxy.

Far be it for Hal to push the issue. His hand drops back down to his side, nodding to the doctor's questions. "Something like that. He's something of a psychopath." Said of Garliq, "The Cardians have peaceful colonies on several worlds in the Sector. Garliq blames the eventual, unfortunate destruction of Cardia Alpha on.. just about anything alive." Glancing around at the interior of the ship with his brow raised over his green domino mask. "So, instead of figuring out a way to save the planet, I'm forced to chase him across the sector stopping him from destroying others'."

"Oi watch it, Spaceman!" A purely synthetic yet still somehow slightly abrasive feminine voice emits from the smallish, floating ... thing skirting around Green Lantern. It has a stylized face of sorts, and a small almost-adipose-ish body with no discernible limbs. "And YOU." The odd little robotic creature turns on Reed. "Thanks for NOTHING." What is it all angry about? Difficult to tell. But it does continue on into the room where Sue is resting.

Hearing the familiar voice causes Reed to turn around to look at HERBIE-D. How did she get on here? He wonders to himself before squeezing the bridge of his nose. As his eyes close he asks. "This planet. Is it gone or is it in the process of falling apart?" Reed likes to know these things. Particularly if he can help it from destroying itself.

Hal watches the underfoot Herbie with one brow crawling skyward, "spaceman? Seriously?" pointing two fingers down at it as it heads into Sue's suite, looking at Reed. He shakes his head and sighs, "Never ceases to amaze me, the things we build..." As to the question, he wiggles his hand in a so-so, "It's star is dying, really. Going super nova. It will be engulfed within the next couple of months. Garliq has the system in a blockade, so everyone stuck on the surface can't get off... and he destroys any ships that enter..." Which reminds him, "And I still have to catch him... Uh. Thanks for the assist back there." Begrudging appreciation, but at least he means it. "Which way to the exit?" Pointing up and down the corridors.. "I'll let myself out."