by CSyphrett
Petty Officer Mar Tyr, a Korugarian with a scarred visage and a gaze as hard as the alloyed bulkheads surrounding him, was going through the motions of a duty watch in the pirate base’s control room. The hum of the consoles was a monotonous lullaby, the screens a tableau of tranquility. No threats loomed on the horizon, no alarms pierced the silence. It was routine, until it wasn’t.
The air shimmered, and a figure materialized, draped in a cloak that bore the emblem of the Green Lantern Corps. Tyr’s heart hammered against his ribs, a drumbeat of panic as he jumped to his feet. He had thought himself safe from the reach of the law, hidden in the nebula’s embrace, but the law had arrived in the heart of the pirate’s domain.
With a snarl, Tyr drew his blaster, the weight familiar and comforting in his grip. He wouldn’t be dragged back to the cold cells of justice without a fight. His finger squeezed the trigger, unleashing a barrage of yellow energy bolts that tore through the apparition and into both the equipment and the unsuspecting crew alike.
Chaos erupted. The room became a cacophony of blaster fire and shouts. Tyr’s comrades, thinking he had completely lost his mind, turned their weapons on him. The Korugarian danced a macabre jig as the bolts found their mark, and then he crumpled, a puppet with its strings cut.
“What in the Lokir was that?” bellowed a crewman, using his boot to kick the heavy blaster away from the lifeless body. “Tyr just went crazy on us!”
But the figure in the cloak stood unharmed, an illusion woven by the ring’s power. Noleon Fae watched from above, still hidden. The Green Lantern’s presence had sown discord, a seed that would sprout into fear and suspicion among the pirates.
The crewman spat on Tyr’s body, his eyes scanning the room for any sign of the phantom menace. “Clean this mess up,” he growled, “and keep your eyes peeled. Somethin’ funny is goin’ on.”
Fae’s smile was invisible, but it was there, nonetheless. His plan to turn the pirates against each other was already in motion. Justice, it seemed, could be as cunning as it was relentless.
***
The bridge crew of the pirate satellite were blissfully unaware as Noleon Fae lined them up in invisible crosshairs. They simply continued their routine tasks, oblivious to the impending chaos.
Then Fae’s laughter broke the silence as he conjured a pack of spectral beasts, a nightmarish blend of canine ferocity and reptilian cunning. The creatures materialized amidst the pirates, their ethereal forms snarling and snapping. The pirates, caught off-guard, unleashed a storm of blaster fire, spraying the room and not watching where they aimed as long as they hit the sudden threat.
Flames erupted from damaged consoles, and men were tossed like rag dolls by the relentless assault of the spectral pack. Amidst the pandemonium, some pirates fell victim to friendly fire, their backs pierced by panicked shots from their own comrades. The beasts had sown utter disarray.
With the bridge destroyed, Fae shifted his focus to the power room. He found the generators humming with energy, the lifeblood of the satellite. With a thought, he transformed the air around the machinery into a maelstrom of super-heated plasma. Metal and circuitry melted away, leaving a gaping wound in the heart of the satellite. Emergency lights flickered to life, casting an ominous red glow.
The PA system crackled to life, its voice echoing through the corridors. “Abandon ship,” it commanded. “All crews report to your ships and lift. A Green Lantern is somewhere on board.”
The crew, now a frenzied mob, scrambled from the room in panic. Fae, still unseen, frowned at the oversight. Should’ve made sure about the PA, he decided, and made a mental note to account for such details in the future.
Descending to the hangar, Fae observed the chaos below. Three ships, their crews either absent or indifferent, jostled for position, desperate to escape the compromised satellite. Another ship was sealing its hatches, ready to depart, while the last two were just beginning to stir, their engines igniting with a roar.
Fae acted with precision, unleashing a wave of antigravity that sent the third ship careening into its neighbors. The collision was catastrophic, the ships crumpling under the force like toys in the grip of a giant. The three remaining ships, now free of obstruction, scattered into the void, each taking a different path to evade capture.
The Green Lantern dispatched three glowing constructs, shaped like insects, to track the fleeing ships. As long as they didn’t use yellow to block their signals, Fae would be able to locate them later. His immediate concern was bringing the captured pirates to justice. The sooner he could deliver his catch to a civilized world’s authorities for their day in court, the sooner he could track down the escaped ships.
Maneuvering around the satellite-turned-derelict husk before him, which he found to be almost entirely made of metal, he used his ring to summon two colossal Krayt dragons from the ether. Using only directed magnetism, the glowing green creations pushed against the satellite, propelling it into the nebula without ever making contact with its yellow-painted hull. Fae accelerated the mass, building momentum to carry it through the cloud and beyond.
Once clear of the nebula, the satellite would drift toward a planet that had suffered at the hands of these pirates, a world where law reigned and justice awaited.
***
Noleon Fae stood resolute as he handed over the captured pirates to the planetary authorities. Among the sea of defeated faces, one was notably absent: Nebula Jav Gozar. Fae’s mind raced as he focused on the signals from his planted bugs. Two responded with the immediacy of loyal hounds, but the third remained ominously silent.
Convinced that Gozar was on a spacecraft that was shrouded in yellow, and thus blocking the signal, Fae decided to track down the other two ships. Summoning his winged steed, a creature of pure energy and determination, the Green Lantern pursued the first ship with the grace of a rider on horseback, expecting to bag the wily pirates before the day was out.
Easily shooting after his first quarry, the chase was swift and of little trouble except for dodging a few missiles and slicing beams aimed in his direction. With precision, Fae sheared the exposed gray engine section from the rest of the sleek body, leaving it adrift. Conjuring a tentacled beast from the depths of his imagination, he ensnared the crippled vessel and used it to drag his prisoners back for trial along with the pirates he had captured earlier.
The second ship fell just as easily to Fae’s might, but Gozar was not aboard either craft. The continued silence from the third bug gnawed at Fae’s patience as he realized that he would have to wait for Gozar to resurface when he robbed someone else. Finding himself at a loss to proceed, he reminded himself that he was still a Green Lantern, and he could not afford to simply wait for evil to reappear. Since all he could do was wait, he decided to put the time to good use.
Hours passed as Noleon Fae spent the time in deep thought, hatching a scheme to track down Nebula Jav Gozar. Finally, after recharging his power ring, he stealthily made his way back to the same nebula that had served as the pirate’s haven.
His ring easily sniffed out the trails the three ships had left in their wake as they fled the nebula. Two paths he dismissed, since he had already captured them and the fleeing pirates found within. The third, however, beckoned him onward, and he set out on the trail left behind by his bug as it passed through space.
Yellow might block the signal and prevent detection where it was currently located, but it could not hide the energy trail from a Lantern’s ring. Following the spectral breadcrumbs, Fae soon reached a lonely desert planet. Cloaked in a canvas of yellow sands, the desert planet contained a vast expanse of sand and wind that could seemingly hide secrets from the prying eyes of the universe. There it was that the trail vanished, as if swallowed by the planet itself.
Hovering in orbit, Fae’s brow furrowed against the planet’s howling winds. Gozar was a ghost, invisible to the ring’s scan as long as he remained hidden by the yellow sands. What could he bring to bear to penetrate this veil of secrecy? The answer came to him after several long moments of consideration.
With a thought, Fae aimed his ring at the planet and willed into existence an armada of sea anemones, whose delicate tendrils then cast sonar waves across the planet’s surface. The search was meticulous, a symphony of echoes and responses until, finally, they made contact and locked on to an unmistakably metallic signature that pulsed beneath the sands.
Fae’s net of energy tightened, a beacon of green amidst the yellow storm as he pinpointed the general area where the large amount of metal had been detected. And the hunter prepared himself to claim his elusive prey.
Taking a moment to make himself invisible to detection, he then descended toward the surface. Solidifying the very air that whipped around him, he formed a protective shield that would act as a barrier against the abrasive sand and grit thrown by the swirling wind.
Above the spot where his sonar had detected an anomaly, Fae summoned a creature of his own design, a behemoth that resembled a natural ramjet. It was a masterstroke of his power ring, a construct that could suck in air at one end and expel it from the other. The creature began its work, inhaling the air with a voracious appetite and magnifying the wind’s fury against the desert floor.
Mountains of sand shifted, revealing the hidden craft that had eluded him for so long. Fae maintained his invisibility as he pondered his next move. The ship was bathed in yellow, a color that defied his usual methods. But Fae would not let himself be deterred from cracking through the ship.
The Flarain’s musings were cut short by a sudden burst of plasma as the ship attempted a desperate escape. The force of its cold-jump sent Fae tumbling to the ground, the yellow sand knocking him out and threatening to overwhelm him. Yet it was his indomitable will that restored him to consciousness, the same will that had defined his tenure as a Green Lantern.
Regaining his bearings, Noleon Fae pursued his quarry with renewed vigor, jetting into the atmosphere after his prey. Within a moment he had already closed with the yellow-hued vessel. Entering one of three treacherous exhaust tubes for the engine, he considered it fortunate that the ship’s plume was a harmless blue and the interior of the nozzle was scorched black. Within, he conjured a puffer fish of colossal proportions, expanding it through the walls of the exhaust tube.
With the ship’s thrust disrupted, the vessel was forced to slowly turn around, its course altered by the unexpected interference. Nebula Jav Gozar might have corrected the uneven thrust from his remaining two engines, given enough time. But time was a luxury Fae was not inclined to grant the elusive pirate chief.
Emerging from the exhaust tube, Fae transformed the puffer into a bovine creature, its horns massive and ready to strike. With a mere thought, he propelled the construct forward, slamming into the ship’s exposed darker metal. The impact sent the craft spiraling down to the planet’s surface, a victim of Fae’s relentless pursuit.
As the dust settled, Fae watched with a hint of satisfaction. It had been a long chase, but finally he was within grasping distance of his quarry. As he slowly approached, his eyes scanned for the one who had started it all while humanoids scrambled from the crippled ship, their figures dwarfed by the vast desert. His ring soon confirmed that Gozar was not among the escapees, who could be dealt with later. The rest of the crew were merely remnants of a larger game, a testament to his persistence. But it was their captain who was the prize, and Fae would not rest until justice was served.
The Green Lantern descended the entrance ladder with the grace of a seasoned warrior, his form silhouetted against the desert sands outside. Upon his lapel he affixed a construct resembling a star-shaped flower, its emerald glow a stark contrast to the dimly lit bridge of Nebula Jav Gozar’s damaged starcraft. The pirate captain, a gaunt figure with a face etched in disdain, lounged in his command chair, his spindly fingers tented in mock greeting.
“What do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Gozar inquired, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I’m here to escort you back to Alvarsia, where you’ll serve out the sentence given you for your crimes,” Fae replied, his voice steady, his tail betraying a flicker of irritation.
“And how, pray tell, do you propose to do that?” Gozar challenged, a smirk playing on his lips. “I cannot be moved from my chair, especially not by the likes of you. And that’s just as well, since I’m quite comfortable where I am.”
“We’ll see about that,” Fae said, grimly aiming his ring directly at Gozar as he attempted to place the pirate leader in glowing green shackles.
The air crackled with tension as mental force began to beat against Noleon Fae’s mind, an invisible battle of wills commencing between two apparent equals. Suddenly, Fae found himself hurled across the room, his body crashing into the control console with a resounding thud.
“Seems your much-vaunted will is faltering, Lantern,” Gozar smugly taunted, reveling in his apparent victory.
Before Fae could respond, the pirate merely waved one hand, and the Green Lantern was thrown into a light fixture above, which shattered upon impact. It was only thanks to his quick thinking that he had barely managed to erect a protective shield before enduring the terrific impact.
Still, Fae was undeterred. “My will resides right here,” he declared, exerting his will into the star on his lapel. A blinding pulse of light and a roaring sound then erupted from the star in a directed pulse, the chaotic disruption blinding and defeaning Gozar and thus tipping the scales back in Fae’s favor.
With a swift motion, Noleon Fae summoned a six-legged dragon construct that smashed Gozar through the back of his chair. The pirate lay defeated and motionless as if dead, but the telltale signs of shallow breathing indicated that he was still alive. Thinking back on all of Gozar’s victims, the Green Lantern momentarily wished the pirate leader really was dead. That would have made things much simpler for the lawman. Still, with any luck, his foe would live out the rest of his days in prison.
***
In a quiet office beneath Noleon Fae’s home on the planet Alvarin, a board adorned with countless notices stood as a testament to his mission. His three-fingered hand scanned the array until it found its target — a wanted poster bearing Gozar’s name. With a flick of his ring, the paper disintegrated into a burst of green flame. Nebula Jav Gozar’s reign of terror had come to an end.
Yet, as Fae surveyed the rest of the wanted posters, he knew Gozar was hardly unique. Other criminals still lurked in the shadows of his sector of space, and some he knew were ready to capitalize on the void left by the capture of the notorious pirate. He had his work cut out for him, but that was why Noleon Fae had become a Green Lantern in the first place. For, wherever lawlessness reigned, this ring-slinger would do his best to protect the innocent and deliver justice.
The End