Aleph Short - NO CALM, ONLY STORMS (2008)

Starlight is haunted by events in the recent past, and an old friend returns, transformed into a monstrous threat by an alien society with sinister plans for the entire universe...

Mar 05, 2025

Derek Cross, aka Starlight, by Jorell Rivera (@jorelldoesntsocialize on IG)

NO CALM, ONLY STORMS (2008)

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA:

It was all a dream…

At least, that’s what he hoped. Better a dream than a premonition, better some churn of subconscious turmoil bubbling to the surface and not some vision of the future.

Golden shards of razor-sharp light jutted out from the bodies of his comrades-in-arms, their corpses twisted in obscene shapes and angles. Crimson rain pelted the blackened ground, melting flesh, metal and bone as it ran down every conceivable structure in sight, the downpour acidic and deadly. If anybody had survived the initial attack, the rain would have finished the job. There was no shelter, no safe harbour. Just death and the rain. Silver bands of condensed cosmic energy were rendered dull and lifeless, same as those who wore them. Billions of dead eyes stared up at the sky, even as the suns went out, even as stars grew dim. The interstellar crisis prediction network known as The Crucible had fallen from its pocket dimension. Vast struts of godlike construction and nebula-sized arrays of information-gathering webs obtruded out of planets, extinguished stars, obstructed the space lanes and rendered the galaxy dark, quiet and isolated. And all across the universe, obscene monsters marched across world after world, nobody capable of standing against them, no hope of escape, no hope of survival. An army of ungodly creatures, led by ancient enemies, cosmic horrors and long-dead allies dragged back to life for the sole purpose of betrayal. The universe was on fire. Nobody could survive it. Not even him. The Starlight Infinitum had fallen. One last death for the legion of once-resurrected interstellar warriors. No hope of return. The leader of the army turned and looked at Derek, his face rippling with hatred and then reached out to grab him by the throat--

Derek Cross woke with a start, clutching his neck. His heart raced even as he took gulping, heavy breaths. He was a large man with broad shoulders and a body packed with muscle that meant when he made such sudden movements, his entire bed creaked. He was a practical man with practical muscles, half-maintained by the weights he had in his apartment and half-maintained due to the fact his body was fuelled by a pair of cosmic bands that energised him via a constant state of ambient radiation absorption. His life was very strange, which also made sense considering how disconcerting his dreams had become.

Beside him, his girlfriend Heidi Wallace rolled over, stirred from her slumber by his sudden, frantic jolt from horizontal to upright. "Derek?" she whispered, half asleep but warming up to waking.

He dismissed the concern in her voice with a gentle shake of his head. "I’m fine, I’m sorry."

"The dream?" she asked.

"I can’t seem to shake it."

Every night for how many nights? He’d lost count. Over a year, for sure. And nothing seemed to shake it. Golden shards. He knew what it meant. He knew what he was seeing. But that was the only thing. He knew what the sickly, sparkling aureatic energy signified, but everything else? Enemies with their faces obscured, but the nagging sense that he knew them, either personally or via his intimate connection to The Crucible’s processors. Red rain? Could it be fire? Blood? He didn’t know.

"Do you want to tell me about it? You never go into detail. Just say it’s bad. Maybe talking about it would help?"

Heidi was one of the bodies in the piles that littered the ground. Not piles. Mounds. Mountains. So many bodies. And she was there, her eyes as empty and devoid of life as the rest. Her throat torn out; a scream caught forever on rigor mortised lips.

"I don’t think it would."

"You need to tell somebody."

"Heidi, it’s the end of the world. The end of everything. I see everything ending in my dreams. With how weird my life has gotten; I don’t know if it’s a premonition or bad food before bed or whatever."

Derek laughed softly and rubbed his wrists where his cosmic bands were bound to him. They didn’t appear unless he wanted them to and if he wasn’t in costume. If he wasn’t going all out as Starlight, he preferred to keep them hidden. But he still felt them. Felt their weight.

"Going on four years of this life, doing what I can do, travelling space and fighting the weirdest shit you could possibly imagine, and the thing that’s working me up the most is a bad dream. Fuck."

"This last year has been hard, you said it yourself. You did more, lost more. You lost friends. You’re allowed to feel messed up," said Heidi.

Friends. Valentina sacrificed herself to allow The Crucible to re-emerge into this reality. To defeat the K-ARDA K-AI before they could destroy the interstellar network that allowed the Infinitum to operate. Ryad saved the surviving members of the group, as well as their allies, from being pulled into the event horizon of the anomaly that dragged the K-ARDA K-AI to their doom.

In saving them, he opened himself up to be dragged down into the dark underverse of space-time and was lost to them too. Valentina was only eighteen. She had her whole life ahead of her. And because Derek didn’t have what it took to save them, all that potential was lost. Like she had never even existed in the first place.

"I need to man up. Everyone worries. I'm a superhero. I fly around space, through stars and comets and all kinds of crazy shit. I need to be--"

"Shut up. Shut the fuck up with that macho bullshit. ‘Man up’. Do you hear yourself right now? Derek, you’re a human being, just like everyone else. You’re a human being. You’re allowed to have anxieties; you’re allowed to feel messed up. Jesus Christ, you need to accept that, else you’re going to go mad."

Derek had never seen Heidi so riled up before and the worst part of it was that every single word coming out of her mouth was the truth. He knew it. Had tried to deny it. Failed time and again

Maybe his putting on a brave face meant that the truth was further away than he truly felt.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

"I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not myself and you’re right. I need to talk to somebody."

Heidi stroked his face gently. "Listen, I’m not going to recommend you speak to my therapist, because I don’t want him knowing that I’m lying about how amazing you are, but I’ll see if he has anyone he can recommend. I’ll do it tomorrow, okay?"

"You’re the best," said Derek, kissing her gently.

"I know. Now try to get back to sleep. Things’ll look better in the morning."

AKABAN, HOME WORLD OF THE YISH:

Binary stars slowly dragged themselves across a purple swathed sky. Shadows cast in ornate and fascinating ways throughout the cityscape that seemed to have grown from the ripe, green dirt below. The metropolis loomed precariously over the planet itself, held aloft by a thicket of dense roots that twisted into the foundation plate of the city, keeping it from plummeting back down from where it had initially been built.

Occasionally, the root system would experience growth spurts, lifting the city higher still, but the transparent dome that covered the architecture ensured that if it breached the invisible border between aired and airless atmosphere, the inhabitants would survive.

This was the planet Akaban, adopted home world of the Yish, one of the most dangerous races in the universe. White haired and olive-green-skinned, the species were humanoid in appearance, with two arms, two legs, two eyes, the usual assortment of humanoid features-- but they were elongated in every conceivable way. They topped out at nine feet tall, with small heads and piercing black eyes that glistened with starlight. They wore white robes and bronze accessories. At this moment in time, a gathering had assembled in their central plaza, the council of the planet pursuing a long-held agenda to its next stage.

"There’s an instability in the energy matrix; the overlay isn’t holding. It can’t last," said Scientist-Elect Uwe. She was surrounded by the councillors, answering their questions as best she could. There was an urgency to her words, while those interrogating her answers seemed almost laissez-faire in their responses.

"How long will it last?" asked one.

"There’s no way to be sure. But the more she expends the powers we have given her, the sooner the matrix will be rejected from her body. If we’re not careful, she could lose power in space, or in a hostile environment. Without the modifications, she would almost certainly die."

"Is that a note of concern in your voice? You never cared about her wellbeing before."

Uwe pursed her lips, considering the question posed to her. It was true. She never wanted the Earther specimen to be the one to wield the power matrices she had designed. It had been a long year working on her but it would be a lie to say she hadn’t grown fond of the subject in that time.

She cleared her throat and replied. "She is an experiment. I do not want to lose data due to an unforeseen outage."

"What is your plan now, Uwe?"

"I have been measuring energy expenditure in connection to the matrices output, so I will have a full accounting of the current modification’s lifespan soon. I recommend controlled exercises to the point where the specimen is fully divested of the abilities we gave to her."

"That seems wasteful?"

"Better to know the limits of the matrices now, rather than in battle," said Uwe.

"That does seem wasteful."

The councillors all turned as a new voice entered the fray and gasped as its owner, the Queen Transcendent Qwi, entered the plaza. She was the most powerful person on the entire planet and the sight of her made Uwe drop to her knees in reverence. The queen was flanked by her elite guard of Sentinels, their faces obscured by their veils, each member wielding a white power staff mounted with a Yish energy crystal, an element capable of channelling destructive energy with a gesture.

Qwi raised her hands and the councillors fell silent. "The Crucible has fully manifested into prime-reality. The K-ARDA K-AI failed in their blockade and now the Infinitum is gathering in number. I am disappointed in our allies attempts to prevent The Crucible’s return, but it isn’t as if we didn’t anticipate this potentiality. We must continue our efforts, despite these setbacks."

"What would you have me do, Queen Transcendent?" asked Uwe.

"Before it is too late, before her time expires, release the Thaumaturge. Direct her to Earth, to do battle with the Earther Starlight. If there is to be hope of a universe with an Infinitum, we must know now if your experiments with the Yith are viable. If they are, then we will begin the conscription. We will open our doors to the universe and welcome in those who believe in peace and prosperity as we do: Through domination."

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA:

The nightmares seemed distant when Derek awoke at dawn. Of course, they lingered on the periphery of his memories, they hadn’t gone away in the scant few hours of additional sleep he had clawed back. Distance was better than ever-presence.

As he slipped out of bed, he was careful not to wake Heidi. He used his cosmic bands to muffle the sounds of his movements into nothingness, creating a null zone, an absence, so he couldn’t even hear himself breathing. He closed his eyes and his Starlight uniform formed across his body. Dressed, he passed through the molecules of the nearest wall, out of Heidi’s apartment and headed up into the sky. By the time he hit the lower atmosphere, he was already feeling better. He corkscrewed onto his back and flew with the world below him and space spread out in front of him.

"How are we doing today?" he asked.

From across the universe, The Crucible’s artificial voice flowed through the circuits in his cosmic bands and fed information straight into his mind. No disasters, no crises, nothing that he had to be concerned about right now. In that odd, disjointed way of its, The Crucible simply said, <Localised weather is optimum for flying.>

"You’re telling me," replied Derek. He careened down, picking up speed, the wind lapping into his face and he concentrated on blocking out that feeling-- and his forcefield abided. "Any messages for me?"

"And how’s Scott doing?"

Scott Bradshaw, retired astronaut and sole survivor of the Kurtzberg Mars expedition, had been inducted into the Infinitum fairly recently, but made an impact in that short time. He was instrumental in clearing the K-ARDA K-AI blockade that prevented the full manifestation of The Crucible into reality. Despite his brief tenure, he had been instrumental in saving countless lives already. He had stayed behind with the other members of the Infinitum when Derek returned to Earth, hoping to learn from some of the more experienced members of the group, like the elephantine Turt Garash and aquiline Yajish K’ir. Derek never had the opportunity for such training, the circumstances of his induction into the group a lot less conventional than everybody else’s. His new partner seemed to relish the opportunity. The gloomy astronaut had even cracked a smile once or twice, according to Turt.

Derek didn’t know what he was expecting. He was flying low now, somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean, skimming his hand across the crashing waves of the sea’s surface. "And how are you doing?"

<Doing?>

"Yeah, how are you doing, Crucible? How are you feeling being back in reality after operating on low all these years? It’s got to be nice to spread your wings a bit?"

The AI-scendant were the recorded neural pathways of the entire Ascendant race, the creators of The Crucible, the architects of the entire Infinitum project. With the hard reset provided by Valentina’s recharging of The Crucible’s network when it re-entered reality, the AI-scendant became active as eons as a dormant subroutine in The Crucible’s systems.

And they were assholes.

<Agreed. Incoming sub-space transmission from Starlight Garash; accept call?>

"I guess so, thank you," said Derek.

Turt Garash's trunked face sprang up in front of Derek, glazed in the silver energy that flowed through the Infinitum’s bodies. The projection maintained a half-metre distance as Derek continued to fly across the ocean, regardless of his speed. It was an odd experience to know this man. For an alien, he really did just resemble an elephant on its hind legs, walking and talking like a man. His left ear was tattered from catching plasma in a firefight and his right tusk had been shattered in the final battle with the K-ARDA K-AI, but his blue eyes and toothy grin made him look less like a hardened space warrior and more like the protagonist of a children’s book series.

<"Hey up, Derek. How’re you doing?"> asked Turt.

"I’m doing okay, man. Whereabouts are you right now?"

<"We’re exploring a weird cosmic event in the Thobos nebula, which is about, well, it’s as far away as I could probably get from you.">

Turt’s grin almost caused his face to distort in projection form, but the construct remained intact. Derek marvelled at the idea that he was speaking to someone a trillion miles away from his current location, in real time. Their words translated so they could understand each other. Another wonder of The Crucible’s design.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" asked Derek.

<"We picked up some sort of spatial anomaly that we project is headed toward Earth. Looks like it’s travelling down some kind of subluminal pathway, but it isn’t on The Crucible’s maps, so it falls into the flagged column. Weird shit flies through space all the time, but with the attention your little backwater world’s been getting recently, it might be worth heading off before it gets closer.">

"How am I supposed to head off something travelling down a top-secret subluminal tunnel?"

<"Efficiently, I recommend… and in your own, imitable way,"> said Turt.

"Right, do you have the projected course it’s taking?"

<"Uploaded to The Crucible for your peruse-able,"> replied Turt.

"Thanks, man. I’ll let you know if it’s anything worth knowing about."

<"I’m sure it's nothing you can't handle by your lonesome, but if you need any help, best be calling for it ASAP and we’ll come running. But like I said… I’m sure you’ll be fine.">

Turt’s head dissolved and Derek came to an abrupt stop in the middle of nowhere, waves crashing all around him, but his shield keeping him from getting wet. The Crucible plotted the course he needed to travel and then he looked up and shot straight into orbit and out of the gravitational pull of the planet. It took him twenty seconds. He had moved at 13,000mph without breaking a sweat. Seventeen times the speed of sound, just like that, the only evidence the abrupt pop that he was already an atmosphere away from before it could reach his ears.

Derek Cross had died four years ago. And now his life was one of marvels and miracles.

He was suddenly in space-- quite simply, quite easily-- and he loved it. He took a moment to reacquaint himself with the directionless logistics and then found himself sailing toward where Turt's information upload told him to be.

His target was over 120,000 miles away from Earth and nearly 264,400 miles away from the moon. The location lacked the specificity he would have expected from a pre-planned alien invasion. When Earth was the target of something sinister, the warp arrival point was a lot more equidistant between two points and he appreciated the consistency, the adhering to a pattern, that came with such detail-orientated invaders.

"Spatial anomalies, subluminal tunnels off the beaten path, kicking out between Earth and the moon. Convenient."

At his top, relativistic speed, it would take him over nine hours to reach the location of the spatial distortion. He could go lightspeed, but he would easily overshoot the mark and then it would be a case of flitting back and forth and back and forth and back again before even getting close. So, nine hours it was, which was another day lost to this strange little re-life he found himself in.

"I get we’re going to fly toward the arrival point, but how long until the spatial anomaly actually reaches us?"

"Then let’s get a move on. You okay to handle the travel? I slept but I don’t feel rested, so shutting down higher brain functions for the duration might perk me up."

Derek closed his eyes.

Days ago, The Crucible, the vast, galaxy-sized array that powered the Infinitum, had managed to send out one last data burst to the scant number of beings connected to its network. The K-ARDA K-AI, obsidian black automatons capable of adapting to any threat stood against them, intended to sever the dimensional lock that kept The Crucible’s pocket dimension tethered to the prime reality. It would be lost in the void; the members of the Infinitum would lose their power and the K-ARDA K-AI would rampage unopposed across the universe.

"--I have to do this-- there’s no other way--!"

They were in a ghost zone. The Crucible was being barraged with plasma bolts from every direction by the militant forces of the K-ARDA K-AI. Their plan was simple: If the K-ARDA K-AI managed to hold it back, keep it from migrating fully from this pocket dimension to the prime reality, then this ghost zone would crumble into the ether, the ancient machinery of The Crucible would break away and the Infinitum would lose everything. And so would the universe.

The initial plan to brute force The Crucible through the K-ARDA K-AI lines had failed. Their back-up plans involved tethering the immense bulk of The Crucible to their cosmic bands. If they could exit the pocket dimension, then so would the array, ushered to safety by the connection it shared with its champions. But now the Infinitum were beyond enemy lines, their backs to the wall, an armada of K-ARDA K-AI units standing between them and the way out from the ghost zone. The Crucible was falling.

Their greatest asset, the super-charged Valentina Ladrón was losing her grip on reality, the near infinite supply of energy inside her body causing her to start splitting at the seams. The vast reserves of power she contained had started to rip the edges of her existence and now the cracks forming across her body were leaking bloody rivets of silver energy poured out from her, floating into the void as the K-ARDA K-AI drones whizzed around them, barely kept at bay by the assembled Starlights who had answered Derek Cross’ call.

If Valentina was in pain, she didn’t show it, despite the fact she was reaching some sort of cosmic critical mass. "--Just-- just-- buy me some time-- okay--?"

This was the last stand of the Infinitum.

Derek had managed to gather an army, but what was an army against the self-replicating, self-repairing, constantly evolving threat of the K-ARDA K-AI? Ryad Vaan had shown his true colours at last, abandoning the others when the K-ARDA K-AI swarmed, retreating back through the dimensional rip when there was a gap in the enemy line. The others didn’t even have a chance to do anything about it, the sight of their once deadliest enemy turned brief ally turning tail the last they would ever see of him.

"No-- that’s not how we do this-- there’s always another way--" said Derek.

He was running on fumes, firing blasts of silver energy on instinct, obliterating the marauding K-ARDA K-AI units that managed to push past the other heroes defending their precarious position, whilst trying to talk Valentina down from what she was about to do.

"Not-- n-not now there isn’t--" replied Valentina.

"No--"

Derek was cut off mid-protest when one of the heavy-duty K-ARDA K-AI units ploughed into him, shattering his exterior shield and sending him careening away from Valentina’s position. Blood flew from his mouth mid-scream-- he had rarely been hit harder-- and he watched as the stygian hordes rushed toward her.

And there was nobody close enough to make a difference-- Scott Bradshaw was drowning in K-ARDA K-AI, Trip Reeves was swearing defiantly, despite the slagging-hot, golden energy of his Enders Plague-inflicted abilities spitting wildly in every direction.

Kip Karacas and Yajish K’ir were back-to-back, trying their best to keep their heads above water as they fire beam after beat of silver energy at their opponents, but struggling against the unstoppable hordes of K-ARDA K-AI units.

Turt Garash had lost half an ear, one of his tusks, but he was a roaring figure of defiance in the sea of attackers. Derek was overwhelmed, just like the others. He screamed, pushing all his anger and hate to the forefront of his mind, using it as fuel for the cosmic bands he wore, but it wasn’t working-- he was stuck-- trapped-- falling--

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN EARTH AND THE MOON:

<--Wake up, Derek.>

Derek’s hopes for a dreamless journey had been dashed. Memories this time, not nightmares. Memories of the Infinitum’s last chance to secure their future. Memories of the greatest battle he thought he had lost before it had even begun.

"Thanks, Crucible. Sorry, I’m a bit--"

<Let’s scan the area. And take it from there.>

Derek exhaled slowly. He scanned the area, sending waves of silver energy glimmering out in sheets of translucent waves and noticed the way that space moved in response. He hadn’t been able to see the vast blackness shift against a backdrop of itself, but with that interaction, he could see that space was rippling. It was as if an invisible waterfall was crashing into it and the resulting wash churned against space-time, causing the distortion his bands picked up.

“We’re definitely in the right place."

Derek continued to monitor the swirling distortions and processed the information being sent out by it.

"This is weird."

With The Crucible linked directly to his brain and his processing power enhanced to the same degree as the most advanced computer in existence, he quickly realised that this ‘spatial anomaly’ wasn't a natural occurrence. It was most definitely artificial and the information being transmitted from its event horizon didn’t match anything in The Crucible’s vast database. So, it was a man-made spatial event, destined for arrival near Earth and then what?

"I want to build something. Something capable of acting as a lock that I can plant around this area of space to prevent the tunnel from opening and spitting out whatever’s due in an hour. Do you think we can come up with something like that?"

Derek was punched so hard he lost all sense of direction. He was sent spinning backwards and he was unable to get his bearings before he was punched again and again, each time his shield sent shuddering, bone-rattling judders through his body as it tried to keep him safe. He could taste blood filling his mouth, he could feel his brain bouncing against the interior of his skull, he could feel himself headed toward unconsciousness and the god knew what would come next. He lashed out wildly, sending a buffer of silver pulsing between him and his attacker and managed to take a breath, only to realise what it was that had been attacking him.

"…Oh, hell. Captain Lazlo?"

Jo Lazlo, former captain in the San Francisco Police department’s Major Crimes Unit, was wrapped in bronze light, her pale and sun-deprived skin riddled with fragments of white diamond that looked like they had been randomly drilled into her flesh. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind their placement, they were arranged in an asymmetrical, nightmarish tableau and it looked like every single one was razor sharp at the tip, so who knew how the inside of her body was faring with them inside. Her face was scarred and warped, one of the fragments had landed below her eye and pushed the lid apart so you could see the veiny red around her sclera, further disfiguring her than the other pieces already had.

"Your time is up, Starlight!"

Derek heard her voice break through the secure comms of The Crucible’s network, a discordant echo trailing her words. The fragments inside and across her body began to glow and hum in unity, a sound he could hear even in the void of space and the thick, bronze light that swirled around her body intensified above each white shard before her screams were backed up by a blast of energy that tore through space and straight into Derek’s chest, the shock of seeing his former captain appear from nowhere-- in space-- and attack him-- cancelling out some integral part of his survival mechanism.

She rushed forward, grabbed him around the neck and began to squeeze. At such close range, he could see the madness that had consumed her from the back of the eyes out, the tiny surgical scars around the fragments embedded into her face and then across her arms.

"Jo, what are you doing? Where have you--"

Razor sharp claws slashed across his face, tearing away at his protective shield and he felt the energies keeping him separated from the vacuum of space push against his head-- bruising, contusing pressure exerted against him as he struggled to get away from the iron grip of his former boss.

"I-- am-- Thaumaturge--!"

She pushed the two of them forward and Derek felt himself lose his grip on reality-- the world went from black and starry to white and confusing and he yelled out as he felt his body become unmoored from space-time and involuntarily shunted into a sub-luminal tunnel. He was only in there for a matter of seconds before he was ripped out of it again, crashing into the surface of the moon without enough force that he created new craters with each impact.

Jo Lazlo-- Thaumaturge-- whoever-- was floating above the moon, staring down at him. Bronze light spluttered around the edges of her silhouette, reminding Derek of the Enders Plague-infected Trip Reeves, whose body radiated with a sickly, golden ichor that was almost liquid in nature, barely contained by the former bounty hunter’s massive ego, wanting desperately to break free from the flood gates and rush out into the world to infect everyone else. He was a walking epidemic waiting to happen, but what was Lazlo?

"What happened to you?" asked Derek.

She didn’t respond in words, only her continued, relentless assault. He reached out with his ring, tried to scan her body, tried to understand the weird energies spewing out of her every pore, but she was opaque to him, completely blank, just a shape, a silhouette, that wanted him dead. One punch knocked something loose in Derek’s mouth, another knocked something astray in his chest. He felt a rib floating where it shouldn’t but couldn’t comprehend how he should response. This was his captain. She had been there for him through his earliest days as a cop and his earliest days as a superhero. She had retired early, took a private security job and they had lost track of one another, but he didn’t expect this of all things.

"Jo-- please-- stop--"

Each word out of his mouth was interrupted by another punch and every stinging impact pushed him further into the snare of Thaumaturge’s grasp. His vision was suddenly hazy, he couldn't see straight, he could barely think straight, but her intention, her drive, were razor sharp and crystal clear.

Derek had an idea. A dangerous one. Something he’d not tried before, but was, in his understanding, completely feasible to perform. If he could imagine it, it could be done. That’s what he had learned during his tenure as a member of the Infinitum. The cosmic bands were limited only by his perception, his drive, his motivation. It was only a matter of will. He tried to grab Jo by the face but she swatted him inside and kept up her rampaging onslaught. She punched and slashed, so Derek fired off a jolting bolt of energy from his chest that caught her completely unaware and despite her own protective aura, it sent her spinning upwards. He followed, grabbed her by the face and with his singular drive, his singular focus, he used his cosmic bands to create a connection between his mind and hers and held on tight--

PAIN

PAIN AND LIGHT AND SKIN ON FIRE AND SO MUCH PAIN

ONE DAY HOME / EARTH / SAFETY

ANOTHER

LOST / TRAPPED / PAIN PAIN PAIN

RED FIRE THOUGHTS

NERVES ELECTRIC

KILLING CHAIR

EXECUTION CHAIR

PAIN PAIN PAIN

"Breathe through it, Earther. Breathe through it and reach the other side."

"Wh-who are you? Wh-why are-- are you d-doing this?"

"You are in a unique position where you have been in proximity to one of the strongest cosmic energy outputs our instruments have ever recorded. You have been in proximity to a Starlight. Have you been intimate? Has he been inside you?"

"Wh-what are you talking about?"

NEEDLES

NEEDLES IN THE SKIN

BONE CRACKING

FLESH TEARING

SOMETHING PUSHING

PUSHING

PIERCING

"Yes, that’s right. Good. This is a painful procedure and due to its very nature, we are unable to use anaesthetic to make it any easier for you. But if you breathe. If you focus. This will be over soon enough."

"What-- what-- what are you doing to me? Why can’t I-- why can’t I see?"

"Would that make it any better?"

"What are you doing to me?"

"One moment."

NEEDLE AGAIN

RAZOR SHARP

RAZOR THIN

PULLING

SKIN TUGGING

POP POP POP ON ITS WAY OUT

LIGHT FILTERING BACK IN

VISION

VISION RETURNING

"Oh my God! Oh My God!"

"Yes, it’s a sorry sight indeed, but the mirror is also a full-body spectrograph, it’s receiving all sorts of valuable information. I’m sorry you have to see yourself like this. You’re very… exposed. Very open. But it’s all part of the procedure."

KILL KILL KILL KILL

"What’s that? Are you trying to say something?"

KILL KILL KILL KILL

"I am not unfamiliar with human physiology and I recognise that you are going into shock, but the drugs I have used should be bringing you clarity, should be giving you focus. What are you trying to say?"

KILL KILL KILL

"...me…"

"What’s that? Say again?"

"kill me"

"Oh, no. No, no, no. I’ll seal you up when I’m done. You won’t even know how deep I’ve been inside you. The thought-shunt will make processing a lot easier and then you’ll be… ‘right as rain’, as your people say. Just breathe through the pain. Breathe through what comes next."

--Derek severed the connection between them and heard Jo screaming. Not the rage filled howl she had been exhibiting previously, but a ragged, pained scream that would make most people’s throats go raw. The flesh and bone around her crown bulged outward in horrific, tortuous divots, threatening to break free through the skin, but these pushes and pulls that fought wildly beneath the surface refused to break through. There was something in her head, embedded deep and it refused to loosen its grip.

He felt the pain she had been through, but with the benefit of being a bystander to the experience-- not the one who had lived through it-- it meant that the replay of memories didn’t affect him the same way it did her and he had to take advantage of that fact, despite the disgusted feeling it left in the pit of his stomach. He had seen the surgery performed on her, he knew the location of the crystal fragments throughout her body and if he knew where they were, then he could remove them--

"Jo, I’m so sorry. This is going to hurt."

He focused his energy into atom-wide filaments that slipped through every defence she could raise and straight into her body. It didn’t register with her at first, but when the edges of his strands found the shards beneath her skin, nestled in muscle, embedded in bone, jutting into internal organ, fibril wires became cloying hooks. And the hooks dug themselves in. Energy cleaved through meat and wrenched fragments of alien crystal free from their moorings. That’s when the pain kicked in. As bad as when they went in, the pain when they came out was double that, triple, ten times as bad. She screamed and screamed, blood flying from her mouth, but Derek wrapped his arms around her, even as the fragments flew out of her body, exiting from the easiest point of egress, he held onto her and she thrashed and fought, but he refused to let go.

"I’m sorry I’m so sorry just hold on please just hold on--"

Within a matter of seconds, all the foreign objects inside Jo’s body were yanked out and they quickly coalesced outside of Derek’s forcefield, the disparate fragments zipping around until they seemingly came together in a perfect sphere-- and then slipped between the folds of reality and vanished, in the exact same manner as Jo had seemingly arrived in orbit.

"Track it!"

"No, not yet," said Derek. He looked down at Jo, who was limp in his arms. His cosmic powers had managed to knit together the damaged tissue and organs nearly as quickly as the fragments had been pulled from her body, but she was in shock, a million paper-cut sized incisions across her body and in it too. "Alert Aleph’s San Francisco office that I’m sending a medical emergency their way. Send a data node with a full physiological breakdown of what just happened. Keep Jo sedated and… and… is there anybody nearby who can help?"

<‘Anybody’ presuming members of the Infinitum in proximity = Negative.>

"Fuck… fuck… tell them I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’m going to find who did this to her. I’m going to find them and make them fucking pay."

Derek released Jo and silver energy flowed across her as The Crucible followed his orders, the cosmic powers he wielded twisting to his intention and carrying his old friend to the relative safety of Earth. When she was out of sight, he turned and looked out toward the universe in the general direction of where the crystalline fragments had warped away in.

"Now, we follow. Take me subluminal. And prepare for the worst."

AKABAN, HOME WORLD OF THE YISH:

Isolated, with no-one watching her back, Valentina looked around in a panic. A horde of K-ARDA K-AI heavy duty units, following the lead of the one that had taken Derek away from the fight, were zeroing in on her position. And she was so close to bursting, the energy that pulsated within her desperate for release. She just needed to hold on, to funnel it correctly, to put all her hopes for the future into this last, desperate act of defiance in the face of the inhuman horde of K-ARDA K-AI--

--The Infinitum were drowning--

--They had lost their tether back to reality--

--Their backs were against the dimensional wall--

--The exit was on the other side of an army of unstoppable killing machines--

--And if she detonated now, they would die along with her--

--No hope--

--No chance--

--Except--

The entrance to the pocket dimension ripped wide as the hulking wreck of Ryad Vaan’s planet-smashing terror-keel tore through the swarming masses of K-ARDA K-AI, clearing a path from the entrance all the way through to where the Infinitum were being battered. It came to an abrupt stop before the gathered heroes and its front-facing weapons array sent a massive shock through the attacking units, giving the Infinitum a chance to breathe.

Trailing behind the engine blur was the glistening, hard-plasma tunnel created by the terror-keel’s planet-boring super weapon and it shunted forward around the heroes, erecting a shield that kept them safe for the time being.

Ryad had once gutted entire planets in his psychotic, homicidal rampage across the stars, but since his return to sanity and his descent into abject misery at the realisation of what he had done, nobody thought they would ever see him at the helm of the ship ever again-- and somehow, he had managed to prove them wrong in a way none of them ever expected.

Ryad emerged from the cockpit of the ship, kept alive in his survival suit and gestured for the survivors to travel through the plasma tunnel back to the relative safety of the prime reality. He had given them an escape, but the K-ARDA K-AI had already started to smash their immense bodies into it, trying their best to shatter the hard plasma and reach their enemy before they could escape.

"You came back!" said Kip Karacas.

"Get clear. You get clear, you save the universe."

"Are you coming with us?"

"I don’t think I can do that."

"Ryad…"

"Go. I’ll stay with the girl. I’ll make sure it ends the way it’s supposed to."

Kip squeezed his shoulder. She had been there at the beginning. It only made sense that she be the last one to see him at the end. She followed the rest of the Infinitum down the plasma tunnel, leaving Ryad and Valentina alone, surrounded by a shield that was being eroded by the concerted efforts of the remaining K-ARDA K-AI, the young woman closer than ever to exploding.

"Y-you saved them," said Valentina, her features beginning to blur as the cracks began to spread.

"Somebody had to," said Ryad. He took her hand and his fingers began to burn.

Valentina’s face was a pair of eyes, nothing more. The rest was light. "You didn’t… you didn’t have to stay…"

"I’m not going to leave you. Not now. Not ever. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. And I’m sorry it came down to this. You didn’t deserve this end."

"But… did I… deserve this life?"

Tears rolled down her cheeks and evaporated instantly as Valentina finally let the maelstrom of energy in her body out.

"And more," replied Ryad, obliterated alongside her.

The Infinitum exited the pocket dimension, The Crucible followed suit, dragged into reality by the Starlights doing their job at the cost of two of their greatest allies.

The K-ARDA K-AI were erased from existence as the pocket dimension folded in on itself.

And the Infinitum could only watch.

The rogue subluminal path spat Derek out between a pair of binary stars. The Crucible scanned the immediate system prior to arrival and was careful to direct Derek to a blind spot provided by the celestial giants, but the pair suspected that if their unknown enemy had access to an alternative subluminal system of tunnels than the ones available to the Infinitum, then they must also have a way of monitoring those travelling through them. Just because Derek was hidden, didn’t mean he wasn’t known.

"Where are we?" asked Derek.

Derek allowed himself the briefest moment of amusement. The ongoing humanisation of The Crucible’s artificial intelligence was a fascinating thing to experience first-hand, though the implications were wasted on a layman such as him.

"Where did those crystals land?"

<There is an elevated city on the third planet of this solar system, grown from-- // interrupt // INTERCEPT // STARLIGHT CROSS YOU ARE IN RESTRICTED SPACE, EXIT IMMEDIATELY OR FACE REPERCUSSIONS FOR YOUR ACTIONS //>

The voice in his head was no longer that of The Crucible, but the AI-Scendant, the digitised minds of The Crucible’s creators. They had been dead for tens of billions of years, but since The Crucible had re-asserted itself in prime reality, they had a habit of piping up with their opinions and causing all kinds of annoyance for the members of the Infinitum. This was one such example. They spoke with one, discordant voice, a hundred existences condensed into a singular purpose and that purpose, it seemed, was to get in the way of things.

"Put The Crucible back on, you choir of assholes," said Derek.

Derek still had control over his cosmic bands, so warped light around himself and turned invisible.

<--YOU CANNOT CONTINUE ON THIS COURSE-->

He ignored the constant, grating gnashing in his head and headed toward the third planet. The AI-Scendant continued barking in his head, but he ignored it for the rest of his flight.

<--THERE ARE TREATIES-->

With a solar-charged boost thanks to his proximity to the binary stars, he was able to fly faster than usual, but it still took nine hours of constant complaining in his inner monologue before he was in orbit.

<--DO NOT UNDERSTAND-->

He didn’t want to sleep through the travel if The Crucible didn’t have his back.

He broke atmosphere, kept his shield up and headed toward the main city, held aloft by twisting branches of some giant tree that had grown from the arid looking sands left on the planet’s surface. There was a shield covering the city, but there were also launch pads and reception gates built into the transparent dome.

He descended and phased straight through the shield and entered the city.

"Hey, that’s okay, just glad to have you back," said Derek.

<…But be warned, while I am unclear as to the status of this region of space, if my creators have knowledge that is kept separate to my own, there could be-->

"Excuse me!"

Derek looked around, cognisant of the fact he didn’t say anything out loud, that it wasn’t The Crucible shouting at him. He looked down at the main square below him and spotted somebody who resembled the same species that had been working on Jo Lazlo, flanked by twelve others. He double-checked his current state of visibility and confirmed he was invisible. Was this woman talking to him?

Clocking in at nearly nine-feet tall, the woman was wearing starkly white, ornate robes that trailed behind her and her hair was plaited all the way down her towering frame, resting at the small of her back. If Derek had to guess, this was the woman-in-charge.

"I’m sorry, but we can see you, if that’s what you’re wondering! We also detected the phase-shift through the dome and we have been expecting you since you used our subluminal tunnels. Welcome to Akaban, Starlight. Would you care to join us?"

Discovered, Derek turned visible and descended toward the square, where the woman was addressing him. He tried to keep a cap on his anger, but his words immediately betrayed him. "You people hurt a friend of mine."

"Queen Transcendent Qwi, matriarch of the Yish. This is my royal guard and this is my closest advisor, General Eternal Br’vak," she gestured to the taller man behind her, whose eyes burned with hatred toward Derek. "I am afraid that there has been a misunderstanding. You are of the Infinitum, am I right?"

"I’m not here to make small talk. You abducted my friend. You tortured her. You fired her like a bullet at Earth. What’s your game?"

Qwi shook her head. "The Yish have ancient history with the Ascendent, the creators of The Crucible. I had hoped we would never cross paths again. We are a peaceful people. We keep to our systems. We try to have as little to do with the universe as possible."

"Then why did you do it?" Derek landed in front of Qwi and despite the fact the Yish contingent towered over him, they took a step forward in defense of their queen and levelled their staffs at him. General Eternal Br’vak was at the fore of the group, stepping in front of his majesty without hesitation.

"Step. Back," demanded the General.

Their weapons crackled with the same bronze energy that Jo had wielded--

--Derek felt his anger flare--

Qwi held her hands up. "There will be no violence here today. Br’vak. Stand down. I have only just come to understand that a rogue member of our Science Guild kidnapped one of your citizens to perform barbaric experiments. With the return of the materials she appropriated, we were able to discover her secret lab beneath the city-ship and have taken her into custody."

"You expect me to believe that?" said Derek.

General Eternal Br’vak growled. "You…"

Qwi levelled her gaze down at the Starlight. "That. Is the truth. We are an old race. Far older than yours. We were there when the Ascendent arrived into this reality. We were there when The Crucible was constructed. We wanted nothing to do with it. That has been our credo for billions of years. To… take somebody… to take them and ‘fire’ them ‘like a bullet’ at your world… it goes against everything our culture stands for."

"Then why did your rogue do it?"

"That is something we hope to discover. There have been… incursions… on our territory. Perhaps this was in response to that. I do not know why the rogue scientist took someone from your ‘Earth’… I do not know why they would send them back in the manner you have described… but we will find out the truth. I promise you that."

"I want to talk to them," said Derek.

"You have no jurisdiction here, Starlight. The Infinitum has no oversight of the Yish," said General Eternal Br’vak.

"General, do not presume to speak for your queen. Bring Uwe here. You may talk to them, Starlight. But that is as far as this incursion will be tolerated. You have invaded our territory and have been met by nothing but our hospitality. Keep it that way."

Within a matter of minutes, the same woman who had performed the surgeries on Jo Lazlo was dragged into the square by another contingent of guards, led by a simmering General Eternal Br’vak. They shoved the shackled prisoner forward so she was caught between the Queen-Ascendant and Derek. She looked up at them both, her head bandaged, her face bruised.

"What happened to her?" asked Derek.

"She resisted arrest," said General Eternal Br’vak.

"This is exactly what I have been saying!" said Uwe.

Derek had no idea what she was talking about.

"We placate! We bend! We accommodate! This Earther has invaded our sacred lands! That’s what they will do! They will come to our home and bring nothing but ruin! Better to burn them off the face of the universe! Better to see them wiped from existence before they do the same to us!"

Uwe lunged toward Qwi but Derek caught her in an energy construct, restraining her before she could swing her chained fists into the Queen-Ascendent’s face.

"General, please remove Uwe. I will bid Starlight farewell shortly," said Qwi.

General Eternal Br’vak blustered once more but did as he was told, picking the thrashing Uwe up and removing her from the central plaza, back down to wherever she had been dragged out from.

"Thank you for your assistance there, Starlight. This is a sensitive issue. We are still learning to what extent. There is a growing… discontent among my people."

"Why the hate against my people?" asked Derek.

"We do not know. But when I find out… you will be the first one I contact."

"Then until then, I’m going to steer clear of this area of space and you do the same for Earth. You can transmit comms--?"

"We can…"

Derek began to lift up off the floor. "Then shout when you find out. Until then, I hope we don’t have to meet like this again," said Derek. He slipped through the shield and headed out of the system, leaving the Yish to watch him go.

"Of all the brazen--" started General Eternal Br’vak.

Qwe’s hand shot up, cutting him off immediately. "Initiate."

General Eternal Br’vak nodded curtly and began to type something into the handheld device he had been carrying on his hip. Within a matter of seconds, Derek could no longer see or hear anything that was going on inside the Yish city-ship. Instead, there was only static and his cosmic bands couldn’t penetrate whatever it was they had just activated around their home.

"Their shield just put up some other kind of shield," noted Derek. “Overkill?”

"Who does want to be spied on by a foreign agent? I know I wouldn’t. Where’s the nearest subluminal hub? How long until we can get home?"

"22 hours. Another day lost. And no, I don’t trust these Yish characters as far as I can throw them and I don’t even know how far that is. Something very weird is going on and I think they think we fell for whatever it was. If I was them, I wouldn’t expect that. So, I have to assume that’s the way they’re thinking too. Lots of wheels within wheels, lots of twisty-turny bullshit. So, no, I don’t want to travel via their routes, because they might collapse them while we’re in there, or something worse. Redirect the exit somewhere worse. Who knows? Let’s just get home."

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA:

Jo Lazlo’s eyes felt gummed up as they opened slowly. Everything felt heavier than usual. Despite that, she felt distant, her brain operating at a slight delay and other than the weight of exhaustion, her body felt tingly and vibrant. She rolled her head to the side and noted the morphine drip and saw that her arm was wrapped in bandages. The heart monitor spiked alongside her panic and she reached her hand to her face, her bare fingertips finding more bandages. Before she could panic even further, someone took her hand into their own gently and lowered it.

"You’re okay. Jo, you’re okay. You’re just roughed up some, there’ll be nothing permanent to show for it."

She found the source of the voice and closed her eyes when she realised who it was. "Derek…"

"Yeah, it’s me. You had me worried for a while there, Captain."

Derek was no longer wearing his Starlight uniform. He was dressed casually, a pair of dark denim jeans, a white shirt, a suede jacket, but he looked as tired as she felt. When he touched her, his skin felt cold, but at the same time, it felt comforting, as if her own internal temperature needed regulating and he was the only one who could do it. He held out a polystyrene cup of ice chips and she let him tilt them into her mouth. She began to suck on them, the cold soothing her scraped throat. Once she found her voice, she began to speak, tentative at first, but with more ice, more time, they came easier.

"Not been a captain for a while now, Derek, fuck, how high am I right now? I feel weird."

"You’ve been through a lot and they didn’t want your system to be overwhelmed, so they’re keeping you dosed up for the time being. The doctors will be through in a bit to explain everything, but I wanted to check in with you first, before, well, before the world had to get real again."

Jo extended her hands out and looked at the bandages wrapped around her fingers, all the way up her shoulders. She touched her face gently and realised that the weight she felt wasn’t a physical one, but a bone aching tiredness. She ran her hands through her hair, which was a hell of a lot longer than she last remembered. She tried to think about her last memories, before waking up, but things were hazy. "What happened? I… there was a light? And then… I don’t… I don’t remember?"

"What year is it?" asked Derek.

She looked at him with the kind of weary look she would give the detectives under her command when they said something stupid, a silent judgement that would usually take the air out of whatever nonsense balloon they had blown up and brought into her life. When Derek’s face didn’t change, when his resolute, sad eyes didn’t flicker, she sighed and said, "Oh, fuck. What happened?"

"Captain," started Derek and she could see that he didn’t know what to say to make this as easy as possible.

So, instead of waiting for him to find them she cut him off, wanting to get this over with. "Last I remember, its 2007. But by that line of question, it’s what, 2010? 2020?"

"Not that bad. 2008. You’ve been gone for a year."

He said it so matter-of-factly. A year of her life gone and she couldn’t even remember, but he knew. He seemed to be holding more decks than she had cards and it made her stomach twist. "And where have I been?"

"You were in space. Abducted by aliens."

She had been in space. Abducted by aliens.

Derek Cross had never lied to her before and if that was the truth, she knew exactly why it would be.

"Abducted by… this is because of your superhero shit, right?"

"I think so." There was a new emotion on his face. One she had only seen once before, a few nights before her apparent abduction: Shame. She didn’t pick at that scab.

"I was abducted by aliens and held prisoner for a year? What happened? What did they do to me?"

"They experimented on you. Filled you full of alien tech-- which is gone now-- and brainwashed you somehow. They used you as a weapon. Sent you to kill me. At least, that’s my working theory."

No wonder she was on so many drugs. Wrapped in so many bandages. "Fuck and I failed at that, clearly."

"Yeah, sorry about that," said Derek.

"Did I hurt anybody? Are you okay?"

Derek shook his head again. "No, this all happened in space. I met you out there. Nobody else was involved."

That was a relief. She took another sip of ice chips, though they had mostly melted now. She cherished the cool feel of the water falling down her throat. "God, ever since you got those powers of yours, it’s been nothing but trouble…"

"I know and again, I’m sorry."

"I guess this means I lost my job at the consultancy."

"I’m sure that with these extenuating circumstances, that won’t be a problem."

"Derek, I know we didn’t end things how we should’ve. I know it got weird at the end. But thank you, I guess. For saving me. Is there a doctor here? I think I need to talk to the doctor."

"Are you okay?"

Jo placed her hand on top of his. "Been gone a year. Want to know what the damage is. And I left the police and took that consultancy job because I didn’t want to be part of your life anymore. No, sorry. That’s not true. I didn’t want to be part of what your life had become. I’m sure you’ve got somewhere else you want to be, so I’ll talk to the doctor now, okay?"

Derek looked at her, unsure of what to say. But she knew, in her heart, that this was the best way forward. He cleared his throat and pulled himself out of his chair. "I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Jo."

"What’s done is done," she replied.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. But that doesn’t mean it was right."

Jo shrugged passively. "Who’s to say? I’ve had a hell of a life so far. Highs and lows. Met you and there were higher highs and lower lows. Then you went and got powers and everything got turned up to eleven. Don’t worry about me. Stay safe out there, okay?"

"If you ever need anything."

"Oh, you bet I’ll call. But until then, just stay safe. That’s all I want for you. Stay safe."

"I don’t know how possible that’s going to be."

"Then at least try. Promise me you’ll try."

Derek said nothing. He just smiled softly and gave her a gentle hug, then exited the room, leaving Jo with the weight of her current state of existence and an unknown road to recovery head of her.

AKABAN, HOME WORLD OF THE YISH:

Beneath the planet’s surface, in a secure vault accessible only to royalty and the elite members of the Science Guild, a monstrous, sleeping thing was restrained by chains forged in the heart of a dying star. The thing had once been as big as a moon and its awakening had once shattered the planet the Yith had once called home, but that was generations ago; now it’s immense bulk was kept small by the huge pylons that penetrated its hide and absorbed its vast wells of power, while lobotomised ex-deviant workers were made to mine the unique element that grew from its back, chipping away at the white crystals that pierced its flesh and jutted out from its skin.

"Thaumaturge was a failed experiment. The conditioning didn’t keep," noted Queen Ascendant Qwi. From the vantage point of the observation booth, she watched the mindless workers, directed by the thought-shunts drilled into their skulls, went about their work. Some were mainly skin and bone, driven to action by the electrical impulses being pushed through their bodies by the bronze crown-like accessories attached to their heads, whilst others were fresher bodies, scant traces of their minds still left in their skulls, tears still streaming down their faces as their bodies were pushed to perform acts of intense physical labour, while their personalities were trapped inside, unable to act against orders. "What are you going to do about that?"

Newly appointed Scientist-Elect F’mit nodded solemnly, "I believe it was due to the emotional connection between the Thaumaturge and the Starlight; if we remove that from the equation, then there will be no risk of the experiment turning on us. A simple rotation, a re-direct of where we send them and more importantly, where we don’t send them, should be solution enough."

"And the power usage issue?"

"My predecessor got one thing right-- she managed to measure the capacity of the matrices and now we know how long a Thaumaturge can last, how much power expenditure they can handle before burning out."

She pressed a hand against the reinforced glass and looked down from their vantage point above the cavern, spotting Uwe, the former Scientist-Elect, drive a pick into the back of the star-beast they kept imprisoned beneath their home. The thought-shunt had been applied to the scientist haphazardly, F’mit suspected by design, and her purple blood had scabbed in streams down her face, drill bits visible where the lobotomising device had only half pierced bone. The guards had stripped her of her robes of office before the surgery, so she worked in her under-garments, another humiliation piled on top of another. There was no room for failure in the Science Guild. No second changes in the culture of the Yish.

"So, you’re saying?"

"Full scale recruitment. The Earther was a start, but we shouldn’t limit ourselves to that quadrant of space. I suggest we send out tracer drones and begin scanning sentient worlds, pull recruits from there and begin mass production in the fabrication centres. Worlds away from Infinitum patrol routes. I’ve already begun refitting the facilities. If we send the drones out today, we could begin processing of the next batch of Thaumaturge by next week. With power meters built into the matrices, we can monitor every single one, and when we burn one out, we simply find another…"

"And the behaviour modifications?"

"I recommend an altered version of the thought-shunts. Remove the base personality and overlay it with something more pliant. Loyal only to the Yish."

"To the Yish?"

F’mit paused and considered the way the Queen Ascendant posed the question. "I apologise. Loyal only to you, your majesty."

Qwi smiled and placed her long fingers across F’mit’s shoulder. "You will go far in this position, my friend. Very far indeed. It was a shame that your predecessor had to be thrown to the wolves, but it was very much necessary when the Thaumaturge failed to kill the Starlight. A shame indeed…"

Below, the lobotomised form of Uwe continued to go about her work, dragging her pick into the air before driving it down into the back of the comatose star-beast. Tears streamed down the former Scientist-Elect’s faces, but nobody noticed, not even her. She just mined the sparkling white mineral growing from the sleeping creature’s body.

And nobody could have guessed what the star-beast was dreaming about, nor how far those dreams would take it…

Notes on NO CALM, ONLY STORMS:

Welcome back! Wednesdays have been quiet, because I’ve been busy, and I didn’t want to rush something out for the sake of rushing something out. Every time I post one of these stories I’m having to review them thoroughly, bring them into line with my current standards, and make sure I’ve not missed any words out. That doesn’t mean I won’t find all the issues, but better I try now then shrug my shoulders.

No Calm, Only Storms. One of my dumb titles. There’s no calm in this life of superheroes, only storms. I’m so clever. And what a lot of lore. A “lore dump”, if you will. Hopefully it wasn’t too egregious. After the Aleph cycle of stories, the Starlight segment of the universe is really important to me, so I want to bring you up to speed with it, but not so much so that it’s too much. Set 4 years after the previous Starlight adventure (the origin) and a quarter of a century before the start of the first Aleph book, there’s so much time for things to go to hell. And remember, you haven’t heard mention of any of these folks in the present day. There’s obviously a reason for that.

No Calm, Only Storms is the opening salvo of my cosmic canon. Derek is the established Starlight of Earth (and the local universe) but there’s more to the Infinitum than just one. You’ll be spending a lot of time with all the characters I’ve introduced here, and I’m excited for it. I’m doubly excited because my friend Jorell Rivera created this art of Derek, hurtling through the cosmos:

So good I had to share it twice. I love seeing my characters to life, and that costume absolutely slaps. You can follow Jorell on IG at this link. Please follow him! I love his stuff! We have talked about other collaborations, but I think I’m the bottle neck. Too many ideas, not enough time in the day, the crushing weight of existence. You know, standard.

There are so many characters mentioned in this story, and they all have their adventures to come. Who are they?

STARLIGHT ROLECALL

Scott Bradshaw: Sole survivor of an ill-fated manned mission to Mars and recent recruit to the Infinitum! Riddled with the guilt of being the only one to return to Earth after the death of his crew— and wife!
“Trip” Reeves: Former celebrity bounty hunter with a twisted relationship with Derek thanks to alien intervention in the early days of the latter’s career! No longer insane.
Valentina Ladrón: Last hope of the Infinitum purely out of bad luck! Really does not want to be in space, would prefer to be in her college dorm!
Ryad Vaan: Transformed into a tyrant against his will centuries ago, trying to redeem himself for the atrocities he committed under sinister influence!
Kip Karacas: One of 3 ancient Starlights held in stasis by The Crucible, returned to the universe in its time of need! Contentious relationship with Ryad, who she battled eons ago after his transformative madness took hold.
Turt Garash: Another ancient Starlight, the knockabout master of ceremonies and lead trainer for the organisation, who willingly went into stasis but didn’t expect to be frozen for so long. Making up for lost time. Resembles an elephant that walks.
Yajish K’ir: The final ancient Starlight, who had no problem being in stasis as he lost his family long before. Now he’s back, he’s picking up where he left off, being the one who has all the answers for the weirdest questions you might ask. Looks like a golden eagle if a golden eagle had arms and legs.

Don’t forget the AI-Scendant, the creators of The Crucible who transformed themselves into a computer program before their physical forms passed. The K-ARDA K-AI are another AI-based villain, but imagine if the future Sentinels from X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) combined with Amazo from Justice League Unlimited and hated all living creatures and wanted to make it the galaxy’s problem.

'X-Men': Exclusive Look the VFX Behind the Future Sentinels (Photos)

But obviously, if Starlight is endebted to the Green Lantern mythos, then the K-ARDA K-AI are the equivalent to the Manhunters. Remember: No man escapes the Manhunters!

Jab's Builds! (Innards! Rotwrap! Wraithwitch! Bloodstorm!) - Page 1773 - Echoes of the Multiverse

But! I don’t want anything I write to be a direct 1:1 duplication, so it’s important to me that I flex and try to bring something new to every aspect of this story. That means they can’t simply be Manhunter carbon copies. There’s more to them, they’re no connected to The Crucible, other than in wanting to prevent the good guys getting a foothold in the universe. They’re bad to their electronic bone. There’s a big story there. Hopefully I can get around to telling it.

Anyway, I don’t think I have much else to say about this at the present time. I kind of like the idea of dropping Starlight stories peppered around their timeline, but I also know I’ve been thinking about how best to approach accessibility in storytelling, especially when it comes to comic books.

My partner and I were talking (well, she was listening, because I don’t half talk) about how inaccessible comics appear to be. Marvel have a tendency to relaunch Amazing Spider-Man whenever there’s a new film coming out, but other times, they don’t, and even if they do (god, can you imagine to sitting opposite me while I get into this shit) it’s still inaccessible. Superior Spider-Man (2013) was the main Spider-book during the era of the Andrew Garfield-led film series. You know, the series where Otto Octavius steals Peter Parker’s body and takes over being Spider-Man.

If you saw the film and were like ,”Wow, I like Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy’s dynamic, that’s fun”, then your options are to go back to ASM #31, which came out in 1965 and featured Gwen’s debut, then read through to #121 in 1973, when she dies. That’s ninety issues of story, where they’re only together from #53, when their first date happens. And loads of weird 60s and 70s stuff happens in that time, so it’s not like it’s the Gwen you see portrayed by Emma Stone.

What do I recommend?

God, I have no clue. Even Ultimate Spider-Man (2000-2011) pivoted and made Mary-Jane more like Gwen in those early days, and when Gwen debuted, she was more like Mary-Jane. Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, et al, took a different route with the story, and Mary-Jane was the one chucked off a bridge.

Gwen has been teased as returning a couple of times. I won’t get into The Clone Saga, The Clone Conspiracy, Ghost Spider, etc. Now’s not the time. But for most comic book readers, the OTP in the Spider-books is Peter and Mary-Jane.

But if you could refer readers to Season… 10 of Spider-Man. That’s the one where the good stuff happens with Peter and Gwen, for example. Wouldn’t that help?

The current issue of Amazing Spider-Man on the shelves is #68.DEATHS, which is the seventieth issue of that run. Occasionally, Marvel do “between” issues, either marked as .1, or some relevant decimal, or these weird .[title] abbreviations. This issue is part of “The Eight Deaths of Spider-Man” storyline currently going on.

This is the sixth volume of ASM, having relaunched in 1999, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2022. Superior Spider-Man replaced ASM as the main Spider-Book in 2013. So that’s seven volumes. And later this year, a new volume is launching! And by my count, there have been 963 issues in total of series called ASM. They’ll probably discount the .Decimel issues, but still. Wow.

What if, instead of volumes, we ran seasons. Season 1 of Spider-Man would, in my opinion, be the original Lee and Ditko comics. You could then separate them by writer and artist, creative teams, big eras, whatever. None of this volume stuff. Just identify when there was a thematic or story through-line, and go from there. How would that look*?

*I’ve built a spreadsheet of all the individual issues of ASM, and I’ve mapped the writers on it. Next I’ll map the artists. Then major story arcs. Then my next big admin project begins: The Seasons of Spider-Man. I have a problem. I love trains.

What’s going on with me?

I’ve started work on my next university assignment for my Creative Writing MA, a second-person Choose Your Own Adventure nightmare ride. Very meta, very meta, very meta. I’m looking at the Fighting Fantasy series from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the two men responsible for Games Workshop, for inspiration. In my research, I found out Livingstone not only helped create Eidos too, but also is an investor in Skybound Entertainment, the entertainment hub co-founded by Robert Kirkman (creator of Invincible and The Walking Dead). Everything leads back to comics, in a very Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of way.

In real-adult-person news, I’m very close to selling my flat, but because of previous buyers dropping out at the last minute, I’ve not gotten my hopes up at all this time, which means nothing is packed and nothing is ready and oh my god I need to be out by April 1st? Oh fuck. Bear with me if I miss a week or two in the upcoming month!

What I’m listening to right now:

I’m enjoying talking about this stuff, as it’s a bit of different and it also helps me keep track of what I’m enjoying week-in-week-out. Also cool to see the changing chart of my top tracks per month. What haven’t I talked about recently?

Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima got in my head after the passing of David Lynch. I’ve always loved the idea of Lynch, but Twin Peaks passed me by because I didn’t enjoy the soap aspect of the series. I was more concerned with ongoing Laura Palmer investigation, so the show didn’t give me what I wanted. If anyone knows where I can find a “Murder Investigation Cut” of the show, I’d love that.

That said, Twin Peaks: Fire Walks With Me (1992) spoke to me on a strange level. Absolutely haunting, terrifying cinema. Lost Highway (1997) is a film that really entranced me, mainly because of Bill Pullman’s performance and especially because of this scene:

It sounds mad to say, but I find Lynch’s films quite inaccessible. I want to try. I got into Lost Highway (1997) because how Trent Reznor-heavy the soundtrack is. Videodrones / Questions and Driver Down feel like precursors to later Trent and Atticus-composed scores, as well as the instrumental Ghosts I-IV from 2008 and V-VI albums from 2020. The Perfect Drug is on there too! Absolutely great. So I was listening to the soundtrack album before the film. And the film is absolutely breath-taking. Lynch takes you on a journey and doesn’t give you any indication as to where it’ll lead.

Anyway, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. In the absolutely stunning eighth episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, after The Nine Inch Nails perform She’s Gone Away, we witness the realisation of Lynch’s vision of Twin Peaks’ creation myth, the utter corruption and degredation of 1950s Americana, the most terrifying radio show appearance ever, and a nuclear explosion scored to Threnody in an ironic act that shakes you, as the viewer, to the very core. At least in my opinion, that is.

Ah, Father John Misty. I saw you live once, and you were sublime. I got into FJM after starting a new job that found me effectively locked in a small room for 7 hours a day listening to Radio 6. I’ve been listening to him a lot recently because he just released a demos album celebrating I Love You, Honeybear’s 10th anniversary. Whilst I Loved You Honeybee is the standout track (a close second being the Sirius XM Session cover of Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box), it caused me to revisit Real Love Baby. I love that song. I was talking to my partner about which love-song-writer speaks to you the most in the modern age, and I landed on FJM, because of the sense of humour, raw and unflinching depictions of romance, and musicality of his songs.

That’s real love, baby.

I'm in love, I'm alive, I belong to the stars and sky,
Let's forget who we are for one night…

Glare’s Void In Blue is doing the social media rounds, I think? I heard it on some random video on Instagram, and I thought it was a banger. Banger enough I couldn’t stop listening to it, and popular enough I’ve seen someone create a Slowed remix. I just heard it and loved it. What can I say?

C H Wilkins' Future / No Future

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