#2 - OCCUPATION

By Dale Glaser

On the planet Oa, at the center of the universe, two figures walked the corridors of the Central Battery Citadel.

On either side of them, stationed at regular intervals along the golden walls, Manhunter androids stood at attention, each one identical, armored in scarlet and sapphire, holding a green energy pistol in one hand and a small green battery in the other.

"What news from the gamma-level subjugated worlds?" asked Appa Ali Apsa, the smaller of the two walkers. He stood less than four feet tall, with pale blue skin, and a slightly enlarged and bald head typical of the highly evolved Guardians of the Universe. He was clad in the traditional red robes of his fellow Oans.

"Order prevails," General Yrra Cynril, dressed in the green and black uniform of the Green Lantern Army, answered. Her response was automatic, a mantra among the officer Green Lanterns who served at the pleasure of the Guardians, spreading their vision of order from world to world.

Appa Ali Apsa sighed. "Specific news, general, if you please," the Guardian said with some contempt.

Yrra Cynril's black hair was pulled back behind her pointed ears and tied in a tight bun at the base of her skull, which was easily two feet higher than the top of the Guardian's head. Nevertheless, the statuesque brown-skinned Green Lantern was abashed by the tone in her master's voice, and her dark eyes were downcast as she regained her composure and attempted to select the right information to relate. Gamma-level worlds included all planets that had been subjugated within the last fifty Oan years, as opposed to beta-level worlds which had been subjugated anywhere from fifty to five hundred years ago, and alpha-level worlds, which had been subjugated for more than five hundred years. "The planet Uxor has not seen any significant resistance in the past two years. The last suicide bloodlettings were over a year ago, and the Green Lanterns assigned to the planet believe they may be ready to begin recruitment efforts within another two years," Yrra Cynril offered.

Appa Ali Apsa nodded, but said nothing.

Yrra Cynril continued, "The construction of the sciencell prison on the planet Dryad proceeds on schedule, and should be completed by the end of this year."

"And what of the planet Earth?" Appa Ali Apsa asked.

Yrra Cynril nearly faltered, but said, "Nothing unusual to report."

"Which means that the Kryptonian has not been found," Appa Ali Apsa sneered, "for I presume such an occurrence would be deemed 'unusual'."

"Master, Earth has only been subjugated for three Oan years. It is a planet of five billion," Yrra Cynril insisted. "The Green Lanterns stationed there will find the Kryptonian, eventually. They must also see to their administrative duties, which are time consuming on any gamma-level world. Perhaps if they were reinforced …?"

"Send your troops where you deem it most practical, General," the wizened Oan said dismissively. "And remind the Green Lanterns on Earth that finding the Kryptonian is of utmost importance. Nothing is to distract them from that."

"Of course, Master," she agreed. "The overall subjugation of Earth goes well, by all reports. The Green Lanterns face no threat of any kind from the Earthlings. It is not as if they are subjugating Appellaxians or some other problematic species. The Green Lanterns will find the Kryptonian."

Oliver Queen walked quickly through the Orchid Bay section of Star City.

The sun was going down, which meant that curfew was approaching, and the neighborhood appeared mostly deserted. Oliver adjusted the strap of the heavy bag over this shoulder and crossed from one empty sidewalk, over an empty street, to the opposite empty sidewalk.

Around the next corner, Oliver found himself passing city hall, and couldn't help but glance at it. Once, flags would have flown above the doors of the marble building, the yellow banner of Star City, the California grizzly bear on the California state flag, and of course, the red, white and blue of Old Glory. But one of the first things the Green Lanterns had done in the process of subjugating Earth had been to destroy any and all symbols of human sovereignty. The aliens had not replaced them with Oan flags or symbolic emerald batteries or anything of the sort. They had simply done away with the flags, monuments, and other signs, leaving an orderly, undecorated blankness in their stead.

Oliver Queen had been barely sixteen years old when the Green Lanterns had first arrived, just cynical enough to have found the excessive stars-and-stripes waving of the approaching bicentennial offensive. Now, five years later, he felt the absence of any reminders of America as a keen loss. His lips pressed together in silent rage, almost disappearing in the midst of his blond goatee. Oliver kept walking.

Soon he came to a small alley between two blocks of row homes, and ducked down the narrow opening. Halfway down the alley, obscured between two overflowing dumpsters, stood a steel firedoor. Oliver knocked.

The door opened to reveal a dark-haired teenage girl, dressed in frayed bell bottom jeans and a Star City Rockets t-shirt. "Ollie!" she beamed, before pulling him into her arms and kissing him deeply.

Oliver kicked the door shut behind him, then slowly disentangled himself from the girl's embrace. "Hey, ladybird," he said.

"Everyone else is here already," the girl said. She turned around and began to lead Oliver toward a back room.

Three other men sat in the small, dirty, windowless room. First was Arthur Curry, the son of a lighthouse keeper and, despite the fact that he had a lithe build, one of the strongest men Oliver Queen had ever met. Next was Ray Palmer, a scientific genius with messy brown hair and glasses. Finally was Barry Allen, a cop with a crewcut. Three men who had no reason to know each other, but had somehow been brought together by the girl at Oliver's side.

She was only sixteen, maybe seventeen at most. But Dinah Lance had unshakable convictions, and a knack for impressing others with them. Being the daughter of the original Black Canary granted her a certain cultural currency as well, currency she spent to get what she wanted.

"Well, boys," Dinah said to the four men, "if any of you want to back out, now is the time."

"No, ma'am," Barry said.

"I think it's too late for that now," Ray pointed out.

"Agreed," Arthur added.

Oliver did not answer, knowing he had no need.

Dinah nodded with satisfaction. "All right, then. We have one shot at this. Marty Costa has been stockpiling guns, thugs and drugs in his private compound, and his personal militia's gotten big enough to get the Green Lanterns' attention. For some reason, they gave him a warning …"

"Who knows why those aliens do anything," Oliver muttered darkly.

"... and said if he doesn't surrender by the day after tomorrow, they'll come in force," Dinah continued. "We know Costa won't surrender, so we know the Green Lanterns are coming."

"And we will be ready for them," Arthur said.

Marty Costa paced the beachfront balcony, caressing the M16 he held in both hands.

Several of his most trusted lieutenants stood close at hand, scanning the horizon, while others waited inside the mansion that drug and extortion money had paid for in the years before the Green Lanterns had arrived. None of the gangsters spoke.

The emerald pinpoints in the distance approached quickly, skimming across the Pacific waters. One moment they were no bigger than fireflies, then suddenly the aliens within the green coronas were revealed. The gray, worm-like Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan, suspended as always in a clear sphere of liquid encircled by a giant power ring, led a quartet of Green Lanterns. The other three members of the detachment were humanoid, of varying builds but all clad in the black and green uniform. The largest was eight feet tall, broad and powerful, with bright red skin, flared ears and a long topknot of black hair on an otherwise bald head. The next was six and a half feet tall, with a warrior's musculature, pale blue skin and white hair, and an underbite full of teeth filed to sharp points. The last was only five and a half feet tall, sinewy and slender, with a fully feline head covered in dusky yellow fur.

"Anybody runs away," Costa bellowed, sensing the tension building amongst his underlings, "and I will shoot him in the back myself!"

The Green Lanterns arrived, hovering above the beach, slightly higher than Marty Costa's balcony. The Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan spoke telepathically to all of the gangsters at once: "The amassing of weapons in this domicile is forbidden by the strictures of Order. Surrender immediately."

"I don't take no orders from no flying saucer rejects!" Costa raged as he opened fire on the Green Lanterns. His M16 spat bullets in a wild spray that splashed harmlessly against the glowing green forcefields that surrounded the four Green Lanterns. The aliens never so much as flinched, even as Coasta's lieutenants added their own firepower, filling the air with ammunition.

Then the largest Green Lantern raised his right hand, aiming his power ring at the makeshift machine gun nest. A beam of emerald light shone forth, split, and solidified into two hemispherical shapes that bolted themselves to the mansion wall underneath the balcony. A moment later the energy projection mines exploded in thunderous gouts of green flames, tearing the balcony off the face the mansion. As the shattered stonework crumbled and plummeted, the gangsters who had survived the blast screamed and fired their guns wildly. An ugly, savage grin split the Green Lantern's crimson face.

"Well struck, Bolphunga," the feline Green Lantern of Karna nodded approvingly. "Now let us finish these vermin." Projecting gigantic jade claws around both his hands, the smallest of the Green Lantern detachment dove into the mansion, where some of the gangsters were rapidly retreating but others were holding their ground. Another explosion rocked the mansion, this one caused by a hand grenade lobbed by a resolute defender of the drug dealer's sanctuary.

In the midst of the chaos, a blur of scarlet zigzagged up the beach, climbed the wall of the mansion, and launched itself into the air, just as the blue-skinned Green Lantern of Okaara was approaching behind a plow of solid verdant power. The streak of motion vibrated through the emerald projection and grappled with the Green Lantern behind it, pummeling the alien with a barrage of superspeed punches.

"Yeah, Flash, get 'im!" Dinah Lance cheered as she and her three allies ran up the beach in Barry Allen's wake. Dinah, wearing her mother's old Black Canary costume, had christened Barry 'The Flash' in honor of her mother's friend Jay Garrick, just as she had bestowed similar Justice Society memorials on the others. Ray Palmer had inherited the mantle of the Atom, thanks to his ability to harness white dwarf star matter in order to shrink to microscopic size. Arthur Curry, a man most at home where the surf of the ocean met the land, was now Sandman. And Oliver Queen she had dubbed Hawkman, supplying him with Carter Hall's orange-feathered helm and his cache of ancient weapons, although Oliver preferred the bow and arrow to any of the maces or flails that the original Hawkman had favored.

"What is this?" the Green Lantern called Bolphunga sneered as the Green Lantern of Okaara and the Flash wrestled in the sky, and Black Canary, Sandman, Hawkman and the Atom arrived at the battle.

"This is the Justice League!" Black Canary announced defiantly, just before unleashing a sonic cry that reverberated across the entire stretch of coastline encompassed by Costa's property. The focal point of the sonic cry was the massive, red-skinned Green Lantern's head, and he clapped his hands to his ears in pain.

Sandman charged ahead of his compatriots, thrusting an accusatory finger at the Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan. "The invasion of Earth shall never last, so long any live to oppose it!" he proclaimed.

"Then die," the slug-like Green Lantern responded dispassionately. The huge ring encircling its aquarium globe flared with light. A streak of emerald light shot down, and Sandman leapt into the ocean, swimming powerfully through the waves. The green energies coalesced into a savage, prehistoric seamonster, a leviathan with a dozen fins on either side and an elongated snout full of razor-sharp teeth. The viridian monster chased Sandman through the water.

"Arthur sure loves the speechifying," Hawkman noted. "Sounds like he thinks he's royalty or something."

"Be that as it may, he's done his job and distracted the leader," the Atom rejoined. He placed a hand on Hawkman's shoulder, and in an instant was shrinking down and vaulting himself onto his teammate's arm. "Can you hit the sphere from here?"

Hawkman drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it, peering up intently at the floating globe containing the Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan. "I'll hit it. Hop on and hold tight."

As Hawkman drew the bowstring taut, the Atom ran down his arm, shrinking smaller and smaller. The Atom sprinted along the shaft of the arrow, which was now wider than the miniscule scientist, and headed for the arrowhead. Hawkman let the arrow fly.

The arrow flew straight and true and struck the Gil'Dishpan's globe, caroming harmlessly off it with a dull chime of futility. The sphere rotated slightly, like a head turning in disbelief, pointing the face of the oversized power ring toward Hawkman, before returning its attention to Sandman and the green sea creature swimming in his wake.

The Atom had jumped off the arrow at the point of impact, however, and was navigating through the glass globe at the particle level. He hopped along the latticework of crystal from silicon dioxide molecule to silicon dioxide molecule, until he passed across the boundary between the inner wall of the globe and its liquid contents. Then the Atom grew to a height of eighteen inches and tackled the Gil'Dishpan inside its own shell.

As the gray worm thrashed and flailed wildly in an effort to escape the arms of the Atom, the Green Lantern of Okaara finally managed to elude the battery of high-velocity jabs delivered by the Flash. The blue-skinned alien's ring emitted a powerful burst of green force in all directions to knock the Flash away. The Green Lantern then wasted little time turning his weapon directly on the speedster. A column of energy snaked out and latched onto the Flash's ankles, then generated a heavy rod between them that began to steadily lengthen. The Flash's legs were pushed further and further apart while he hung upside-down in mid-air, suspended from the energy projection, until finally both of his hip joints were dislocated with a pair of sickening snaps. The Flash screamed in agony.

Hawkman began to run toward the Flash, until he heard a similarly horrific scream come from Black Canary. Hawkman whirled around to see Bolphunga, wearing a conical green helmet that protected his ears with soundproof flaps, restraining Black Canary in an emerald projection that looked like a cross between a beartrap and a vise.

Hawkman fired an arrow at the hulking Green Lantern, tearing open a gash along Bolphunga's cheek. The Green Lantern grunted, but merely clenched his ring hand into a fist, tightening the pressure exerted by the glowing green device that was mauling Black Canary. She stiffened, her eyes pleading with Hawkman's across the distance for a moment before closing forever.

Hawkman howled with rage and ran toward Bolphunga, his bow raised high over his head like a club. He brought the weapon down hard on Bolphunga's head, and it shattered against the alien's skull. Bolphunga shook his head quickly, then backhanded Hawkman, the blow augmented by a rush of emerald energy that sent the archer flying down the beach.

Overhead, the Gil'Dishpan continued to surge around its aquarium globe, with the Atom clinging to its back in a full-body chokehold. But while the marine worm seemed to possess a limitless reserve of energy, the Atom was rapidly running out of air. As if sensing this, the Gil'Dishpan reared up against the top of its glass sphere, slamming the Atom against the inner wall once, twice, three times. The Atom released the worm and floated lifelessly in the sphere's fluid interior. The Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan willed a set of emerald pincers to phase through the globe, grasp the Atom, and phase him out through the glass wall. Like a floppy ragdoll, the Atom fell to the Earth below.

The Green Lantern of Gil'Dishpan returned its full attention to Sandman, and caused the monstrous construct chasing the swimming man to grow larger and larger, until it simply engulfed the would-be liberator. The hideous glowing creature then swam into the sky, hauling Sandman along in its solid-light belly.

The Green Lantern of Karna emerged from Marty Costa's mansion, leaving a massacre within its walls. The four triumphant Green Lanterns, with a new prisoner in tow, flew away from the site of their most recent victory, and away from the bodies of the short-lived Justice League.

Appa Ali Apsa gazed out of one of the wide windows of the Central Battery Citadel at the swaths of stars spread out against the darkness of the universe.

The Guardian knew that time was on his side, favoring the immortal race of Oans, who had selflessly dedicated themselves to the cause of Order. Eventually, day by day, year by year, epoch by epoch, the Guardians would subjugate every sentient world in the cosmos, and erase any traces of chaos on those worlds. Some worlds, such as Khundia or Colu, welcomed the Guardians. Others resisted, but ultimately the Green Lantern Army could not be stopped. Entropy would lose. Order was inevitable.

Why, then, did the news from Earth vex Appa Ali Apsa so? He had authorized reinforcements to the backwards little planet after receiving reports of the metahumans who had attacked a group of Green Lanterns. He had ordered that monitoring for metagenes be increased, to detect them at the earliest possible juncture and prevent their carriers from mastering their abilities and forming alliances with those like them. And he had commanded all Green Lanterns on Earth to redouble their efforts to find the last survivor of Krypton, who was hidden somewhere on the primitive gamma-level world …

Jonathan Kent had just finished scooping meatloaf onto his son's and wife's plates, and was about to help himself, when a knock sounded at the farmhouse's front door.

"Who could that be?" Martha Kent asked. "Are you expecting anyone, Jonathan?"

"Can't say that I am," the Kent patriarch shook his head as he stood up from the dinner table. "I hope they aren't expecting us to invite them in for dinner, either, seeing as there's barely enough for the three of us."

"I can share, Pa," Clark Kent said.

"That's good of you to say, son, but why don't I go see who it is before you start trying to give away your mother's cooking, all right?" Jonathan Kent left the dining room and crossed the small foyer of the house. He opened the front door. "Help you, sir?"

"Indeed you may, Jonathan Kent," the stranger on the other side of the threshold said. "You may, in fact, help the entire world, and the entire universe beyond it. May I come in?"

TO BE CONTINUED ...