Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Write up by Ant L. (Team Archivist)

Banshee and X-Ray had asked Celestus to spend the day with them at the Balance’s covert base, ostensibly to get to know him a little better, and to introduce him to the BASEment’s facilities, should he have need of them whilst his exile on Earth continued.

Magnus, as he was to be known in his new civilian identity, was being introduced to some of the support staff when the big display screen in the reception room flickered into life, displaying a pattern similar to modern electronic circuitry in a symmetrical design, before a female face, though on reflection it was slightly androgynous looking, began to emerge from the ever-changing pattern. He was intrigued by the artificial yet human-looking face that smiled and nodded to him, even though the screen was just an image…

<<Designation: Celestus, welcome. I am Frankie…>>

Magnus stared intently at the screen. Clearly this was a ‘home grown’ A.I. though he wasn’t sure why that name sounded familiar?

To his surprise it, she, winked at him. The level of consciousness displayed was vastly superior to that exhibited by his own Oracle, and again he was forced to wonder just how primitive this planet and its inhabitants were supposed to be? The information he had previously received regarding Earth told of a society below the tech level of the Empire but, since his arrival, he had learned that these humans had independently created a vastly more powerful jump-capable interstellar ship than the Empire had achieved in thousands of its solar cycles of space flight! In addition, they supposedly had developed a sensor-invisible fleet, if reports covertly obtained from his Embassy were to be believed. And now A.I.s’ that appeared to be fully conscious and seemingly unrestrained! The AAB – the Argushiigi Admegulasha Bilanidin or “Vilani Repository of All Knowledge”, the Empire’s Galactic records – would need to be updated, if ever he got the chance.

Frankie continued, <<Designations: Banshee and X-Ray, a mysterious object has impacted on the City of Douglas on the Isle of Man, resulting in several buildings being demolished. There are no reports as to numbers killed or injured at this time.>>

This is followed by almost immediate, admittedly unsubstantiated, reports of a supers-involved confrontation with a non-human sentient, along with several live-feed video streams from various social media platforms, obviously from mobile phones in the hands of some on-the-scene Manx inhabitants.

<<Douglas is the capital city and largest settlement of the Isle of Man, with a population of nearly 27,000 and an area of 4.1 square miles. It is located at the mouth of the River Douglas, and on a sweeping bay of two miles’ shoreline. Local Police are reporting street fighting in the city between what they describe as alien figures in power armour.>>

Sure enough, the shaky and often out-of-focus video streams showed a very one-sided fight taking place in the outskirts of Douglas. A single snake-like being was battling for all it was worth against at least five opponents’ wearing what looked like blue-coloured armour and firing blaster weapons that looked like spears.

Brian was just changing into his X-Ray uniform when Frankie put a call through to them from Jimmy Tennant, otherwise known as Transit from the Caledonian Protectorate.

“Hi, guys! Listen. I am here, in Douglas, on holiday, if you can believe my luck. It’s getting ugly, but I’m available to transport the team to the scene, if you’re coming?”

“Hi, Jimmy,” said Mary, “yes, that would be lovely, thank you. Can you pick us up from that spot by the river? You remember?” She transformed into Banshee as Brian finished changing. Magnus, bless him, was seemingly always in his Royal uniform.

“Oh, aye dearie, that I do. I’ll give you a minute to get there, ye ken. See you soon.”

“Jimmy is a mass-teleporter for the Caledonian Protectorate, so is incredibly useful at times,” explained Banshee. “He is also considered a non-combatant, so he will probably take on search-and-rescue duties when we arrive.”

Brian looked at Magnus. “Would you like to join us? We could use the extra muscle.”

Celestus smiled and nodded, “Yes, certainly, I would love to.”

Banshee, X-Ray, and Celestus were ready and waiting as Jimmy materialised on the embankment by a lovely old tree and a pair of ornate wrought-iron benches. A little under six-feet tall, Jimmy had short-cropped dark hair, and a ‘van Dyke’ beard. He was definitely in holiday mode, with baggy denim shorts, trainers, and a white t-shirt with a red rectangle across its chest, designed to look like it had been made by a paint roller, on which proudly stood out in white the three legged emblem of the Isle of Man.

“Ferry to the isle of Manannán mac Lir – all aboard the Skylark!” he quipped, grinning. His Scottish accent – Glaswegian, to be more precise – was not particularly broad, albeit noticeable. He motioned for the trio to stand near to him in a rough circle, and then smiled.

“Okay, deep breath…one, two…”

A bright, multi-coloured ball of light burst outward from the centre of the circle, wrapping around them with a warm embrace of tingling heat.

“Three!”

The sound of seagulls crying and people screaming filled the air. The sun was bright and high, the air was warm but tempered by a gentle sea breeze.

Transit had materialised with The Balance quite close to the deadly combat; they were no more than thirty yards away and X-Ray, using his enhanced vision, quickly relayed the details of what he saw to the others.

The ‘victim’, if that was truly the correct phrase, was obviously an alien, with an armoured humanoid torso atop a scaly, serpentine lower body. ‘It’ was severely injured, and was clearly fighting for its life.

The ‘aggressors’, in X-Ray’s mind at least, were being led by a man that, Celestus confirmed, could only be the Star Khan’s roaming ‘ambassador’ in this sector of space, one ‘Duke’ Sebastibol. He stood seven feet tall, slim, almost elegant, in his black military uniform with an ornamental neck brace that also covered his lower jaw. His eyes were completely black, with no visible sclera showing, and his skin was a pale grey. His squad comprised several armoured soldiers with Pulse Lances (“Justicars,” said Celestus) and two bald, human “Vadaka” (“psychic hounds, for tracking prey,” explained Celestus, with distaste in his tone).

They ducked instinctively as an energy weapon was knocked sideways, the beam lancing over their heads to dissipate somewhere out above the ocean.

Unfortunately, the street fight was not the only problem that the team faced. With several nearby buildings badly damaged, no small amount of collapsed brickwork and shattered glass littered the scene around the battling aliens. No civilians appeared to have been injured or killed – yet – but on their left was a damaged and burning care home, the Sea View, and Banshee could see panicked staff desperately trying to usher the residents out of the main doors and away towards the sea front, about twenty yards behind them. The smell of ozone pervaded the area – some from the sea, most from the energy weapons being discharged by the combatants.

“That group appear to fight for the Star Khan,” explained Celestus, pointing to Sebastibol’s men, “the other…I am not certain…”

Magnus was trying to recall a childhood memory brought to mind by the unique armour the alien wore, possibly something he had overheard years ago, a story of a cadre of legendary armoured protectors known as Star Knights; powered beings from a variety of races who protected the weak and needy until they supposedly became extinct – about a thousand solar cycles ago… There was something about the serpent-like sentient and his costume that brought that reminiscence to mind.

“I’ll leave you to it,” said Transit, looking at the terrified pensioners huddling together outside the care home, “I will be trying to save lives over there.” And just like that, he was gone, re-appearing next to a member of the care home’s staff away to their left.

Celestus’s voice rose above the din of the fighting, “The Star Khan soldiers are wearing old Imperial power armour; they are obviously not troops of the Empire, and they are hundreds of parsecs outside of the Empire’s jurisdiction. However, a few years ago, the Star Khan conquered and blockaded a large portion of the Empire’s Rimward frontier and gained much in the way of equipment and supplies. Those suits were probably looted from an Imperial logistical vessel some time ago.”

<<Designation: The Balance, be advised that local police have pulled their officers back from the immediate area of the combat, and are conducting evacuations of the surrounding streets. British military personnel have been alerted at 75 Engineer Regiment and the 206 Medical Regiment, but they will not be on-site for approximately fifteen plus minutes.>>

Another stray blast of energy struck the roof of the Douglas Yacht Club, just a few yards down the road, opposite the care home. Roofing tiles flew off in all directions, many smashing against the pavement in front of the main building. There were people hiding inside the interior of the open bay-end of the club grounds, looking out onto the slipway and the beach; several ran screaming out into the street and headed away from the fighting towards the slipway.

“Right!” said X-Ray, “who are we going for first?”

“X-Ray,” said Celestus.

Brian looked at the prince, “Hello?”

“Force field.”

Brian frowned, then smiled. “Right, okay.” And he activated his gravity field, an effect that diverted and dispersed attacks away from his body – or at least most of the time.

Suddenly, Celestus shouted at the aliens, “Hey! Over here!”

His booming voice caught the attention of Sebastibol, who pointed in his direction, shouting something to his troops in basic Zultasian. X-Ray had the visual acuity to notice that the dark narrow eyes had focussed onto Celestus’s insignia, the symbol of his rank, that was emblazoned on the chest of his uniform. The expression on Sebastibol’s face made it clear that he hated that insignia.

One of his men levelled a Pulse Lance and fired at Celestus.

“That’s no way to treat a prince of the Empire!” he exclaimed, as the beam of searing radiation missed him by a good ten feet or more. By way of reply, Celestus channelled the cosmic energies of his bio-matrix into a psi-blast of such power that the trooper was thrown onto his back, his weapon discarded, to writhe in agony on the tarmac.

Taking a cue from Celestus, Banshee changed her visage into her fearful form, unleashing a psychic aura of fear against the aliens en-masse. The fallen Justicar screamed briefly, then collapsed into unconsciousness. All of the aliens were affected to some extent, backing away and raising their weapons in an attempt, except for the two bald-headed human-looking people, the ‘Hounds’ – they seemed totally immune to her power.

To his left, X-Ray noticed that Banshee’s aura of fear had uneased several of the elderly residents of the care home, with some of them pushing past the staff to get back inside. He could see that the top floor was ablaze, probably the result of another energy beam, but worse, he could see two old women still up there, arguing with a member of the staff.

In front of the team, the serpentine alien seemed to be weakening. Although his body and armour carried no signs of blast damage, his snake-like body was covered in cuts and gouges, spilling a black ichor onto the road where he struggled to escape from his pursuers.

As the Star Khan’s men began to recover from Banshee’s attack, X-Ray waved his arm at one of the ‘Hounds’; he rose into the air, high above the rooftops, and screamed as he was flung far out to sea. No-one saw where he landed; no-one saw him again. His heavy space-armour dragged him straight down into the depths of the Irish Sea.

Sebastibol shouted to his other Justicars, who aimed and fired at the team. Banshee dove to one side to avoid one such beam, whilst Celestus took a few paces forward, seemingly unconcerned about the danger as two more beams missed him by several feet.

The severely injured alien serpent summoned the last of its strength and, with glowing eyes and a guttural shout, it fired a hand-held weapon at one of the Justicars, knocking the trooper several feet away to sprawl motionless amidst the rubble. That seemed to be the end of the creature, and he slumped to the ground, the glow fading from his eyes, the purple scaly skin rising and falling as it took ragged gasps of air.

Spurred on by the sight of the creature collapsing, Celestus targeted the remaining ‘Hound’ with another psi-blast. Fuelled by rage, the energy ripped into the man, battering through a psychic defence screen and pummelling his cerebellum into unconsciousness; the ‘Hound’ fell without a sound.

Taking the wounds into account, Celestus reasoned that the serpent-alien had been badly injured in a crash – the one reported by Frankie that had destroyed several buildings somewhere else in Douglas, in all likelihood. ‘Did they want him alive?’ he wondered, ‘is that why they haven’t simply shot him to death?’

Banshee and X-Ray were distracted by the sounds of crashing masonry and timber, a reminder that the care home behind them was close to collapse. Banshee became insubstantial and flew through the upper floor wall; a quick scout around revealed the three people that X-Ray had noticed a few moments before.

“Banshee, do you need my help with that building?” X-Ray asked over his commdot.

“Yes, and quickly. This top floor is about to collapse!” The urgency in her voice was clear.

“Go!” shouted Celestus, “save the humans. Leave this to me!”

“I’ll take that as an answer.” X-Ray rose serenely into the air and quickly floated over to the rooftop of the Sea View. The roofing timbers were ablaze over half of the structure, and where they had collapsed they had set fire to the upper floor furnishings. The home was beyond saving, but Brian was determined to reduce the damage as much as he could.

With intense concentration, he reached out to the surrounding gravity field, urging it to reverse its effect…he watched, felt, the flow alter direction, caressing the entire roof. Timbers, tiles, insulation, everything above the brickwork lifted into the sky and floated towards the beach, where it settled harmlessly into the sand, away from the tourists, and the businesses that lined the sea front.

For his troubles, X-Ray was hit squarely by an energy beam in his back. His force field deflected most of the radiation but some smashed through the gravity field and burned his back.

‘Damn! That hurt!’ The pain shot through his entire body, leaving him dazed; but he couldn’t give up. Gritting his teeth, Brian turned back to the battle, determined to bring this outrage to an end.

Celestus continued to advance upon the Star Khan’s troops, his apparent invincibility causing panic to set in amongst the Justicars. One raised his Pulse Lance and fired, but completely misjudged his effort and blasted another of his comrades at point blank range.

Two more Justicars targeted and hit X-Ray, but this time his force field was more than equal to the task, and he remained uninjured.

In a blur of speed, Celestus launched himself into the air straight at the group of troopers, bowling three of them over, weapons and scraps of armour flying off in all directions. The Star Khan’s men were being whittled down, but it was by no means finished.

Celestus wheeled around and landed next to the alien-serpent. He could see that its armour was antiquated, obsolete if seemingly unique in its design. The poor creature was bleeding heavily, and its breathing was shallow and rapid. It managed to open its eyes as Magnus stood over it, a vague flicker of recognition passing over its features as they locked stares.

Distracted by the dying alien, Celestus was struck by an energy beam from close range, a cry of pain erupting from his throat as the scorching plasma blistered his skin.

Banshee had kept an eye on the three women on the upper floor since X-Ray had removed the blazing roof, but as a section of the back wall gave way into the car park behind, another scream caught her attention.

Ghosting through a wall Banshee kept herself alert, and was rewarded with the sound of a woman sobbing; the elderly lady had huddled down beside a large chest of drawers and managed to conceal herself enough that Banshee had not seen her on her first scouting flight through the top floor rooms.

She transformed into her younger, attractive form, affectionately referred to as ‘young Banshee’, and became solid, landing on the plush carpet on the other side of the drawers.

“Don’t be scared, madam. I am here to get you to safety.”

The woman peered around the chest of drawers, obviously terrified, but began to stand up when she saw Banshee.

“What about Elizabeth, and Agnes?” she said, her voice shaking.

Banshee realised that she was talking about the other two women still on this floor, with the staff member.

“We’ll get them out, too. It’s alright, we’re used to situations like this.”

Banshee held the woman’s arms and ghosted them both, lifting the resident off the floor and flying slowly through the ceiling of her room, one of only two rooms that still had the remnants of a roof over them. Although the woman flinched when they approached the ceiling, she whooped with joy when they hit the fresh air outside, and Banshee noticed that the woman was suddenly smiling, laughing, even.

“Whoo! This is smashing!” she cried, genuinely enjoying herself after her terrible experience in the burning building. She was speechless when a plasma beam went straight through her and Banshee, to destroy a large section of the upper floor front wall. Luckily, the staff had managed to get the other residents away from the main doors and down the street towards the bay, so the resulting collapse was harmless enough.

Banshee bought the woman down to street level, leaving her with the staff. She became solid again and through her commdot, contacted X-Ray, “Three to go on the top floor.”

With Celestus having taken out half of the remaining troopers, X-Ray took his chance to help further with the Sea View. Once again using his power to manipulate gravity, he lifted the two residents and the staff member slowly and carefully up and out through the now roofless upper floor, guiding them gently down to join the others who were now being ushered urgently away from the fighting. One of the residents he helped out didn’t take too kindly to her unexpected flight and threw up two fingers at Brian, hurling abuse at him at the same time. Oh, well, you can’t keep the audience happy all of the time!

The troopers that were still upright continued to fire their weapons, narrowly missing Celestus and another deflected away from X-Ray’s force field.

By way of response, Celestus caught one of the Justicars with a full-on haymaker; the alien was sent sprawling through the air in an arc, up-and-down, hitting the main mast of a yacht anchored by the main jetty of the yacht club. His armour, cracked open from the force of Celestus’s punch, fell off him in broken scraps as he slumped to the ground, revealing a dull blue-grey skin tone.

Celestus turned to glower at the last two troopers, hoping they would surrender, but they began to step back slowly, covering the team with their blasters, kicking their fallen comrades as they moved. One of the fallen Justicars roused himself enough to draw a curved knife that glinted evilly in the sunlight. With a grunt of effort, he lunged at the alien-serpent, stabbing the blade through the metal armour hilt-deep into the alien’s chest and pulling down hard to slice along his torso.

Gobsmacked by the sight, X-Ray fired a beam of gamma radiation at the Justicar just as he reached inside the ruined armour-shell; the bolt was straight and true, hitting the Justicar in the side of the head and knocking him out instantly.

That’s when they saw a ball of energy rise from the alien-serpent’s slashed chest. It was about the size of a tennis ball, bright, sparkling white and gold, and it flew towards Celestus. He saw that it was heading straight at him and he side-stepped, but the ‘entity’ wasn’t to be denied; the energy hit Celestus dead-centre of his chest, and vanished; seemingly absorbed without hurting him.

But Celestus knew it was inside him. He turned to face Banshee and X-Ray, his eyes glowing with a bright golden light.

“What has he done to me?”

—

Behind the remaining troopers, a large circular portal of glowing yellowy-orange energy appeared. The two troopers grabbed the fallen Sebastibol and dragged him into the portal, vanishing from sight. Angry as hell, X-Ray altered the flow of gravity around him, causing all the unconscious Star Khan troops to rise into the air and hurtled by him into the portal. Dead or not, he didn’t want a single one of these murdering scum on his planet!

When he was done, X-Ray looked at Banshee, who was stony-faced, and could only point at Celestus, who was now kneeling beside the alien-serpent.

The Imperial Prince had the ability to speak and to understand all languages, and so, in hope, he said, “Can you hear me?”

His eyelids fluttered open, a pale light behind them, “Yes… Did it work? Did I give you your mother’s gift?”

“My mother’s gift? Something’s happened to me. I don’t understand.”

The eyelids began to flutter again, the light fading.

“…honour…Star…Knight…”

X-Ray knelt beside Celestus, examining the reptilian alien with a surgeon’s eye, but it was a futile gesture. The creature was dying, and Brian knew he could never have understood the alien anatomy.

Banshee changed back into Mary, manifested her harp and began to play a Celtic lament, centring her power on the alien. His breathing shallowed as she played but his features relaxed as he closed his eyes. She sang on as his spark died, and his soul passed on to the realm of his forebears.

Celestus’s mind was in turmoil. His mother? But she was dead. He had been told that she had died in childbirth, delivering him into the Empire. He didn’t know anything else about her, other than she had been a chosen concubine of the Shadow Emperor.

Celestus stood and walked away a short distance. He contacted Oracle, his ship’s AI, and described the creature, asking the computer system to look for a matching species. The response was brief; it might be a Sithii, a race that had supposedly become extinct about a thousand years before.

—

Banshee noticed that the Army had arrived, and were now helping to secure the area and lead civilians away. “Time to go,” she said, looking around for Jimmy.

X-Ray stood, turning to scan the area with his enhance vision, checking for any other threats or unsafe structures.

“Yeah, okay, let’s…hey, what the hell is that?!” He pointed towards a small hill overlooking the town from the west.

Banshee and Celestus followed his lead, spotting a humanoid creature with grey skin standing seven-feet tall on the crest of the hill, looking down at them. Standing beside him was a metallic figure.

“Ambassador Sebastibol!” exclaimed Celestus, “And he has brought a robotic friend.”

The tall alien vanished in a circle of light. The robot took a step forward and also disappeared from view. Fearing that the aliens had not simply given up, X-Ray scanned the horizon with his E.M. vision.

“Oh, this is going to be interesting,” he said out loud, “There’s three of them robotic buggers coming down the hill. They are invisible to normal sight.”

Celestus took a deep breath. His eyes had ceased to glow, but that was now a mystery for another time. “I fear, my friends, that I am being hunted.”

“I can see their heat signatures,” X-Ray explained, “I will have to give you both instructions as to their positions.”

Celestus rose into the air. “Let’s see if they can fly. X-Ray?”

“Hmm…they can. Two of them are flying up towards you, Magnus.”

The prince continued to gain height, “Oh, joy.”

X-Ray gave Celestus guidance as to the location of the leading robot, and with both arms outstretched before him, Celestus shifted position and began a power dive.

“To your left a little…the other left…more…ah, missed!”

Banshee turned to X-Ray, an anxious look on her face, “Don’t lose sight of the other one. If it goes behind a building you will lose it.”

Brian checked back – too late! The third robot had obviously reached the foot of the hill and could no longer be seen.

Celestus was circling around, about two-hundred feet in the sky above Douglas, completely unaware of the two flying robots getting closer to him.

“Guide me!” Banshee shouted to X-Ray, as she looked up towards Celestus.

“One o’clock high!” X-Ray saw Banshee take a deep breath and he covered his ears.

A screeching shriek ripped out of her lungs, a song of tearing metal, the death-throes of one-thousand warriors, steel claws on iron shields and the wailing of the women. It was the sound of destruction, and it took the arm off one of the robots, the shiny limb becoming visible as it spun towards the ground. Smoke rose from nothing in the sky.

“There’s your target, Magnus.”

Celestus summoned his cosmic energies once more and unleashed a psi-blast towards the area of space just below the smoke trail. He heard the impact, saw the smoke trail twisting away, then he smiled as the robot flickered into view. He had destroyed the invisibility circuits. Now it was his.

X-Ray saw an elderly woman emerge from the corner of the crossroads, off to the left of the scene of the earlier battle. She looked scared, hardly able to use the Zimmer frame that she pushed.

“Young woman, get out of the way! It’s dangerous. Go the other way!”

Banshee turned to look. How had she got past the soldiers?

“X-Ray! Look at her!”

Brian frowned, but looked, using his enhanced vision to get a clear image of the old woman. She looked familiar…

“It’s one of the women that you rescued. But it can’t be…”

The heat signature was…wrong. He raised an arm and fired a gamma beam, blowing her arm off at the shoulder. Metal grated against stone as the limb hit the floor. The Zimmer frame vanished as the robot came into view.

‘Bloody shapeshifters!’ he thought to himself, as he heard Banshee unleash another death-scream into the sky.

“You hit it!” he heard Celestus shout over their commdots.

X-Ray gritted his teeth; yes, Banshee had hit it, twice now, but the damn thing was still functioning. They needed a win, and now!

With a yell, he summoned more gamma radiation from the atmosphere, channelling it into a narrow beam that erupted from his hands as he roared his rage at the damaged robot. It staggered back, its metal feet gouging tracks into the pavement as it fought for traction, but the radiation burned through its chest armour and detonated its power cells. The robot blew into several large chunks of scrap metal, adding to the fallen masonry and timber in front of the care home.

High above, Celestus smashed into the damaged, smoking robot, the metallic construct tearing apart as he hit it with the force of a small meteorite. Scrap metal rained down on the town, luckily well within the evacuated area near the seafront.

The final robot was still invisible to Banshee and Celestus, but X-Ray could see its heat signature heading towards the alien prince. A gamma radiation beam caught the robot dead centre of its chest; it was badly damaged, but Brian could see that it was still pursuing Celestus. Worse, a glowing series of symbols appeared on a display screen close to the apex of the torso – Brian instinctively knew that it was a countdown, and he guessed that it was a self-destruct program. Whoever – whatever – Celestus had upset, they really wanted him dead.

About fifty yards away from Celestus, the robot flickered into view as its cloaking system cut out. He saw it and the countdown, and immediately began to back away from it, staying high above the town. Magnus was trying to draw the robot out beyond the seafront and over the ocean, and he cursed silently as the robot stopped to hover above the rooftops. It was going to explode right on top of Douglas, and it obviously wanted him to risk his life by trying to tackle it. He gritted his teeth and prepared to fly straight at the hovering bomb…then permitted himself a sigh of relief as the robot suddenly shot vertically up into the air, almost vanishing from sight as it rose hundreds of feet into the pale blue background of the lower atmosphere.

X-Ray was also rising into the air, obviously using his power to control gravity to scupper the robot’s suicide plan. Celestus saw the flash of orange light as the explosion happened, hearing the sound just a few seconds later. So much for that little assassination attempt.

It wasn’t over yet…

X-Ray suddenly shot into the air, speeding towards the area of the detonation, “Banshee! Celestus! Try to take care of some of the fragments, please. This thing has spilled hard radiation into the air. I’m going to try something…”

Between them, Banshee and Celestus destroyed or managed to move the few large pieces of metal that may have caused damage to the old town below; Banshee’s wailing shriek shattered part of a limb into dozens of harmless shards, whilst Celestus caught and punched a couple of armoured torso sections, sending the latter out into the Irish Sea.

High above, they couldn’t tell what X-Ray was doing, but they could hear the strain in his voice. It was as though he was wrestling with something terrible, and they grew concerned as a guttural roar of agony broke over their commdots. Looking up, they saw a beam of energy lance out from X-Ray’s location and head off into the distance, possibly even shooting out into space.

More British soldiers were arriving on the scene, and Banshee saw a group surrounding the dead alien-serpent. Others were picking up items that had been dropped or discarded during the fight; sections of armour and one or two Pulse Lances, the curved knife, at least one helmet.

Mary couldn’t help but compare it to the tales of ancient Eíre, the battles of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians, where battlefields became feasting halls for the crows of The Morrigan.

X-Ray made his way back to them; he looked pained, tired, and was a little unsteady when he landed.

“I have never done that before. Instead of discharging radiation, I reversed the effect and drew the bomb’s payload to myself, then turned it all around and fired it into space. Hurt like a bugger!”

And still the day was not done with The Balance.

<<Designation: Celestus. Are you aware that your ship’s A.I. is transmitting your current location to the Ziru Sirkan Embassy here on Earth?>>

Magnus looked shocked, “No! That treacherous piece of software…”

“Has she betrayed you?” Banshee asked.

Magnus shook his head, “Listen, and you will understand. Oracle, why are you transmitting my location to the Imperial Embassy?”

The response was as brief as it was unexpected, “They asked.”

Banshee and X-Ray were non-plussed; was that all it took?

Oracle continued, “I am under instructions always to obey the Imperial authority.”

“I order you to disregard that instruction,” said Celestus.

“If that order is backed up by the Embassy or by the Emperor himself, I will do so,” said Oracle.

“Unfortunately, neither of those is the case,” Celestus said, quietly, to his teammates. “Oracle, for the time being, I’m terminating communications.”

“That is your right and privilege” it replied.

Banshee and X-Ray shared a look. This was a twist they hadn’t seen coming. How would this affect Celestus? Were they and their own going to be caught in the firing line? Banshee thought that it might be worth asking Frankie and Annie to ensure that this Oracle was locked out of their comm channels and tracking protocols, for the present at least.

Brian clasped a hand onto Magnus’s shoulder, the unspoken meaning that he had friends to rely on not going unnoticed.

Minutes later they were standing with Jimmy, on the verge of being teleported back to Wessex, when Banshee noticed that Magnus’s eyes were glowing again. She nudged Brian who followed her nod towards the prince.

Seemingly not in control of his own body, Celestus muttered, “Nemesis is coming!” Even as he heard himself speak, he knew the words weren’t his.

There was a swirl of colour then their view of Douglas had vanished; they once more stood in the park by the bank of the river beside a smiling if exhausted Jimmy Tennant – and very aware that something terrible was clearly coming for them.