It was another reason John had to take down Evil Star—as if he needed any reason besides the sadness in Maleen’s eyes.
Finally, he swept past the last peaks in the mountain chain. Just beyond them, nestled in a deep valley by a broad river, stood the prison of which the Council had spoken.
It was just as the Elders had described it to him—a dark metal box of a building with a high tower rising from each corner. Actually, each tower was a separate, fully equipped security facility with a powerful force-field projector to keep intruders out and a deadly energy cannon to make sure they didn’t call a second time.
No windows. No air vents that John could see. And just one set of doors made of eight-inch-thick titanium, which opened only at Evil Star’s command.
Unless the Council had misinformed him, the entire facility was automated—which meant there weren’t any guards around. But then, who could Evil Star have trusted with the job? The only underlings he could rely on were his Starlings, and they were too valuable to be stuck here watching prisoners.
The tyrant was better off letting computer-driven machines do that sort of work. And to this point, they had been more than equal to the task. The place had proven itself impossible to get in or out of, impossible to conquer.
John smiled a grim smile. Unless, of course, you were wearing a ring that could do the impossible.
Swooping out of the sky, he trained his ring on the nearest of the towers. At first, his beam splattered against the prison’s invisible force field. Then he put some more willpower behind it.
The beam struck the field with redoubled force and pierced it. Taking advantage of the opening, John flew through the unseen barrier. And before the energy cannon in the tower could respond to his presence, he drove a shaft of emerald fury in one side of the tower and out the other.
For a moment, a storm of crackling sparks seemed to fill the ruined structure. Then the tower blew itself apart in an immense, deafening explosion and a flash of white light.
One down, thought John. Three to go.
Unfortunately, he had been identified as a security threat. As he went after a second tower, the three remaining security stations went after him with sizzling, red energy beams.
John didn’t have the luxury of seeing whether the beams were stronger than his ring’s defenses. He had to drop and weave and soar through the air to avoid them.
If there had only been one of the red beams, his task would have been tough enough. But with three of them trying to blast him out of the air, his flying skills were taxed to their limits.
And how long would it be before Evil Star got wind of what was happening and came to investigate? Not long, John imagined. If he was going to accomplish his mission, he had to go on the offensive.
With that in mind, John ascended until he was just below the force field’s highest point. The red beams were tracking his flight, not far behind him. But as they converged on his position, he suddenly made a beeline for the base of one of the towers.
Naturally, the beams followed him. In fact, they followed so quickly that the computers directing them didn’t register what John was up to—until it was too late.
Just in time, he darted out of harm’s way—leaving two of the beams to plow into the base of the third one’s tower, shearing it off as neatly as a knife cutting through butter.
The structure toppled, hit the ground, and exploded in a blaze of white. Two down, John told himself.
The two remaining towers were diagonally across the prison from each other. As before, they tried to catch him in a cross fire. They were coming close, too, close enough for him to hear the ripping sound the beams made as they cut through the air.
It was difficult to take aim at either tower while he was dodging both energy beams. Therefore, he would have to find a place where he didn’t have to do that.
There was only one position that would keep him safe from at least one of the beams—a position that kept him behind one of the towers. Of course, if the prison’s security computers had learned from their last mistake, they would stop short of firing at each other—but John would still have only one source of trouble to worry about.
And if the computers hadn’t learned? That would be just fine with him as well.
As John cut behind one of the towers, he saw the beam from the other tower vanish before it could do damage to its sister structure. It seemed the prison’s computers had learned their lesson after all. Unfortunately for them, he had a new one in mind.
With only one shaft of energy to dodge, he was able to aim his ring and fire. Its powerful green beam stabbed through the tower, gutting the machines inside it. A heartbeat later, they went up in a ball of fiery, white light.
That’s three, John told himself.
With the third tower destroyed, he no longer had a hiding place. But then, he no longer needed one. With the last surviving tower unleashing bolt after bolt of blood-red fury, John dove and banked and cut from one side of the prison to the other.
All the while, he was jockeying for a closer shot at the tower. And when he got it, he took advantage of it. At this range, his green energy blast didn’t just punch a hole in the building. It reduced it to tiny pieces of flying metal.
That left the prison defenseless. John hovered for a moment and scanned the vague line of the horizon. There was still no sign of Evil Star, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t on his way.
Wasting no time, John trained his beam on a spot in the center of the prison’s roof. Its metal was no match for the power of his ring. It gave way as easily as tissue paper would give way to a hot poker, exposing the well-lit insides of the building.
John dropped feetfirst through the hole in the roof, ready for anything. But even before he hit the floor, he saw that the Council’s information was correct—there weren’t any guards around. Only rows of barred cells extending in every direction. He imagined there were at least a hundred of them in all—and each one contained a prisoner.
Most of them were men, but there were women there as well. At the sight of him, they all pressed their faces to the bars of their cells, their eyes wide with unexpected hope.
“Who are you?” one of them asked.
“How did you get in here?” asked another.
“My name is John Stewart,” he told them, “and I come from Escrayana.” He used his ring to slice the bars so they could leave their cells. “Unfortunately, there’s no time to tell you anything more. Just get out of here and spread the word—Evil Star’s tyranny can be overturned. I just proved it.”
The prisoners did as he said. As soon as their bars were cut, they streamed out of their cells into the hallways, then down a set of stairs to the ground floor.
But John’s work there wasn’t finished. After he had satisfied himself that all the prisoners were free, he sailed over their heads and made his way downstairs—where he caught sight of the prison’s massive titanium doors.
Somehow, they looked even bigger and thicker from the inside. The Council had said they were designed to withstand anything people could throw at them.
But whoever had designed the doors hadn’t taken John’s ring into account. With a mighty blast of green energy, he punched a hole through their titanium surface—a hole wide enough to let the prisoners escape three at a time.
They left the building as quickly as they could, pouring out like water through a broken dam. Most of them headed for the mountains, hoping to lose themselves in them. A few went the other way, toward the city and whatever possibilities it might offer them.
Some of them would likely get caught again. There was nothing John could do about that. But the rest would spread the word about what had happened here in Dashiri.
People all over Aoran would hear the story and realize that Evil Star wasn’t all-powerful. They would see that he could be defeated. And if they were brave enough, maybe they would find ways to join in the fight.
At least, that was the idea.
Jerred could
have called his niece on her communicator, but he went to visit her in person instead. That way, he believed he would get a more accurate reading of her feelings.
Maleen had always been a sensible individual. That was why the Council had chosen her for this assignment. But judging by the second thoughts Maleen had expressed to her uncle, she had already begun to let emotions come between her and her work.
If Jerred didn’t keep an eye on her, she might reveal the truth. And that would jeopardize their world’s last chance to save itself from the villainy of Evil Star.
With that in mind, he pressed the illuminated metal plate beside his niece’s front doors. A moment later, the doors slid aside for him, revealing the interior of her house.
Jerred had hoped that Maleen would be standing there to greet him. But she wasn’t. She was standing by the open window, watching the black and starless sky.
In the corner of the room, a trans-video receiver was silently displaying a message from Evil Star to his subjects. He sent out such messages from time to time, advising the Aoranites of laws he had decided to impose on them.
The tyrant looked as haughty as Jerred had ever seen him. It made his stomach tighten to see such arrogance. No doubt it was having the same effect on every Escrayan—indeed, everyone on the planet.
Except Maleen. She wasn’t watching Evil Star’s message. She was too intent on the window and the empty sky.
“How are you, Uncle?” she asked without turning.
“The question,” he said, “is how are you? You look troubled this evening, my child.”
The breeze coming through the window lifted her hair. “I am,” she said. “I’m worried about John.”
“We’re all worried about him,” the councilor told her.
“It’s been too long since he left,” his niece insisted. “What if Evil Star got wind of the prison break and moved to stop it?”
Jerred frowned. “We brought the Green Lantern here because he stood a chance of matching Evil Star’s power. His ring is an extremely potent weapon.”
“But not as potent as Evil Star’s starband,” Maleen insisted. “And even if John can stand up to the starband, there’s the matter of Evil Star’s Starlings.”
Jerred had to admit that the odds were stacked against their champion. But not wanting to dash his niece’s hopes, he made that admission only to himself.
“He’ll come back,” he said. “You’ll see.”
His assurance didn’t seem to help. Maleen continued to peer at the gloom of the heavens through the window, her delicate features contorted with worry.
Then, all of a sudden, her expression changed. The veil of fear and uncertainty lifted from her face and was replaced with a radiant smile. Maleen raised her hand and pointed.
“Look!” she told her uncle. “Look!”
He moved to her side and followed her gesture. And as he did this, he saw something moving against the darkness of the sky. It was a glow—a green glow.
“John,” Maleen whispered.
Jerred nodded. “Yes—it’s him!”
He couldn’t help but be excited as well. After all, the Green Lantern’s return to Escrayana was cause for hope.
As the glow got closer, Jerred thought he could see a dark figure in its midst. He had barely become certain of it when, with breathtaking speed, the figure was on top of them.
Before Jerred knew it, Maleen and John Stewart were in each other’s arms. They spoke no words. They only stood there and basked in each other’s presence.
The councilor saw the look of relief and contentment on his niece’s face and couldn’t say for sure whether she was acting or not. It certainly appeared that her feelings were genuine. But then, that was the act the Council had requested of her.
“You’re back,” he observed, shattering the silence.
The Green Lantern turned to him. “I did it. I broke into the prison and freed everyone inside.”
Jerred smiled. “That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”
And their champion hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch. That was wonderful too.
“But I can do more,” John Stewart said. “I need to strike again. I just need a target.”
“We’ll think of one,” Jerred assured him.
Their campaign against Evil Star was going every bit as well as they could have hoped. Their champion had succeeded in his first effort and now he was eager to make another one.
Jerred’s fears that the Green Lantern would prove reluctant to help them or unequal to the task had turned out to be unfounded. But there was a new concern gnawing at the councilor’s stomach—a fear that the Council had asked too much of Maleen and that she would place their plan in jeopardy.
And it chilled him down to his bones.
The man called Evil Star scanned the row of empty prison cells, their doors open wide. Less than an hour earlier, these cells were full of those who had dared oppose his will.
But the prisoners hadn’t escaped on their own. Someone had helped them by knocking out the prison’s formidable security towers and blasting open the cell doors.
But who possessed that kind of power? Only Evil Star himself. Or so he had believed until now.
“Who did this?” he asked himself. His voice echoed hollowly from cell to empty cell.
Evil Star looked back over his caped shoulder at the purple-and-blue-clad Starlings standing at attention behind him. There were a dozen of them, each one nearly a head shorter than their master but a good deal more muscular.
His Starlings stared at him, expressionless, making no attempt to answer his spoken question. But then, he hadn’t designed them to come up with answers. He had designed them to crush the opposition without the slightest hint of mercy.
And they would have the chance to do that now.
Evil Star used his mental link with his Starlings to give them their instructions. Find those who escaped this place, he told them. Bring them back.
He knew that some of the prisoners were skilled at hiding themselves and would be difficult to find. But the tyrant was confident that they would turn up eventually. Rabble-rousers had a way of making themselves known.
Of more concern to him was the identity of those who had enabled the prisoners to escape. But he had a feeling he would run into them as well. And when he did, they would pay for opposing him.
They would pay dearly.
John Stewart tapped the oval computer screen with his fingernail. “That’s it,” he said, referring to the target he had chosen after hours of studying the Council’s database.
Maleen, who had gone into the next room to prepare a snack, put her tray down and peered over his shoulder. She didn’t speak. She just studied the screen.
“What do you think?” he asked at last.
“This will be more difficult than disabling the prison,” Maleen observed in a voice full of concern. “You could be facing more than just automated defense systems.”
“You mean Evil Star himself?”
“And maybe his Starlings as well,” Maleen said. “Are you ready for that?”
How could John be sure? For all he knew, Evil Star would crush him like a bug. But they were bound to meet at some point. It might as well be sooner rather than later.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said.
His wife looked down at him. “Amazing.”
“What is?” he asked.
“You,” Maleen told him. “It’s hard for me to believe that anyone could be so brave.”
“You sound as if we’ve just met,” John said.
She smiled. “Silly of me, I know.”
He glanced at the tray she had brought in. It held several small, steaming packages of thin, flexible sheet metal.
Because the metal didn’t quite come together at the top of each package, John was able to catch glimpses of their contents—prepared foods containing meat and fruit and grains. Like everything else in John’s life these days, they didn’t look the least bit fam
iliar.
But they smelled good. In fact, they smelled very good.
“Did you make this yourself?” he asked Maleen.
She nodded. “They’re your favorites.”
John shook his head. He was about to risk his life a second time against the cruelest and most powerful being he could imagine. And yet he felt like the luckiest man on Aoran.
After all, he had a bright, beautiful wife who adored him as much as he adored her. What else could a man ask for?
“Come on,” he said, pulling another chair over so Maleen could sit down alongside him. “I hate to eat alone.”
“Of course you do,” she said.
Then she sat down beside John and helped him work out the details of his plan.
Chifathia was a sprawling landscape of tall, tapering towers—one of the most impressive cities on all of Aoran. But then, it was the capital of Coranithar, which was the largest and most powerful nation in the southern hemisphere.
Or had been . . . until it fell to Evil Star.
John didn’t actually remember that information from the time prior to his head injury. However, he hadn’t spent all that time studying the Council’s database for nothing.
As he flew closer to Chifathia, which looked like an immense, blue-and-rose-colored island in a dark sea, he noticed the tiny white glows that represented the city’s fleet of flying security devices. Before Evil Star conquered Coranithar, the flying machines—also known as “eyes”—had been used by Chifathia’s police force to watch for fires and other possible disasters.
Now they were used by Evil Star to keep track of everything that was going on in Chifathia. Instead of helping people and saving lives, the eyes enabled the tyrant to watch for signs of disobedience—which he would, of course, crush the first chance he got.
What John meant to do here could certainly be classified as a sign of disobedience. However, he didn’t want Evil Star to get wind of it too quickly. He needed time to carry out his mission.
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