Saturn Nine/Why They Hate Saturn
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
The sound of heavy footfalls echoed through the Impervium corridors, the sound of the guardbots going about rounds that lost all meaning centuries before. Still, it was tradition, even if the bots were no longer armed, to have them patrol at night. Many on the colony found it soothing, a sound to break the relative silence only otherwise broken by the constant, low thrum of the fusion generator at the core of their tesseract home.
One resident couldn't sleep that night and couldn't wait for the night she would never hear those metal footsteps again. Her name was Adra, though to the outside world she would forever be Saturn-Nine. Her home was a prison colony at the heart of the gas giant planet Saturn, a relic of a war centuries before her birth.
In the middle of the 27th Century, a powerful Psychic named Tral Vambran began spreading a philosophy called ESPerism. The core of the belief was that those born with physic gifts were the next step in human evolution and thus above and beyond the masses of regular humans as the Homo Sapiens were above the other apes.
His ideals gathered followers and his followers became militant, eventually leading to an all-out war between ESPers and normals. The powers psychics even enslaved non-psychics with powers and those ESPers who would not accept Tral's ideas and forced them to fight on their side. Things were looking bad for the normals.
That's when the Mystics of the distant planet Mu Two came to the aid of Earth, their ancestral home. With the magic might of the Mu on their side, the normals were able to resist the ESPers' powers and turn the tide, winning the war decisively.
Tral and all of his followers were tried, convicted and sentenced to exile on a Penal colony cut off from the rest of human society. The colony was a tesseract, a folded space construct larger inside than out and placed at the heart of the planet Saturn. The only entrance or exit was a gate controlled from earth by the Portal Corporation.
Due to fear and distrust, all of the ESPers that could be found were rounded up and shipped to Saturn, whether they had been directly involved in the war or not. A total of 250,000 were exiled thus, sealed away in the heart of another planet with only occasional shipments of supplies from earth to remind them of home and robotic guards immune to their powers as their watchmen.
Then, two centuries later, as debate raged about whether or not to allow the ESPers' descendants to return to earth, another great war broke out, this one between the earth and the forces of Neo-Arachnos on Mars. In the ensuing conflict, the Martian forces targetted Portal Corporation offices to destroy any means of sending troops directly to Mars. In the process, they destroyed the portal connecting Saturn to Earth, cutting all ties to the penal colony.
It took another few centuries to re-establish contact with Saturn, which many had written off as a tragic loss of the last war. However, far from being dead, the colony had survived by sheer ingenious need. They had saved their last shipment from earth, using medical tech to clone the vegetables and even animals from the genetic code in their meat. A struggling but very alive society remained. A society composed entirely of potent ESPers.
Where there had once been someone with telepathy, someone else with telekinesis, yet another with psychic healing abilities, the years of inter-breeding had spread these powers throughout the majority of the populace, making them a potentially greater threat than before if allowed to leave en masse.
The council of the United Worlds decided to test select individuals and let them out on a case by case basis and only into strictly monitored environment. The first was a man named Frel (Saturnians had no last names, a way of distancing themselves from their infamous ancestors and severing any way to trace lineage). He was tested and labelled Saturn-One, then given the post of UW ambassador to Saturn.
Adra, Saturn-Nine, had tested best of all of her fellows and was to be given the most prestigeous post of any of them. She was to become a Tomorrow Knight, one of the young heroes from various UW worlds who had joined together to protect the ideals of the United Worlds and ensure their continuation into the future.
So, the young woman stood, looking at herself in the mirror. She was wearing her new Knight uniform, a really flattering shade of purple with a white stripe down the center. It hugged her figure nicely and made her feel so much better than the colorless clothes of her home. The original prisoners had been dressed in gray suits and no with no dyes or other ways to color things, that had become the standard dress of all their descendants. The only thing that bothered her was the stylized image of the planet Saturn emblazoned on her chest.
She'd been told she would have to wear this everywhere, on everything she owned, to let people know she was an ESPer. To hide what she was would be considered a crime and result in her being shipped right back to the penal colony, probably for the rest of her life. She would rather die than spend the rest of eternity in this metal sphere, when the whole universe was waiting for her beyond. If all she had to do to keep her freedom was wear an image of the planet Saturn forever, that was an acceptable trade off.
The chime on her room rang and Adra grabbed her lightly packed duffle bag. She approached the door, which swung open, revealing the smiling faces of her Mother and Father, Winna and Zel. She forced and smile and hugged them. "I'll miss you," she said, practicing her verbal skills. She was used to speaking to her parents telepathically but she had to learn to speak if she were to fit in with regular UW society. Her own voice still sounded strange to her, she hadn't heard it since she was a child but it wasn't unpleasant, just odd.
Her parents didn't bother with vocalizations. There was an old saying on Saturn, "Speak to hide the truth, think to reveal it" and her parents really didn't trust anything said out loud by anyone other than the robots, who were incapable of lying, or thinking. ((You take care of yourself now Adra)) Her Mother thought to her, in that warm, comforting way she had. ((And don't forget your old parents when you are out there, saving the Universe with your new friends.))
((And don't forget to eat right and practice your telepathy)) Her Father chimed in, his mental voice strong and firm ((I don't want you reverting to a vocalizer and forgetting your powers.))
"Dad," she said, her tone one of exasperation, before she switched to mental communication. ((I won't forget, believe me, it's why they want me in the Tomorrow Knights, they need more telepaths.))
Her parents said nothing in reply and if they thought anything, they didn't share it. Instead they hugged her one last time and walked her to the old hub where the newly functioning gate stood, shimmering with the energies used to warm space and connect two distant points.
A pair of Tomorrow Knights were already there, waiting for her. One was a blue-skinned young man in black with a strange, whirlpool like design on his chest and soft, white hair. The other was a young woman with short, whitish-blue hair and a nervous smile. The beckoned hr forward and she nodded, taking a few steps to join them.
"H-hello Saturn-Nine," the nervous young woman stated, "I'm called B-Barometrica.'
"And they call me Incredibubble, though I really hate that name," The blue-skinned boy stated.
"Please, call me Adra, I really don't like being called Saturn-Nine." She meant it to, she'd rather be called by her name than by her designation.
"V-very well Adra. I... um, I have something for you." Barometrica handed over a small silver box. Adra took it and opened the case, blinking at what was inside.
It was a small ring, silvery in color and inscribed with a ray gun and a sword crossed one of the other, a star rising from the point where they met.
"It's a Tomorrow Knight flight ring," The one who didn't like being called Incredibubble said over her shoulder, "We all have them. Welcome to the Tomorrow Knights." His smile was awkward but genuine, as was Barometrica's. Adra couldn't help but join them, her lips curling into a wide, joyous smile, tears trickling down from her eyes.
"Is she ok?" Incredibubble asked Barometrica, puzzled by the crying. His own race was incapable of shedding tears and he had thought humans only did so when they were saddened or injured in some way.
"I.... I'm fine," Adra replied, gathering her composure. "Now, come on people, we can't stand here all day, we have things to do and a universe to protect." With that, she gave one last glance to her parents, hefted her bag over her shoulder and, clutching the ring tightly in her hand, strode through the shimmering gateway to her own future.
Six Months Later
The Knight Cruiser sailed through the swirling otherspace it's hyperdrive had catapulted the ship through on it's way to a new mission. Aboard were four Tomorrow Knights including their current team leader Captain Magnemo the magnetic man, Tomorrow Lass the precognitive, Hunk their resident giant slab of animated stone and Saturn-Nine.
The mission was supposed to be simple. Apparently a villain known as Warp Spacer had been busted out of the ultra-security prison world of Ziggursky-Volta by forces loyal to Neo-Arachnos on Mars. This was a common way the Spiders would gain new recruits but they usually attacked the lower security prison worlds like Solaris VII or Bikrumia. If Warp Spacer was imprisoned on Zig-Volta it could mean only one thing, he was a Class One hyperfelon.
Criminals were only give that classification for two reasons. One was that they were guilty of a heinous crime in the United Worlds like attempted or actual genocide on a planetary scale, smuggling of terra-deforming devices, possession of the Hamidon virus or the Assassination of a United Worlds official. The other way to get there was if your power posed such a large threat that they only way to contain it was the harshest security imaginable.
Warp Spacer wasn't a smuggler in planet-killing weapons or mass mutagens. He also wasn't a killer, in either the political or mass sense. His power was what lead him to be a Class One. He could warp space around himself, creating gateways from one place to another. This could be used to transport himself or others from place to place or, more dangerously, open gates on a planet to either the interstellar void or to the heart of a star, exposing that world to adverse enviromental conditions. In short, he himself WAS a Weapon of Planetary Destruction.
Neo-Arachnos had planned the attack well, sending an entire squad of Widow-class destroyers to attack the world while a small strike team of trained Crab Spiders, Night Widows and even a massive Onyx Spider Walker performed the actual extraction. All of the attackers perished, save one destroyer but it had been enough. The power dampening fields had been crashed, allowing Warp Spacer to use his power to escape, right into the remaining destroyer, which had fled into hyperspace.
Now, it was up to the Tomorrow Knights to catch the craft and secure Warp Spacer before they could reach the outer defensive perimeter of Mars. The onboard computer, programmed and designed by their own genius Twlight's Daughter, had calculated they had just under 45 minutes to intercept or lose the craft to the spiders.
Hunk was at the controls of the ship. In addition to being a giant animated rockman, he was also a crack pilot and could make a Knight Cruiser do things way beyond it's official specs. Captain Magnemo sat in his command chair in the center of the room, issuing orders while Tomorrow Lass and Saturn-Nine monitored the situation from their respective posts. Tomorrow Lass kept a constant fix on the craft, using her precog skills to anticipate it's evasive maneuvers while Adra prepared to engage the other ship's pilot on telepathic combat once they were in range.
"Hey Mag," Hunk growled in his voice that sounded not entirely unlike rocks grinding against each other, "We got a visual, punching it up now."
The main viewscreen switched from the view of a starfield to a close-up on the sinister craft. It resembled nothing so much as a giant spider with it's legs folded beneath it. Two red ports on the back were the only indicators of it's propulsive systems while gunports at each joint and massive particle cannons at the head where fangs would be and the rear in place of spinneretts attested to it's combat prowess. There was no way the Knight Cruiser could survive a straight fight with the heavily armed assault craft but that's what the Knights themselves were for, indirect combat.
"Are we within Telepathy range yet?" Magnemo asked, looking to Adra.
"Not yet, I can sense something, but it's still very faint. We need to close the distance." Saturn-Nine closed her eyes, trying to get a lock on the mind of the Spider-Pilot.
"I predict a greater than 90 percent chance that if we get much closer, they will open fire," Tomorrow Lass reported from her station, her voice sounding strangely dispassionate. They'd learned to get used to that, her people had practiced distancing themselves from their visions for hundreds of years as a way of keeping their sanity. It was rumored all of them knew how they would eventually die and such knowledge was liable to drive anyone mad who could not emotionally seperate the now from the future.
"Get as close as you can to that think Hunk without allowing them to gain a weapons lock. Let them fire blindly, the Cruiser's shield can handle potshots." Magnemo leaned forward, steepling his hands in front of him.
Adra concentrated harder, the pilot's elusive mind getting closer. She could almost wrap her will around it, almost grab hold. Then, she had it, the oddly alien mind of the pilot. She could see his condition, forever a part of the ship, physically grafted to it, his flesh one with it's metal, forever part of it and it of he. She closed her mental fist, crushing the pilot's will with her own. The ship shuddered and dropped out of hyperspace, the Knight Cruiser matching it.
"Good work Saturn," Magnemo shouted excitedly before leaping from his chair and striding towards the viewscreen. "Now, find us Warp Spacer. Hunk, open fire at their engines."
The Knight Cruiser's weapons lanced out, sending twin beams of violet energy lancing out towards the Spider-crafts engine ports. They struck an electromagnetic barrier, then pierced it, shooting towards the engines. Just before they hit though, there was a distortion, and the beams vanished.
"What the..." Magnemo began, before being silenced by an impact to the rear of their vessel.
"It's Warp Spacer," Tomorrow Lass reported, "He's using his power to send our weapons back at us!"
"Adra, dammit, find his mind and shut him down or we're sitting ducks. That pilot will be back on line shortly, or replaced with another!"
Adra concentrated harder, beads of sweat peppering her brow. She had to find that villain, had to attack him where he could not defend himself. Another blast rocked the ship, this time from the Spider-ship itself. That meant they at least had their weapons back online. She had no time.
Then, she found him, plugged into a terminal in the core of the ship, his powers linked to the defensive screens. "Found him! Attempting mental combat!"
"Careful," the precog warned, "He's going to try and open a warp from their engine core to our ship in 30 seconds."
"Understood," Adra barked back, a bit more forcefully than she meant to before diving into the hypercriminal's mind. It was a dark place, filled with memories of abuse, anger at being locked away for his powers, hatred of the U-W and especially of the Tomorrow Knights, who had locked him away in the first place.
His real name was Galan Viz, his homeworld was Trillius Minor. He'd gained his powers in a gravity accident during his time in high school and abused them commiting petty crimes. That was until he lost control one day and accidentally opened a warp to deep space in his classroom. Three people had died and six more were treated for exposure to hard radiation and oxygen deprivation.
After that, Galan had fled his homeworld and hooked up with a band of mercenaries called the Black Stars. It had been with them that he was brought down by the Tomorrow Knights. None of this mattered though, what mattered was shutting him down.
"STOP!" Commanded Adra mentally, using her force of will to try and tame the villain. He scoffed. Apparently he had a bit of mental training from somewhere himself. Well, if she couldn't do things the easy way, she'd have to do them the hard way.
Knowing she had only seconds to go, the telepath concentrated on her own surroundings, copying them mentally and overriding Warp Spacer's senses, overlaying the Knight Cruiser's interior on the Spider-ship's. In essence she was convincing the villain he was already in custody.
"NO!" Spacer screamed, twisting his power, opening the gate from the Neo-Arachnos ship back into itself, warping the engines and sending their own power back into them. The engines shook, unable to contain the doubling of their power, then exploded.
"Engines down," Hunk reported, "All energy systems offline."
"And the status of our hypercriminal?" Magnemo asked.
"Trapped in his own head, for now," Adra replied, short of breath and nursing a massive headache. "We need to secure him ASAP."
"Understood Saturn-Nine. Great work today. You've really proven yourself to the Knights and the United-Worlds."
"Thanks Magnemo but please, call me Adra."
