This message Premiere #14: World in Flames was posted by Look, it's very simple. One linked image, one set of text, about six HTML instructions. How hard can that be, even with massive sleep deprivation? When am I going to leabr to just give up? on Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 22:08.




The sky was painted orange by the fires below. Great craters had been gouged where buildings once stood, and the air was thick with oily smoke. From an aerial perspective it looked like hell.

Yo noticed Premiere’s intake of breath. All three of the Technopolitans who had returned to their homeworld courtesy of the Hooded Hood’s Portal were shocked by what they saw. “Is worse than you thought?” the pure thought being asked sympathetically.

“What happened here?” Windblossom breathed.

Al B. Harper leaned over the SPUD helicarrier’s sensor array and tried to make sense of the blazing landscape below. “I’m picking up heavy radiation, lots of broken machinery, some broken ordinance…”

“The balance of power is shattered,” Premiere explained. “When Technopolis transferred from this world to yours it left a void. Sov-Bloc would have been quick to exploit that weakness, overrun the Buffer States, and wipe out the rest of the technet infrastructure.”

“Result: war,” growled Dan Drury. “And a world in flames.” He still wasn’t happy at his vessel being commandeered for this mission and sent to another world by the villainous Hooded Hood.

“We need to find somebody we can talk to,” Premiere decided. “Can we check for lifesigns?”

“I’m getting a lot of EM interference,” Al B. reported, “but there’s heavy weapons fire coming from some kind of urban area about ninety klicks west of here.”

NTU-150 and Phase Shift both checked the monitor. “It’s service station Delta Phi Nine,” Phase Shift reported. “They’re putting out an automated distress code.”

“They’re under fire from nine large flying vehicles, each roughly half the size of this carrier,” NTU added, plugging wires from his own chestplate into the console to enhance its performance.

“We have to do something. To help them,” Windblossom appealed to Lisa and Cheryl.

Lisa pointed to the viewing port where Premiere had been standing. Now it was empty.

__________________



The Sov-Bloc raiders were a renegade unit from the Southern Sector, engaging in a little piracy and slave-taking during the chaos that had come from the worldwide computer crash that the Red Watchman had instigated before shifting Technopolis from its native planet. They had nine Novgorod Class Heavy Grav Platforms, each packing enough armament to hammer through the remaining shreds of the technet defense perimeter. The crippled Delta Phi service station was easy meat.

Then suddenly there was a black and white-garbed science hero hovering over the burning depot, his cape fluttering in the flames’ updrafts. “Attention marauders. This is Premiere, First Rank Agent of the Technopolis Science Police. You have committed criminal acts against innocent people, and you have exactly fifteen seconds to shut down your weapons grids, land, and surrender. Otherwise, I shall use metahuman force to contain the situation.” Premiere scowled at the invaders. “Only warning.”

The Soc Bloc leader was stupid enough to believe their particle cannons could take down the hero.

“Right,” frowned Premiere, searing through the energy wash to hurl the first of the grav platforms into its two nearest neighbors. His heat spray detonated the next pair before they could maneuver aside. Then he tossed compacted crumpled balls of the wrecked vessels through the main engine compartment of another ship.

The remaining three Grav Platforms started to veer off but it was far too late.

“I said surrender,” Premiere warned them, casually seizing one of them by the nacelle and holding it effortlessly as it tried to accelerate away. “Now.”

By the time the SPUD helicarrier reached the battle zone Premiere had the Sov Agents knelt in rows on the ground beside their three captured vessels. Surprised personnel from the service station were rushing out to take them into custody.

“Not bad,” judged Drury reluctantly.

“And the first acquisitions in our new Earth liberation fleet,” smiled Lisa.

__________________



Phase Shift pulled up the information on the service station secure comconsole and whistled softly. “I didn’t know there were security clearances this high,” had admitted to Premiere, who had provided the override codes.

“I’m not supposed to know either, but it’s hard to keep secrets from a man who can see through walls and doesn’t trust the Science Council. What have you got, Martin?”

Phase Shift punched up a world map of an Earth subtly different to the one the League of Regulars were used to. Cheryl flinched as she saw the sinister new bays where Brazil and Quebec used to be, and the desert wasteland of broken independent nation states where she had expected Europe.

“As far as I can tell given the havoc the Watchman’s virus has done to planetary computer systems, the sudden disappearance of Technopolis in the middle of a massive critical systems breakdown was enough to trigger a major international engagement. When the technet went down the Sov Bloc forces overran the Buffer Nations and came straight for North America. The scrambled defense software malfunctioned in Adjunct City Three detonating the entire nuclear arsenal at ground zero. Then dissident elements released by the Watchman somehow managed to release biogenetic bombs right in Sov Central, wiping out damn near all their hierarchy and overwhelming their medical services’ capacity to deal with the pandemic. By the time the virus reached its engineered shutdown generation it had claimed well over thirty million lives.”

Windblossom bit her lip. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “In less than a couple of weeks the whole world has been destroyed. Everything we knew is gone.”

“Not everything,” Premiere answered. “We need to patch things up here to minimize further harm. Then we need to find the equipment we’ll need to liberate Technopolis and deal with the Red Watchman back in the Parodyverse.”

Sub-Commander Doyle of service station Delta Phi Nine looked at him in disbelief. “The Sovs have overrun the technet. Our infrastructure is in ruins. The world’s economy and major political structures have collapsed, with millions, maybe billions, dead. How do you propose ‘to patch things up’?”

“Quickly,” answered the last Science Hero. He looked over to Phase Shift. “Is Starpom Omega still alive?” he asked.

Phase Shift checked his comconsole. “He was involved in the Sov offensive on the western seaboard tech-grid,” he reported. “He’d be pretty hard to kill.”

“Nobody tells me anything,” Visionary noted, “so I’m not surprised not to know who this guy is.”

“Starpom Omega is the number one Sov-Blok metahuman soldier,” Windblossom explained. “He’s battled our science heroes lots of times. He’s fought against Premiere.”

“Right,” agreed Victor Brooke. “We need him. Could you… can you bring him here, Lisa?”

The first lady of the League of Regulars nodded. “I can summons anyone if I know about them,” she admitted. “Well, except if they have some kind of special defense shielding,” she added with a rueful look at NTU-150.

“Hold on,” worried Phase Shift. “Is this a good idea? I mean, this guy has the power to make anything explode, and he’s not known as being a friendly teddy bear.”

“Bring him,” Premiere demanded.

Lisa concentrated. There was a sudden rip in space/time and a golden-skinned giant in a Sov-Blok army uniform stood amongst them.

“Wait!” Premiere called, stepping forward to catch the first reflex detonation which would otherwise have devastated half the service station. “Josef, we didn’t bring you here to fight.”

“Premiere!” glared the Sov soldier. “They said you were dead.”

“They say lots of things, Josef Ivanovitch. They say that we’re enemies.”

“We are, Victor Stephanovitch. Splendid enemies. Our confrontations are the stuff of legend.”

“He fills that Sov-Bloc uniform pretty well, wouldn’t you say?” Lisa whispered to Yo.

“We’re only enemies because we’ve supported different sides, Josef,” Premiere pointed out. “Until now.”

Starpom Omega looked at him appraisingly.

“Technopolis has gone and the technet is crashed,” Premiere declared. “And Sov-Bloc’s attempts to fill the power void have ended in disaster too thanks to a mutual nemesis. Our poor world needs stability and security fast, and there isn’t any government worthy of the name to make it happen.”

Starpom Omega slanted his head. “So?”

“So I am taking over,” Premiere announced. “Taking over the planet. I will appoint a government. I will ensure peace and justice. And I will set up a new, fairer method of world leadership once this crisis is passed.”

“Hold on!” objected NTU-150. “You can’t just take over a whole planet!”

“He’s Premiere,” Phase Shift breathed. “I kind of think he can.”

“So the question, Starpom Omega, is whether you will join me and set things straight, so we can help both our peoples and then defeat a mutual enemy who is anything but splendid?”

The Sov-Bloc soldier looked at Premiere and his comrades suspiciously. “How do I know I can trust you, Victor Stephanovitch?”

“Because I give you my word.”

Starpom Omega considered this for a moment. Then he seized Premiere is a massive bear hug and laughed mightily. “Very well then, tovarich! Let us go out there and conquer the Earth!”


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