The Scientist frowned as he pondered Havok's question. "No one really knows," he
said. "Some time in the middle of the '80s, the news just . . . stopped
talking about him." He shrugged. "I mean, 1985 was a pretty tumultuous year
on the super-hero front." He pointed to three of the other members of the League
of 250 Point Characters, all seated around the meeting table with him. "Brick One,
Mauler, and Blue Shooter — all three of you burst onto the scene then.
Practically at the same time."
"Tell me about it," Blue Shooter grumbled. "You'd think taking down the biggest
crime syndicate in the country would've been the story of the year, but noooooo,
we had to have the Exxmen debacle and freakin' space aliens."
Mauler folded his arms. "Those weren't even the first space aliens. We got
that, um, emperor guy fighting Tracer in '81, and then two back-to-back
alien invasions in '84 thwarted by Infra Man."
"Against that kind of a backdrop," the Scientist said, "Tracer's exploits wouldn't
have really been newsworthy anymore." He put a hand to his chin. "And Tracer always
did have an uneasy relationship with the FBI. So if the government
was looking to make him quietly disappear, the mid-'80s would've been a
perfect time for it."
Blue Shooter eyed him warily. "That's . . . how most harebrained
conspiracy rumors tend to start. Wild speculation and zero evidence."
"Still," Brick One interjected, "It might be worth investigating. Government
bureaucracies are no different from the private kind I've dealt with over my
career. You just have to word your FOIA requests the right way."
The Scientist looked skeptical. "The Freedom of Information Act only covers
information that isn't classified. An investigation like this would require
pulling a rather broad and selective set of strings."
"The information's gotta be stored somewhere," Keybounce said. He cracked his
knuckles. "No computer system has perfect security. I could probably get us into
half a dozen of the government's databases by the end of the week."
"Well, it's 1992," the Scientist said. "The better part of a decade since the trail
ran cold. Don't be surprised if it takes a year of digging to find out what really
happened."
In 1993, their search pays off. A brief flash detected by Lick Observatory in
1985 tipped them off. They discover that in 1985, Tracer had gone to check out the
rumored Stargate in orbit between Jupiter and Saturn, belonging to the 27 Empire,
and had supposedly gone through it. This would have sent him to Alpha
Centauri.
Mauler, being the only super-hero who could fly faster than light, goes out
to the classified location. He could get there in a little over an hour at warp 1,
but is impatient and decides to go at warp 2 (which takes 7 minutes). Lo and
behold, there really is an enormous cylindrical skeleton there, open on one side
and blocked off with scaffolding on the other.
A blue light atop the Stargate blinks 4 times, then suddenly the stargate comes
to life. Its interior glows madly. When the light subsides, Tracer emerges.
There is a jury-rigged radio transceiver on Tracer's back, inside his energy
armor. Seeing Mauler, he points to this radio, then holds up fingers to spell out
1, 2, 1, 2, 5. Mauler correctly interprets this as meaning aviation radio frequency
121.25 MHz. He tunes in, and now the two of them can communicate across the
vacuum.
"Get back to Earth and warn them," Tracer says. "The 27 Empire is coming!"
Tracer hightails it back toward Earth, but Mauler tags along next to him
instead of kicking in his warp drive. He's unconvinced. He radios the League and
tells them that Tracer alleges "the 27 Empire is 'coming,' whatever that
means."
In their rear, the blue light on the Stargate blinks 10 times, then the
Stargate activates again. But this time two space ships emerge. They are imperial
assault ships, equal in size to the one that attacked Earth in late 1981.
Now Mauler understands the magnitude of the threat.
As the ships leave the Stargate, Tracer tries to stop one of them the same way
he stopped the High Mandarin's ship in 1981. He dodges more carefully this time,
since their main batteries are more effective outside an atmosphere, but manages
to get in behind the ship and enter one of its three exhaust nozzles
. . . and is immediately rebuffed. Word of how the High Mandarin's ship
was destroyed had been broadcast just before it exploded, and the ships in Alpha
Centauri space had taken precautions. There is now a toggleable force curtain
inside each exhaust nozzle, similar to the one Tracer's energy armor is made out
of.
Mauler comes to Tracer's aid, blasting one of the turrets on the back of the
ship, but more shots are being fired by the other turrets on the ship — and
by the other ship. "We can't win this one," Tracer says, "Not here. Let's regroup
on Earth and —" . . . and then the blue light atop the Stargate
blinks 10 times and the Stargate activates again. More ships of the 27
Empire are coming.
"I'll take out the Stargate!" Mauler says, and blasts it right next to the
blue light. It's not even scorched. "It's not that simple," Tracer says, "They
built these Stargates to withstand nearly anything!" Finally, they head back for
Earth.
On Earth, the 27 Empire fleet is hot on their heels. All the world's militaries
and all the world's super-heroes come out to fend them off. Taking out even
one ship is a monumental challenge. Reports come in that Pokhara, the second
largest city in Nepal, has fallen to the blast of one of the 27 Empire's City
Killers, just like Barstow did in 1981.
More ships keep emerging from the Stargate. The FBI, now desperate, open all
their files to The Scientist, in the hope that he can figure out how to stop them.
Tracer tells everyone what he learned while in the Alpha Centauri system. The
fleet there is enormous. He'd also been privy to signals sent from the Homeworld.
Its armored warriors defeated and the 27 Empire knocking at their front door,
the Homeworld had done the unthinkable and shut down their system's
Stargate. So they know that such a thing is possible.
Poring over the items decoded from the Last Armored Warrior's log, The
Scientist & company discover that there's a special code that can shut down a
Stargate. The code for the Sol system's stargate is in there. But the code
has to be delivered by a transmitter similar to the one Tracer posesses, and
requires rapid back-and-forth handshaking. This means it needs to be done at very
close range. There may also be last-minute changes needed to the code that would
require a really smart guy like the Scientist to figure out.
Mauler, Tracer, the Scientist in his hastily-crafted flying space armor, and
maybe Moon Man, all fly out to deactivate the Stargate, braving the incoming ships
of the 27 Empire's fleet along the way. Mauler's warp drive helps, but they have
to stay sublight when deactivating the Stargate. Heroics ensue.
Our heroes triumph, shutting down the Stargate right as its blue light started
blinking again. But many 27 Empire attack ships have already made it through, and
our heroes need to get back to help out.
Back on Earth, the 27 Empire has already laid waste to several cities. The
rest of the League of 250 Point Characters, as well as the various 100-point
super-heroes still on Earth (Wo-Man, Octoplex, Hay Man, Tree, Water-and-Ice Man,
Tsybd, and anyone else I've left out), fight valiantly. They get some surprising
help from THEM and MACRON. They even consider letting Projector out of the LAPD's
super powered jail to join in the fray. Maybe some of the ships are of a different
design which require different tactics to vanquish, like one-man fighters or
something.
One ship, they manage to bring down without destroying it. Translation teams
demand the surrender of the crew.
Tracer, the Scientist, Mauler, and maybe Moon Man arrive back on Earth and
join the translation team. The aliens have already realized that since they're
trapped here in the Sol system, their best chance for survival is to surrender.
Our heroes tell them to convince their comrades to do the same, but they reply
that unless their fleet commander surrenders, the rest of the ships will fight
on.
The ship carrying the fleet commander is singled out. Other ships rush to its
defense. A focused battle ensues. Heroism happens. Maybe one of the regulars makes
the Supreme Sacrifice, I'm not sure yet. But eventually the commander surrenders
and the other ships follow suit. The battle is finally over.
Epilog happens. Loose ends. Mourning of losses. Other stuff. The end.