“We have to do something!” Ryand’r exclaimed, his voice echoing through the halls of the corridor within the underground base. “She should be here with us! She’s not safe!”
“Believe me, I understand what you are going through,” Primus said, trying to reassure the Tamaranian prince.
“How could you?” Ryand’r said, folding his arms.
“How could I?” Primus smiled. “Kallista has been the single great love of my life. There has never been another. If anything were to happen to her, … I would carry on… for our son… but I don’t think I would ever love again.” Primus’ expression grew thoughtful. Their relationship has been a turbulent one, but saying the words out loud made him think of how much she meant to him. Her brief dalliance with Alonzo Dak had hurt him in a way he had never dreamed possible.
“If you know how I feel, then how can we just sit on our hands?” Ryand’r pleaded.
“That is not what we are doing,” Primus said. “I promise you. We simply aren’t in a position to launch a full-scale attack to retake this world. Not yet, anyway.”
“Why can’t we bring our forces here?” Ryand’r said. “We took down the old Citadel!”
“Our forces are still depleted after the multi-world Invasion. Hokum’s New Citadel actually grew stronger. To have any chance at all, we have to take him by surprise.”
“Then transport them in secret!” Ryand’r exclaimed. All those Citadel refugees we transported to the Haven world…”
“Transporting two or three people at a time is a lot different than transporting an entire army,” Artin said, walking towards them. “And the thousands of simultaneous micro-transports we did for the refugees took down the entire tweener after it fried their system. It took months for me to help Synapse restore it. He was beside himself.”
Artin’s new appearance still unnerved Ryand’r. After the artificial intelligence’s old host body had been destroyed while fighting Brainiac inside the internet of the Scrubb Empire, Artin had downloaded himself into one of Brainiac’s old spare skeletal android bodies.
He tried to make himself look less frightening to the children among the refugees by giving himself pink synthetic skin and a pleasant human face to cover the skull like one Brainiac once wore. He also donned a red jumpsuit and lab coat to seem more human. He was still unnerving. Nothing could make that oversized cranium seem natural.
“What do we do, then?” Ryand’r asked miserably.
“All hope is not lost, my boy,” Artin said. “As you know, I am still trying to reverse engineer the Mother Box we acquired.”
“New God science?” Ryand’r exclaimed. “You might as well try to teach yourself magic!”
“If anyone could, it’s Artin,” Primus said.
“You know me so well, my friend,” Artin said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Well, we did share a head once,” Primus quipped.
“But isn’t it damaged?” Ryand’r asked.
“Well, considering the way New Gods guard their Mother Boxes with their lives, it would be hard to recover one in good condition. The one we came to possess belonged to a para-demon who died during the multi-world invasion. It was a bit … singed,” Artin said. “Frankly, it being damaged is actually helpful. An undamaged Mother Box would fight back against any attempts to discover her secrets.”
“Like I said, if anyone can do it,” Artin can,” Primus said encouragingly.
“But could anyone do it?” Ryand’r thought glumly.