Whether these repatriated former Yellow Lanterns would return home and continue causing trouble—Thea didn't care.
Lisa Draka and Arkillo, along with Sinestro's other die-hard loyalists, were rescued. Arkillo immediately pledged loyalty to Thea. She acknowledged his ability to train new recruits. The guy was crude, rude, believed only in strength, and had a face full of muscle—a perfect drill instructor.
Karu Hill was another matter. Compared to Lisa Draka—the somewhat neurotic witch—she was one of the rare young women among the Lantern members. After a moment's hesitation, she also chose to pledge loyalty. When she stayed quiet, her delicate features might have made her beautiful.
But the moment she opened her mouth, those rows of sharp teeth meant she wouldn't need makeup for horror films. Beast souls constantly swirled around her body—even without a ring, she counted as a metahuman.
Lisa Draka, along with the antimatter life-form Weaponer—whom Thea had never quite figured out—wanted to search for Sinestro. They had no conflict of interest with Thea. In the original timeline, Sinestro had wanted to return and save his people, quickly shaking off his defeat. Now? He might not have that same determination.
Thea didn't make things difficult for them. Too many veterans remaining in the Corps wouldn't help her maintain control. Their departure was a good thing. She helped recharge their rings and sent them off from Korugar with courtesy.
All ownerless rings from the battlefield were reclaimed. Three thousand members was excessive.
Sinestro's initial selection criteria focused on wielding fear. Later, it devolved into creating fear. Perhaps due to pressure from the Green Lanterns, or his own unbalanced mentality, he'd forgotten his original purpose and began recruiting villains and thugs wholesale. The entire Corps' initial elite atmosphere had been destroyed.
Did mastering fear necessarily mean being a bad person? Look at Batman. Sinestro had led the entire Corps astray.
Thousands of temporary rings were thrown directly back into the Central Power Battery. The returning energy made Parallax inside exceptionally excited. This beautiful environment gave him the urge to sleep another five hundred years.
Cutting away the deadweight, the massive stockpile of rings was converted back to energy. Thea extracted a portion and distributed it among her subordinates.
Deadman, Grodd, and Faora's rings were all upgraded to so-called elite tier—roughly equivalent to Hal Jordan's ring efficiency.
Deathstroke and the other Earth allies each received an official ring. The best at constructs among them was Papa Midnite. High-intelligence magic-side individuals had natural talent for these imagination-based powers. He directly manifested a creature that looked assembled from various animals—very much in the eldritch god style.
Poison Ivy and Livewire's imaginations were somewhat lacking. For them, the rings were more useful for getting around.
Deathstroke's constructs were similar to Hal Jordan's—machine guns, rocket launchers, planes, tanks, and the like.
Their original knockoff rings didn't conflict with the official ones. Probably because she and Diana had modified them so much, the rings didn't recognize those as fellow lanterns.
The group rested on Korugar for three days. Those who hadn't participated in looting and those loyal to Sinestro, plus battlefield survivors—the Corps' remaining thousand-plus members were winnowed down to three hundred. Massive numbers of hangers-on were expelled and dismissed.
Though numbers dropped by nearly seventy percent, they were more united. Everyone was registered. The era of the Corps being full of temporary members was gone forever.
With tighter bonds and ring energy restrictions removed, the new Yellow Lanterns' combat effectiveness hadn't actually decreased much.
The reorganized Yellow Lantern Corps began evacuating Korugar. Korugar belonged to Green Lantern Sector 1417. With Sinestro's "death," a new Green Lantern would arrive soon. Thea wasn't ready to openly defy Oa. Leaving was the right move.
After bidding farewell to Asona and leaving her a communicator for future assistance, Deathstroke, Grodd, and their subordinates selectively returned to their home planets. Thea began considering the Yellow Lantern Corps' new base.
Bringing them all to Earth definitely wouldn't work. Many were wild and untamed—they'd be unmanageable on Earth.
Leveraging their strengths to gain benefits for herself—that was the only way.
What could these guys do? Every one of them was built like brick houses and looked mean. Helping old ladies cross streets? Not happening. Getting a bunch of muscle-brains to do technical research? Impossible.
Following the precedent of Red and Orange Lanterns, finding a region to rule over was a good approach.
Places in the universe the Guardians couldn't reach weren't many, but there were a few.
Thea didn't go to some remote sector. That wouldn't serve her interests. Her future plan for the Yellow Lantern Corps was mercenaries—collecting protection fees!
Charging neutral factions protection fees while taking on commissions—training troops and making money. Why not?
Of course, target selection required caution. For example, a place with simple folk like Apokolips—even with Mother Box technology making travel convenient—Thea didn't have the guts to collect protection fees there.
Her chosen target was a trading company called Ibn. That was the closest Earth language translation—they were actually an interstellar mega-alliance centered on trade, not some fly-by-night operation.
Their location was in Sector 0571. Ring records listed it as: Oasis Bay Starport, under Ibn Trading Company.
"It's enormous..." Even the well-traveled Faora couldn't help but exclaim.
"Yes... a fine place..." Thea also felt the massive object drifting through space was magnificent. They'd converted an entire planet, using its core as the ship's power source, processing the whole celestial body into a super-massive spacecraft.
The central region was the original planetary body, about twenty thousand kilometers in diameter. Countless city structures stood on the planet's surface. Various aliens moved through the cities on the ground.
A port, by definition, berths vessels. But they didn't dock sea ships—they berthed spacecraft from various civilizations.
Around the planet were tens of thousands of kilometers of landing pads. Every weapon Thea recognized—and many she didn't—covered the visible area densely.
This crystallization of technological weaponry couldn't be dealt with without deploying a massive invasion force.
The Kryptonians' usual method was to take whatever they saw. Seeing Thea somewhat tempted, Faora asked softly, "Interested in this place?"
Thea didn't answer directly. "Let's go down and look around first."
Most cosmic beings arrived by ship. Groups like theirs—in "uniform" flying through wormholes—were quite rare. The port director was well-traveled. He definitely knew about the Green Lantern Corps. This yellow-uniformed group he'd never seen, but maintaining a non-confrontational attitude, he still expressed welcome.
"Welcome, distant travelers. I am the Ibn Company's full ambassador to Oasis Bay Starport."
An alien creature not much bigger than a squirrel sat on a flying device, approaching them. His tone was friendly, though the two dense rows of robots standing behind him didn't look very friendly.