"Keep your distance! Break formation!"
Hal Jordan's will burned like an emerald star in the vacuum. He could hear the low hum of Oa's Central Battery surging through his veins, but now that rhythm was being torn apart by the discordant noise of fear.
Seventy-one green lights wheeled in response, like a school of trained interstellar rays, darting through the cover of asteroid belts and shattered moons. Emerald beams pierced the ink-black depths of space, tracing the outline of an enormous body in the darkness. It resembled a pink tumor pulsing of its own accord, the single eye on its deeply furrowed skin turning indifferently to reflect the green light coming from every direction.
Energy constructs became precision beams, shock waves, radiant discs, and massive cannons, tearing into the enormous Starro from all sides. Yet it neither blocked nor dodged. Thousands upon thousands of holes opened across its body at once. Countless palm-sized Mini Starros erupted like a disturbed swarm of bees, hurtling in every direction.
An almost invisible glimmer swept across the rookie Waddell's visor. The terrified expression beneath his helmet instantly vanished, his eyes turning vacant and confused. His green light went out, and his body slowly tumbled through the vacuum, a starfish pulsing with pink light clinging to his face.
"Unification..."
He repeated it mechanically, floating stiffly in space.
"Worrell!"
Arisia cried out and tried to fly toward him, but a Spore Swarm struck her forehead head-on, as though it had anticipated her trajectory. Her struggle lasted less than a second before her green light guttered out like a candle in the wind.
Hal Jordan clenched his teeth. Willpower surged through his Lantern Ring like floodwater through an opened dam. Green flames from an enormous flamethrower roared soundlessly in the vacuum, becoming a fan-shaped wall of fire