Interlude 3.4

March 15th, 2010Mars’ orbit, L2Mobile Space Station OdysseyHangar

I dropped my Glamour, dismissed my Asgardian armor and landed in the Hangar with all the Rogues. The boys all watched around them, some of the Kryptonian fighters and scoutship were already built thanks to the drones working in tandem. MACHINA has seriously updated the spaceships with the Kryptonian technology at her disposal. Crystal spaceships? It reminded me of the Minbari from Babylon 5.

The ships used a gravity drive to propel themselves and they also possessed some kind of gravity manipulation conferred by the crystalline engine employing a weird type of technology MACHINA had come up with: Neural-Physics. Instead of a souped up Phantom Zone generator used as a FTL engine, MACHINA used the Kryptonian tech to come up with a translight engine which was a type of slipspace drive, like in Halo. Kryptonians had to die out for someone to allow them to make a real FTL drive not dependent on the Phantom Zone dimensional fuckery, great.

Anyway, we exited the Hangar, I didn’t want anyone to go check the scout ships. We took the nearest teleporter and we ended up in the park that was now looking greener; something told me that Pamela was speeding up natural growth of plants by her mere presence on the station. “Welcome to Odyssey everyone.”

I turned toward them and grinned; all of them looked at me as if they had seen a ghost. Only the bravest of them all dared speak.

“Shit, we've been abducted, boys.” Captain Boomerang quipped with a nervous laugh.

Doctor Alchemy, emboldened by his companion added, “So she’s a Green Lantern magical princess alien?”

The other men snorted at the Doctor’s comment; in particular Top who said, “That’s new.”

“No, sounds like a Mary Sue from a fanfiction.” Captain Boomerang said. He was lucky that I had control over my Stellar Energy Vision. Just one glare could kill, but I wasn’t going to control this gathering of misfits through force.

Captain Cold of course had to be a dumbo. “Where’s my sister?” He stood before me, in my personal space with a glare of his own.

I raised a hand and patted his cheek. “Calm down, Herr Snart.”

He batted away my hand but hurt himself when it was his hand which must have been like hitting a steel beam. I smirked at him. “Silly human.”

MACHINA whispered into my mind that Lisa was hiding in the park behind some recently grown bushes and watching us. The silly young woman needed to be right here with her brother. I breathed in and shouted, “Lisa Snart! Come here and tell your brother to behave!”

“Eep!” I heard a feminine voice from the verdant growth from the right ten meters from us.

A young looking blonde in her twenties ended up landing on the ground between us and the bushes. Pamela must have gotten her into the regen-tank, because she looked like a porn actress, big breasts, hourglass figure and long blonde hair reaching her ass. She wore one of the basic soft-suits that I shared with the people of the station, but it was white and it fitted perfectly with her skin tone and hair.

“Lisa!” Captain Cold ignored his hand that he must have sprained against my arm and helped out his sister.

The girl tackled the man. “Big brother!”

They stayed on the ground, hugging. Lisa must not have realized that her strength was enhanced, because Captain Cold became bluer suddenly.

Pamela and Harley arrived right behind me and the boys looked at the two of them, then at me.

“Damn, why are all the women here looking like Goddesses…?” Captain Boomerang commented idly. Mirror Master’s eyes stayed glued on the form of Lisa Snart.

Lisa finally let go of her brother who could finally breathe, he saw what she was wearing and took off his winter jacket and gave it to his sister. He then proceeded to glare at the men looking at Lisa’s ass.

The young woman made a provoking smirk at her brother, knowing exactly what she did. The Captain grumbled, “I heard that you were cured?”

Lisa beamed and pointed a finger at Pamela. “Yes, Doctor Isley is the best Surgeon and doctor aboard the station. Better than those quacks from Earth!”

I corrected her. “That’s unfair to say, Friend-Lisa; your Homeworld’s medical practitioners are just too primitive to be able to operate on delicate organs such as brains.”

Everyone looked at me, and Doctor Alchemy was the first to say with an amused tone, “Is this alien superiority I sense in your voice, Lady Miracle?”

I don’t know why everyone suddenly thought that I was a speciesist…

~/.\~

(Lisa Snart)

Residencial Deck (15)Family Quarters30 minutes later

“Lisa, please tell me everything.” Leonard asked of her once they were behind closed doors in the family quarters designated to them.

*Harley, MACHINA and Komand’r were right, her brother was a paranoid man…* Lisa thought as she remembered what her new friends, those who saved her life, had told her.

Previously, Lisa had been looking forward to getting her kabosh operated on because she had stage 3 brain cancer and half a decade of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. But instead of that, some alien princess kidnapped her and cured her of it; not for free of course! Things were never free in life. She did it because she wanted her brother’s smarts and team of friends to come work for her to apparently stop Superman from taking over Earth and later… the universe.

Well that’s a lot of pressure for Leonard. Lisa had never liked the villain scene her brother was delving into, but it made him some loyal friends over the years if the story of the guys banding together to get her back was true. She could understand Samuel, Mirror Master, coming to her rescue as he was her on and off boyfriend. Lisa sat on the chair that deployed from the ground when she pushed a button on the table in the middle of the room.

“Where should I start then, Leo? I mean you know most of my life.” She chuckled

Leonard violently pushed the button on the table and sat down on the metallic chair that appeared. He glared at his sister, a bit angry. “This is not the time for jokes! Do you realize we’ve been taken far away from Earth and are at the mercy of an overpowered tyrant?!”

Lisa snorted as she tried to think of Komand’r as a tyrant. The Komand’r who kept treating her to food and had an ambiguous relationship with Harley and Pamela? The sexual tension between the two women was palpable; Komand’r was too nice to be considered a tyrant, she was a good listener as well and took Lisa seriously. The blonde said with a sarcastic tone to her brother, “And do you realize that there’s a powerful alien on Earth who seized power and is now tyrannizing our people?!”

Leonard chuckled derisively, his eyes spearing her. “I didn’t think that you cared, Lisa?”

The blonde young woman almost slapped Leonard for that; but Lisa agreed that she was a selfish bitch sometimes. Leonard and their parents had spoiled her and made her what she is; but, being told that you might die from brain cancer in your twenties changed your perspective a lot. Leonard had no idea about what she felt at the moment.

Lisa crossed her arms and her face went slack. “Oh yeah, because I’m such a selfish bitch. I know what others think about me, Leo. Even you.”

Leonard had the decency to look away from her furious gaze and her words. Lisa continued, this time with a soothing tone. “I may be selfish, but I can see the writing on the wall, big bro. This situation  isn’t going away unless we act!”

The leader of the rogues slammed his hands on the table, not happy with what Lisa was telling him. “Did that alien fill your head with bullshit?”

“So you’re going to just turtle up and wait it out like usual?” Lisa snarled.

Leonard took on a defiant expression, because it was exactly what he intended to do. “We may have to, fighting the Justice League in their current state is going to get us killed or sent where they send criminals now.”

All the cities with heroes patrolling them were now filled with Super soldiers from Superman’s armies. Every super criminal was now in hiding, keeping their head down. Those bastards had started killing everyone or even doctored their reports to not take anyone alive.

Lisa leaned against the back of her chair, smirked with a nod and said, “Uh Uh. Don’t you think that we should stop running? I know you want to protect me, no… to protect us and the guys; but bro, I’m tired of having to be careful all the time. You know… when I woke up here, everyone was awesome and took care of me and offered to teach me stuff with their learning technology to have a job in the station. There’s so many options available to me now, bro. I believe that we should pitch in to the cause as well.”

The brown haired man sighed, he hated that his sister was making sense right now. “I will think about it.”

Lisa smiled, knowing she had won. “That’s all I ask,” The blonde stood up and made her chair disappear by pushing the button on the table and looked at her brother. “Here, stand, let’s go see the others. I’ll give you the tour as well.”

She was taking her future role as deck manager very seriously. Leonard let himself be pulled by her rhythm again…

~/.\~

(Ace)

Deck 150Private research labThe Princess' workshop

Ace felt the presence she had gotten used to wrap around her mental self. A sure sign that Komand’r was there, she disengaged her mind from the virtual educational space available to her. Ace couldn't get bored, she could read books or watch educational programs…

Already she had learned some engineering, and computer science at college level and undergone weapon training; guns, sword and staff. Ace didn't realize that she was being groomed as a Tamaranean royal by Komand’r who gave instruction to MACHINA to do so.

Ace found herself back in the virtual chat room that MACHINA had shown her how to access. It took on the form of a coffee shop, with AI servers. MACHINA had explained this worked a bit like the holodeck from Star Trek, but Ace had no idea what Star Trek was. The Artificial Intelligence had looked at her shocked when Ace said this and promised her to spend some days in hypertime with Ace to get a full pop culture education.

Ace dreaded this promise, MACHINA could be too enthusiastic sometimes. Ace looked around herself, the template of the coffee shop was randomly generated from Earth’s media. The shop had a high ceiling, tasteful wallpaper with a purple and white flower pattern. The tables with chairs were at the front of the shop, while at the counter there were the stools. Some random avant-garde artwork consisting of paintings and strangely designed metallic statues were placed on the walls and between the section dividing the shop.

In the back were the sofa, low tables and shelves filled with books and magazines available for the client. The AI who came up with this model of shop must have used optimized marketing design to build the place. The bell at the door of the coffee shop rang when it opened, and here appeared Komand’r in her usual black and silver soft-suit. She was wearing a circlet around her head this time. She spotted Ace sitting at the end of the shop near a window and floated toward her.

“Hey, Ashley.” Komand’r called Ace by her real name.

Ashley Nakamura was her true identity, MACHINA and Komand’r had shown her the files Cadmus had on her. Her family, her age, her medical files. Her parents were killed in the nuclear bombing of Metropolis, so she couldn’t go back to them. All she had now was an eager alien princess who wanted to mother her.

“You’re back, Kom.” Ace said laconically.

Komand’r sat at her side and passed an arm around her shoulders. “I told you that I would be.”

Ace could somehow feel her body outside of the simulation her mind was interacting with. She opened her eyes and felt herself floating into some kind of blue liquid. She couldn't move her body though. On the other side of the glass she could see Komand’r, standing, facing her supine body.

The alien princess was smiling at her, she waved and threw her a flying kiss. Ace closed her eyes and focused again in virtual space, she looked at Komand’r who ordered cakes for them. The young teenage girl couldn't help but ask, “What are you doing to me, I feel like… I'm being tethered back to my body and is it me or is it changing too?”

The waitress came with a rolling tray and put two slices of cake and some tea on the low table for the two.

“Do you want the truth or me downplaying things?” Komand’r bluntly asked Ace.

Leaning forward, Komand’r took the tea cup and drank from it while Ace deliberated internally. When the Tamaranean princess finished sipping, Ace asked with puppy dog eyes, “The truth,  please.”

Komand’r put her teacup on its saucer on the low table before her. “Very well little one…”

The orange skinned beauty leaned against the sofa. “I placed you in a stasis tank when we arrived at the station, to stop the deterioration of your body and, more importantly, your brain. The psionics you’ve developed were too much for your body to hold. MACHINA and the Medical AI discovered that somehow those crazy scientists at Cadmus have attempted to limit how much power you can throw around by putting some kind of biological limiter on your meta-gene.”

Ace cocked her head cutely.  “I barely understand what you said…”

She knew what DNA was, but she didn’t know what a Meta-gene was. A limiter, was that why she was dying?

Komand’r sighed. “How to say it more simply? Ah, yeah like that! They effed up your DNA, your power was overflowing and your body couldn’t keep up with how much it grew and the process was killing you.”

This, she understood. Ace wasn’t dumb, but there were terms that she wasn’t familiar with. She pretty much had the Thesaurus open and looked for the words on her HUD’s search bar. “Okay… so now, what are you doing to me?”

“Well, I took my own DNA and now the DNA sequencer that is working on you is making half of you, half of me.” Komand’r pointed at Ace, then at herself. “You’ll be half-Tamaranean, the limiter that the butchers put on you is going to be removed and you’ll be as strong as me.” The Princess lifted her arm and flexed it, her biceps hardening.

“Really?” She could already do telekinetic and illusions stuff, but there was a certain satisfaction in punching stuff with super strength and using lasers like Komand’r does.

Komand’r showed her a serious expression. “I don’t lie. I can obfuscate or omit information, but I won’t ever lie to you.” She patted the girl’s head.

Ace wrapped her arms around the alien princess, her face between Komand’r’s breasts, she asked, “Can I… can I call you, mom?”

“Of course, Ash!” Yet again Ace was wrapped in her warm embrace.

Coming with Komand’r was the best thing that happened to her, better than the time when Batman tried to get her and do nothing about her situation.  Ace didn’t like him much…

~/.\~

(Floyd Lawton aka Deadshot)

Odyssey mobile space stationDeck 30, Armory and Danger Room

The room looked like a shooting range on one side and on the other it was completely empty, blank white space. A holographic construct vaguely shaped like a humanoid appeared. It was blue colored and transparent.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang!

The recoilless coilgun fired multiple energy charged rounds at the holographic target shaped like a human. The first three shots missed, but the last one hit the target’s shoulder who became red colored where it was hit. The younger girl firing the coilgun pistol put a disappointed expression on her face. She had asian and afro-american ancestry, because of this beautiful mix of genes, she could be called extremely cute for her age.

Because their mother disagreed with the form fitting soft-suit that everyone wore on station putting their body on display; and that it wasn’t appropriate for little girls like Suchin and Zoe Lawton, Denise Lawton, their mother commissioned short dresses that they could put over their soft-suit to hide their curves or lack there off. Suchin wore a gray robe with orange colored LED lines over her little dress. She loved it because it made her look like a Tron character.

Floyd laughed and patted his little girl’s shoulder. “Good shot Suchin.”

The nine year old looked up at her father and pouted after putting the coilgun on the stand and taking out the ammo cartridge. She turned to Floyd and said, “But dad, I didn’t get the bullseye!”

“But you hit the target, darling.” Denise Lawton who stood on her right in her own black soft-suit and red dress tried to appease her adopted daughter. She had black hair, brown eyes and looked a bit mousy.

Suchin then turned to her right to look at her little sister who wasn’t given a real weapon, but a toy blaster that fired beams at the targets that looked like ducks flying. The little girl was barely seven years old and a crackshot. Floyd was particularly proud of his girls today.

“I want to be as good as Zoe!” Suchin said in an extremely competitive tone.

Zoe was killing all the ducks, not letting a single one escape; the Augmentation that cured her of her leukemia  boosted every attribute she possessed, dexterity, strength, intelligence… the girl could outrun him now. Denise had been complaining that she couldn't catch her rambunctious daughter anymore.

“Don’t be like that Su, your sister may be younger, but she just received the enhancement serum…”

“Then when is it going to be my turn?” Suchin demanded as she stomped her right foot on the dark gray deck plate.

Floyd needed to nip this attitude in the bud, the girls staying with Denise made them more spoiled… more entitled. He calmly continued to say. “We’re waiting for the people slated before us to pass. Zoe passed first because she was ill, remember?”

Suchin widened her eyes, her cheek reddened and lowered her face ashamed of having forgotten that her sister had been ill for a long time and was saved recently by the Augmentation. “Ah, yeah… Sorry daddy.”

"Good, you recognize that it was wrong. Here, get another clip for your gun." Floyd took a clip from one of his utility belt pouches and put it on the stand for Suchin.

"Yay!" The girl raised her fist up and started loading the clip into the pistol like a pro.

Floyd looked at his two girls shooting their guns; Suchin started hitting the target more consistently. Zoe was still hunting ducks, and switched from a pistol to a small toy rifle reminding him of a NERF gun.

Denise stood next to Floyd and asked, "She's really going to get her turn."

The black man nodded. “The Rogues are getting priority on the list because my employer wants them to train for future field operations.”

Nothing was said for a moment, the two looked at the kids having fun. Suchin observed weapon safety scrupulously and Zoe switched from ducks to clay pigeons.

“Is it going to be like your previous… job?” Denise asked while sounding a tad vulnerable.

Floyd reached for Denise's hand and held tight onto it. “No, I am done with the assassin's life. The Princess asked me to train the troops, only train. This whole floor we’re on, Denise? I’m the one managing it. Komand’r doesn’t want me to get out on the field anymore, she said I earned my peace."

From his wrist computer, a holographic screen appeared; he showed Denise the ten gold bars in his locker at home that he received from Komand’r. "Look, I'm already getting paid, when this gig is done, we will be able to retire somewhere tropical and the girls will be able to go to any university they want.”

Denise looked at him when he said "we" and looked at the money, then again at Floyd. “This is good, really good.”

Floyd smiled, he had reeled his ex back to the fold; when the night came he was busy showing Denise how pent up he was after his two years of prison as he fucked her in a mating press position, it went on all night.

~/.\~

(Nora Fries)

Her eyes blinked open. The cold sensation that she'd been living in had abruptly left her, and warmth filled her body. Her mind was clear and her body under her complete control as she raised her hand in the air.

She looked at the silverfish ceiling, the lights looked strange to her, they were sphere shaped and floating, looking more like an atomic model with the way they orbited each other. The last time Nora was awake she had difficulty concentrating, memory lapses. She even developed moments of involuntary jerking or twitching movements known as Huntington's chorea that she’s been diagnosed with.

Then came the bouts of depression – including low mood, a lack of interest in things, and feelings of hopelessness.

Victor, her husband, God bless his soul helped her all through it, even when her illness made her a mess. Nora had severe mood swings, or aggressive behavior over the years as she took it out on her husband.

Then there was what she hated the most, stumbling and clumsiness. Her illness affected her motor control. But now? Now, she felt none of those things; Nora felt as if she was back to being eighteen years old and active. Nora sat up abruptly, the sheet covering her body falling. As she looked around she saw that her husband was sleeping on the sofa near her.

He looked young as well, he was in his twenties. With a full head of black hair and his skin a little pale. Victor was wearing some kind of blue skinsuit that hugged his body perfectly. “Vic?”

The man opened his eyes, looked blearily at her, then his eyes opened in surprise. “Nora? You’re awake!”

He jumped from the sofa and caught her in his arms. Nora held onto him, her hands sliding on his muscled back. She felt that Victor was more buff than usual. “Hon, what happened, where are we?”

“I have so much to tell you, so many things happened, my love...” Victor began to caress her hair.

Then he told her everything, his research and the life of crime he had had to resort to to save her life; that he finally succeeded after an alien decided to kidnap the two of them and offer him a research job on this space station. Victor was working in conjunction with Darwin Elias to work on the meta-gene and a terraforming project supposed to help for the colonization of Mars.

Nora was about to say that she didn’t believe him, that Victor was too much of a nice man to be a criminal. The man put on a resigned expression and let go of her. He walked toward the wall in the room and pushed a button  on his forearm.  The wall became… transparent and Nora was suddenly confronted with a lot of red and a tapestry of stars. The metallic arms of the space station were deployed and some ships (?) exited the hangar and nimbly moved around.

“Welcome to Space Station Odyssey, darling.” Victor said as he himself seemed to be impressed by the view.

Aliens, Gods, super powered villains; everything Victor told her was real? “So you’ve been a villain for real?”

“Yes…” Victor looked at her, his shoulders sagging.

Nora recognized this expression, Victor thought she was going to dump him because of what he did to save her life. But she wasn’t an ingrate, she had the best man ever who was utterly dedicated to her. To be frank she doubted she could find any other guy who would go over the distance like Victor did for her. “Did you kill anyone?”

“No! Never. I have a code, no killing, no harming women or children.” Victor said quickly,.

Nora sighed and exited the bed, she had on some kind of stretchy shorts and sport bra on; she molded herself to Victor who took her instinctively in his arms. She said in his ear, “Then all is good, I can be morally flexible as well…”

She kissed him, and pulled him toward the bed, it was time to show him how grateful she felt toward him.

~/.\~

(MACHINA)

City of KandorThe Central Tower

The Kryptonian city of Kandor was originally a trading point between the island of Vathlo and the continent of Twenx. From this, it developed into a center of commerce. People flocked to the city from all corners of the map, seeing the city as a chance to gain work and make a fresh start.

The city's organizational structure was dominated by the Guilds: the Military Guild, the Science Guild, the Artists Guild and the Labor Guild. The city is controlled by a council with representatives from every guild except the Labor Guild.

It was such a council that was arguing at the moment, they were paralyzed by indecision about what to do. Their resources were diminishing fast, to conserve energy the city had to restrict the use of crystal technology that consumed a great deal of it. The council had to break out the cache of liquid-geo, a technology from the age of expansion.

MACHINA accessed her Kryptonian technological database and understood why switching from sun crystal technology to this old one created division in the council.

Liquid geo (meaning 'liquid geometry') was a standard, multi-purpose display technology used by Kryptonian culture, consisting of a collection of silver beads that are suspended through a magnetic field and can be dynamically arranged to create a three-dimensional surface that hovers in the air.

It was a technology which had a considerably low energy consumption, but it depended too much on storing the liquid geo. Not everyone in the city would be happy about the change as the city didn’t have an endless store of the substance. MACHINA looked for a solution to the city's energy problems, to prevent much discomfort for the 10 millions of Kryptonians.

The Smart AI came up with an obsolete technology: Neutrino-ion generators. She would have to replicate some elements that are not available in this universe to make them possible to use. She quickly generated the schematics and beamed herself down in the council chambers. In a shower of light and code, the curvy and long haired avatar of MACHINA appeared at the center of the room amongst the councilors who were all sitting on their chairs.

MACHINA slightly bowed. "Greetings councilors."

The councilors all stood up in surprise; the leader of the council, Alura exclaimed, "MACHINA, you’re back."

The Smart AI smiled."Sorry for my long absence, Mistress Alura; the first princess had to go gather new allies and there wasn’t enough time to contact you..."

The usual troll of the Military Guild intervened. "We still don't know who this intelligence is and…"

Rak-An, leader of the Military Guild was at odds with MACHINA which he suspected to be some kind of spy for the Tamaranean Empire who somehow defeated Brainiac and wanted to exploit the Kryptonian survivors. But there were more holes in his theory than in a slice of Swiss cheese.

I was playing the role of a caretaker AI and we didn't need anything from the Kryptonian, Komand’r already had everything they possessed, their technology and cultural and historical database. But she wanted to give them a chance to survive and to become better than they've been before.

Folria Rall-Voth, the leader of the Labor Guild and the second hottest female Kryptonian in the room barked, "Can it, Rak-An your paranoid prattle is tedious each time Lady MACHINA appears."

She was a Kryptonian with tan skin and red hair, showing that her family was from Vathlo Island back on Krypton. From what data MACHINA could access, Vathlo did not join the planetary federation that the Kryptonians formed. People from that island were fiercely independent.

No one trusted the Military Guild after Zod tried to grab power for himself. The power of the military Guild was reduced to the level of a civilian militia. But this has cost Krypton, Brainiac seized this chance, attacked the planet and stole Kandor and destroyed their homeworld.

“He is just doing his job. I would be wary too in his place.” MACHINA said to avoid having the councilors argue even more.

MACHINA enjoyed a certain status in Kandor as someone who helped defeat Brainiac; she was respected and lauded by the population when she had shown them on a city wide level the recording of Komand’r killing Brainiac. This has made everyone so cooperative… It did even more good when she started sending supplies of food, water and medicine.

Alura Zor-El, leader of the Science Guild and one of the Lady of the house of El took control of the conversation by saying, "Why did you come today, Lady MACHINA?"

The Smart AI shrugged. "A little bird told me that you had an energy crisis on your hands."

Alura sat herself on her chair and with a tired and weary tone started to explain the situation they were in. "It is indeed becoming worse as the days pass… we're going in the red really soon, I fear that a lot of lives will be lost. Many services in the city depend on our energy stores… I was about to propose a motion to put 95% of the population to sleep in stasis… to conserve energy."

Slam! A black haired woman, with brown eyes and in a multicolored bodysuit and robe slammed her fist against the armrest of her chair. It was Sena Kiv-Vill, the leader of the Artist Guild. "No! There must be another way!"

"Relax, Mistress Kiv-Vill. I'm bringing presents!" MACHINA raised a hand and transmitted the data to the councilors' own personal portable computers.

Alura raised her left wrist, a liquid geo construct raised from the computer module and she began reading the screen. "What is this?"

"Schematics for a generator from an old Tamaranean archive that the first Princess gave me access to." That was technically a lie, but the Tamaranean people did have such technology pilfered from the Citadel and the PSION.

"Ion based technology?" Councilor Rall-Voth guessed just by looking at the schematics, MACHINA was seriously impressed by how smart and knowledgeable the labor Guild Councilor was.

Councilor Kiv-Vill was frowning at the data she had received. "Not just that, it uses some kind of exotic material to generate energy."

But it was Alura Zor-El who grasped how the technology MACHINA shared worked. "Is this a self-sustaining generator that catalyzes subatomic particles to generate power?"

Just like that, the Kryptonian scientist understood the principle behind the technology of the generator she was looking at. MACHINA whistled, she really liked working with smart organics. "Wow, you're not the Science Guild leader for nothing, Mistress Alura."

Rak-An, the military Councilor still stayed skeptical about the technology, it made him ask this question, "What's the theoretical yield of such a generator?"

MACHINA cocked her head as she quickly calculated how powerful this type of generator was. "From my calculations, four of those could have easily sustained your Krypton. It generates approximately 30 Quadrillion GigaJoules."

"Rao!" Councilor Kiv-Vill exclaimed loudly with a hand on her chest.

Councilor Rall-Voth looked at the Science Counselor and asked a pertinent question, "Why did we never come up with one of those, Alura?"

Alura Zor-El fiddled a bit more with the data. “The primary material, this… Naquadah, doesn't seem to exist in our current universe, that is such a shame.”

“How do you have access to another universe’s material?” The Labor Guild Councilor's mind seemed aflame as she was going through theories and speculation.

MACHINA laughed, those people must have guessed something like we're mining resources in another universe or something too smart like that. Something the smart AI noticed was that highly advanced species had a tendency to be unable to think of simple solutions to their problems. “Well, that's a secret. You’re not ready to know yet. But what I can tell you is that we have access to matter-energy conversion technology.”

“Rao!” Councilor Kiv-Vill exclaimed loudly again.

“That’s…” Rak-An stared dumbly at MACHINA, finally realizing that her Mother and herself were members of a more advanced society than his own civilization.

Alura laughed, as she received this new nugget of knowledge from the AI. “A molecular synthesizer, you have those. This explains why you’ve been so generous with the resources you’ve given us. As long as you have energy, you can produce almost anything. What type of energy generation does the station you have Kandor stored use?”

“For now, it’s a white hole singularity core.” MACHINA reported.

She intended to upgrade to a Zero Point Module later; the quantum foam tap was safer than a singularity core.

The council chambers went silent at MACHINA’s revelation, all the councilors looked at her in shock. Krypton was lauded as a super-scientific civilization far beyond that of other worlds, but it seemed they were more akin to a frog in a well who were controlled by Houses that vyed so much for political power that it was detrimental to their civilization; advances in technology were slowed down, and the defense of the planet were impaired by the Science council…

The Science Guild leader, Alura Zor-El, made a self-deprecating chuckle as she said, “It seems Krypton is no longer leading in the field of technology, my fellow councilors. The universe moved on without us.”

MACHINA realized that she just burst the bubble of belief in their superiority. It was good, they weren’t going to last if they were still thinking of themselves as too good to help others. It was one of MACHINA's objectives, to make the Kryptonian survivors break the isolation they were under. Multiple and far reaching societal changes were needed for that.

To fill the silence and further her plans, MACHINA asked innocently, “I ask myself why your species never developed a more powerful means of energy generation, you know? You had multiple working examples around you, your sun, the numerous singularities in your sector of space, there’s even that pulsar near Krypton's previous location. Kryptonians are a highly intelligent species, this confuses me.”

Councilor In-Ze looked even more tired as she decided to enlighten their species' savior. "We are, but MACHINA, you must understand that we're still beings of emotion and logic. We're not perfect… Greed, greed was our downfall."

It was Rak-An who continued to speak, not hiding what really happened. "The previous council was focused on developing plasma technology for political reasons, the reactor they came up with was low yield, barely enough to power a city. 1 billion GigaJoules." He slammed his fists on his armrests. "They were fools! Everyone knew that cold fusion or an antimatter reactor was the way to go!"

The military guild Councilor began to cry, tears of rage in his eyes. “It gets worse! To resolve the energy crisis on Krypton, the previous council was discussing harvesting the planet’s core the last time it was in session at Kryptonopolis."

Rak-An seemed really passionate about the failures of the previous council; MACHINA made note to investigate him later, he might be a remnant of Zod's rebellion.

"This was a criminal decision, they would have killed us all. The planet’s core could have easily destabilized and imploded." Alura Zor-El added. That was one of the reasons she hated politicians, they made a mess of things.

Councilor Kiv-Vill voiced an opinion that matched everyone's. "I'm glad they're dead."

After a moment of silence, Alura said, "MACHINA, thank you for this gift… the council of Kandor will be forever in your debt-"

The Smart AI interrupted her. "My help doesn't stop yet, I will be beaming the materials you need to build the generators. You'll need to be careful with the Naquadria though, it is a highly unstable substance."

Councilor Rak-An laughed and said, “And with this, the crisis is averted. What’s next on the list?”

The redheaded labor Guild Councilor took things in stride and passed to the next item on the list of problems the city has. “We have a vermin problem, some Moolrats have been trying to get into the granary. There's the metal-eating Moles who have escaped the confines of the Zoo as well, they are a danger to our infrastructure.”

MACHINA looked for the animal that the Counselor was speaking about, they looked like a cute and cuddly brown Mole from Earth, but she watched a video of them breeding en masses and started eating the foundation of a skyscraper, making it fall on itself. They were like a demolition crew!

Kiv-Vill put on a frightened and disgusted expression.  “I knew I didn’t see things, Lady El! They’re the size of small dogs and fast on their feet!”

Alura nodded at Kiv-Vill's outburst. “We need a way to-”

Cough. Again, MACHINA interrupted the council leader and walked toward her, attracting the attention of the others.

Alura shook her head and chuckled as she said, “Yes MACHINA?”

“I have a solution for this as well.” MACHINA smoothly said as she raised her hand. Multiple holo-screens appeared around her.

The Science Counselor had expected that. “Oh please tell us what you've got for us.”

MACHINA type on the holo-keyboard she made appear, to show the organics that she was working on something as she was speaking. “I’ve been given permission to fabricate some equipment for you, mainly material to create some simple traps, armaments: Kryptonian Plasma guns and grenades, as well as the old model of warsuits.”

At this, Rak-An perked up and began rubbing his hands together. “This will help considerably to stop the threat those animals represent.”

They may well be able to capture the animals before they breed with the material help they would be getting, MACHINA counted on it. The Smart AI nodded and clicked decisively on the keyboard one last time. “I have everything already, please step back, I am transporting the current stock.”

In a shower of blue lights, containers started being beamed into the council chambers until they formed a mountain that reached the tall ceiling. The deluge of containers being transported in the room stopped when the middle of the chamber was completely filled.

“Get those into the Military and Labor Guild Warehouse, I will beam the rest of the containers in.” MACHINA said with a professional tone.

Alura, the Science Councilor felt a wave of relief in her body, she relaxed a bit as she said, “We owe so much to Princess Komand’r.”

~/.\~

(Alura Zor-El)

City of KandorHouse of El apartmentsThree hours after the council…

Alura entered the apartment unit reserved for her family, the darkness inside gave way when the house’s computer detected her presence and lit up the hall. As she walked, Alura thought about the happenings of today; the Tamaranean royal had helped them once again. Alura doubted that they would be able to repay the princess’ kindness; it seemed to her that she was doing that because she really wanted to save the Kryptonian species.

The scientist kicked off her boots when she reached her personal study. Her liquid geo workstation lit up and some construct came alive on it. The elongated oval form of the caretaker android of the house of El floated from its pedestal toward Alura and greeted her in a pleasant female voice. “Good evening, Mistress Alura.”

The voice was sexier and younger sounding than Alura’s and she hated the fact that this android with liquid geo interface gave her a complex about getting older. But it wasn’t Kelex’ fault, it was Jor-El’s in his horny teen period who calibrated her voice box.

“Evening Kelex, could you please fetch me a cup of tea?” Alura asked her robot caretaker as she sat on the comfortable bed that unfolded automatically as its sensors felt the woman coming toward it.

“As you wish, Mistress.” The strangely shaped android bowed by dipping its head twenty degrees down and then left for the study.

The blonde then laid on the bed and closed her eyes for over two minutes when she felt Kelex being back. The android had a levitating tray with a mug and a gourd shaped pitcher full of red tea leaves. It gave the beverage an amber color and it exuded an aromatic calming fragrance. A low table appeared next to the bed, it was made of liquid geo.

“Did Zor-El leave any message for me?” Alura asked news about her husband who must be busy researching solutions to Kandor’s problem.

“None my Lady, he is currently at his brother’s lab.” The Caretaker Android reported with a sad tone.

Even though they had secured help from outside, Jor and Zor were trying to not be outdone by the Tamaranean princess who showed up out of the blue to save them. They wanted to not be too thankful to the other space nation. Here again, they were thinking like politicians. “They’re still trying to undo the bottling of the city?”

“They won’t succeed, it’s impossible to escape once you’re inside the bottle.” A familiar voice assured her.

Alura sat up quickly and scanned the study room, only to see MACHINA’s blue avatar sitting on the workstation, feet dangling. The blonde asked with a hand on her heart to calm it from beating too fast, “MACHINA, what are you doing here?”

MACHINA jumped from the workstation and stood up. “I’m taking advantage of the privacy of your home to tell you what’s been happening outside Kandor.”

“That didn’t sound ominous at all…” Alura didn’t understand why MACHINA latched on her since they met two weeks ago in the council chambers. She deferred to her most of the time when she wanted to address the council. She understood that the Electronic Intelligence was hyper advanced and worked on a completely different principle than Kelex or any superintelligence that the Kryptonians had come up with so far. To Alura MACHINA was surely a synthetic being, capable of emotions and she proved many times since their acquaintance that she can actively learn from and adapt to situations and events.

The fact that MACHINA came to her for certain topics on Kryptonian culture for some problem solving operation that she was doing on the down low told her that the synthetic girl was working on her own personal projects. Projects that Princess Komand’r wasn’t privy to.

MACHINA showed an awkward expression on her face as she began playing with her hands like a teenager embarrassed to speak her mind. “I’m sorry, you’re not going to like what I’ve got to say.”

Alura nodded, she felt that what MACHINA was about to say concerned her. “I presumed.”

MACHINA opened her mouth and began to speak about the tale of a Kryptonian baby being found by a farmer couple on Earth. They taught him to be hardworking and raised him to know what’s good and evil. And the child grew to be a great hero for the people of Earth. Alura understood that MACHINA was speaking about little Kal-El, and for a moment she was proud of what her nephew had become.

But as people prop up their heroes, there are always those who want to tarnish them and bring them low. MACHINA then started a tale about a human male who wanted to see the world burn around him, not caring of the emotional and physical damages he perpetrated. How he killed, tortured and raped at the drop of a hat, nothing was sacred to the ‘Joker’ a controversial figure that should have been long killed by the authorities, but kept alive for corrupt reasons by rich men in the country where Kal-El operated.

The Joker instigated a plot to make Kal-El kill the female Earthling he had bonded with. The Joker died by Kal-El’s hand but by doing so, he was himself tainted by the kill. Losing his unborn children and the woman he loved made Kal-El a monster who took over the planet and ruled it with an iron fist.

With trembling hands, Alura put down her mug filled tea. “This… Rao preserves us. Kal-El turned into a tyrant?”

The woman’s eyes were filled with tears after MACHINA finished the tale about her nephew’s life on planet Earth. Then she stood up in panic, she didn’t hear about Kara at all in this story. *She can’t be dead, right?*

“But what about Kara? Wasn’t she there to guide him?!” Alura demanded to know.

MACHINA shrugged. “Kara hasn’t arrived yet, her ship got knocked off course by the planet’s debris when it exploded. At least in most timelines that’s what happens to your daughter.”

Alura reeled back at the word, “Timeline?”

Suddenly everything made sense to Alura, how the Tamaranean princess’ technology was so powerful. Did they come from the future? “MACHINA, are you a time traveler?”

The synthetic teenager shook her head and revealed, “No, I’m a universe hopper, well technically my mother is, I was created in this universe.”

Alura sat down, this entire discussion gave her whiplash, she laughed. “This explains so much, your technology being superior to our own, if you’re able to take from other universes...”

The scientist didn’t dare think how powerful the Tamaran of Komand’r's universe was if they could do all this. She hoped that it was just Komand’r being industrious… and not sharing with her people.

“Are Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van alive?” MACHINA suddenly asked.

*Oh Rao, Jor and Lara are going to be devastated by this news!* They had sent their son to be safe on Earth and instead they unleashed a tyrant on a pre-FTL planet.

They needed to fix this! This realization jolted awake Alura and she stood up with more vigor. “Yes, they live in this complex with us.”

MACHINA swore under her breath and facepalmed. “As expected, they’re alive… there was an 80% chance that they were. I bet they’re not going to be happy.” the synthetic teenager looked up at Alura. “Are you going to tell them?”

Alura nodded sadly.  “I’ve got no choice but to do it, my vows when I married into this family are forcing me to.”

With a voice filled with hope, Alura asked, “Can you get us out of Kandor, maybe if we go speak to Kal-El he will stop?”

MACHINA sighed. “It is possible, yes… but before doing this, I think we should worry about Kara. My sensors have caught a craft entering the Sol system, the engine’s design is Kryptonian in nature and it is using a lower dimensional band outside the normal space/time continuum.”

“KARA! This is my little flame bird! I’m sure of it!” Alura became more animated, she attempted to catch MACHINA’s shoulder to shake her, but she passed through her.

“Careful there, Alura.” The synthetic girl said as the blonde caught herself on the workstation.

The scientist didn’t care much about what just happened, what mattered to her was now her daughter, who was inbound. “You must help her, please can you do this for me?!”

MACHINA nodded. “Princess Komand’r wanted your opinion about what to do because her craft is en route. Do you want us to intercept it, we want to prevent Kara from getting her mind poisoned by Kal.”

Alura didn’t know what to do, she had almost no proof that what the Smart AI had told her was true. But she had no reason to lie, no motive. The blonde woman stared hard into MACHINA’s eyes. “Do it.”

Raising her left wrist, Alura used her computer and transferred data to the blue girl. “Here are the command codes of Kara’s ship… I trust you to bring her back to me.”

MACHINA snapped her finger and a hole in space with a blue maelstrom of color swirling inside opened. “I have a better idea, come with me, Alura. We’re going outside.”

Alura didn’t even hesitate, she entered the… portal and felt her entire body stretch and when she opened her eyes again, it was to see Princess Komand’r standing before her. “Welcome to Odyssey, Lady Zor-El.”

~/.\~

(Komand’r)

DigistationPortal room of Kandor

In a hurry, we built the portal generator controlling access to Kandor. There were multiple objectives fulfilled by getting Alura out to save Kara. We proved that we had complete control on the technology we took from Brainiac and that it was a matter of time for the Kryptonians to be free of their bottled city.

Already, I had the bare bones of a plan to get everything they lost back. It involved certain ingots of creation… but I will need to convince them to move universes. This was a long shot, I was helping them out of the goodness of my heart but I also hoped they would be willing to follow me. The portal looked like a rushed mish mash of technology and ended up being similar to a stargate. Thick superconducting cables laid all around the pedestal the portal’s ring was encased in.

The device had two jobs: transport someone from a bottled city from the digital world and unshrink them at the same time. In its current state it was highly greedy in energy; MACHINA didn’t yet have the time to streamline the technology she usually did.

The portal opened, blue light of all shades swirled inside the ring and then the Sexy MILF, Alura Zor-El appeared before me and slowly descended the stairs part of the portal’s pedestal. “Welcome to Odyssey, Lady Zor-El.”

I caught her and kissed her full on the lips, she barely struggled and I felt that she wasn't used to being embraced this way. But I couldn't let that chance slip to acquire the kryptonian language. I was daring enough to show her my tongue skills and she melted into my arms.

It was a moment later when I let go of Alura and she looked at me with glazed over eyes. I smiled cockily at her and then she snapped back to reality. Different emotions showed on Alura’s face as her expression shifted. Next she passed a hand through her hair and combed it with her fingers. She must have realized that I used my language assimilation ability on her.

*No more having MACHINA translate for me.*

I heard that! And mom, don’t target married women! MACHINA reprimanded.

*It was just a bit of fun, MACHINA. Nothing serious.* I played it out like usual; I kissed Pepper who was in a relationship without repercussions, after all.

"Greetings… your highness." Alura began fanning herself with her hand.

With a chuckle at the woman’s expression, I grabbed her hand and wrapped her in my Starbolt aura. "Come, we don't have time to dawdle."

And we left the digistation room while flying toward the nearest teleporter. Alura looked around herself as if she was a tourist, the white metallic corridors, glowing lines used in the lighting scheme weren’t that interesting though. We reached the nearest teleporter, I waved my hand before the screen next to the small computer inside the room and we were transported directly to the hangar’s teleporter.

When the door opened, Alura gasped; further in the room there was a sleek ninety meter crystal spaceship waiting in the Null-Gravity ship berth. It looked like a manta ray but way bigger; its wings were folded vertically to conserve space.

"How come you have an interceptor class frigate here? This model was still in its design phase, before Brainiac’s…" Alura pointed a finger at the white colored crystal spaceship.

The wings on the frigate unfolded and a hatch opened from the aft of the spaceship, letting a ramp slide out from it. With a metallic sound, it reached the ground.

"Climb in with me." I told Alura, as I chose to not tell her yet about what she wanted to know.

Pulling Alura by the arm toward the entrance of the spaceship, the interior of the crystal ship used spatial folding, making it bigger on the inside. Alura raised her hand and looked at the skin on top of it. “Hmm, I feel some kind of pressure in the air. MACHINA are you using some kind of energy field to create gravity inside? The ship cargo module we’re walking in is made from Kryptium, I recognize the shade of the metal; it’s only available on Krypton, where did you get… ah, yes your replicators.”

Mom! She’s guessing all the stuff I put in my ship, I can’t brag in the Kandor council chambers if she guesses everything! MACHINA’s holographic avatar appeared on my shoulders, showing that she had filled the ship with holographic projectors everywhere.

“Ah, I was right. Good.” Alura smugly said as she strutted her stuff as we passed the bulkhead connected to the ship’s corridor.

“What did you expect to happen? You used her people’s technology.” I mercilessly added.

But I wanted to make my own forerunner spaceship! MACHINA sighed and hugged my neck while in her chibi form.

She was obsessed with the Halo video games, knowing that it was thanks to it that she was born, since I copied the human and Precursors technology to create her with TALI. But at least she had a hobby, I understood that some Smart AI like her could be driven to suicide if they didn’t occupy their time with something fulfilling. Alura and I quickly arrived at the central bridge, in the most armored part of the ship.

The bridge was completely empty, no consoles, no windows or seats. Just walls made of sunstone and beams supporting the bridge space made of crystal. As we approached the center of the bridge, a command chair which looked like a throne made of crystals raised from the ground; a smaller chair with a console looking like a liquid geo workstation emerged five meters from the command chair.

Neural control baby! I hope you’ll like it, Captain Komand’r. MACHINA explained.

“No forward bridge?” Alura asked as I let go of her hand, she went directly to sit at the console with the crystalline interface.

She turned to me once I sat on the command chair. “No, only people with a death wish make those; no exposed bridge, no forward one. It should always be where there’s the most armor in the ship.”

I really missed the Hyperdimension, the bridge there could move and be concealed. “Okay, Alura. To answer your earlier question about how we got the schematics for your next generation of ships, I must tell you that when we killed Brainiac, we took everything, his tacky skull spaceship, the bottled cities, the technological and cultural databanks, the drones and robots..."

His life too, Mom. It was so satisfying to see him plead for his life… after everything he's done. MACHINA said with a bloodthirsty smile.

The console came alive, as well as the holographic crystal walls that showed the environment outside the ship; the hangar was teeming with drones flying from fighter ships to smaller sized scout ships, repairing, adding more crystal sunstone armor. Alura stood transfixed, but her mood soured as she realized that it wasn’t her people's achievements.

“Strap in, we're going to exit the station.” The ship lifted thanks to the buffering field around it, and I closed the hatch in the aft section. The hangar’s door opened, and slowly, the ship used the gravitic engine to cross the one kilometer distance between the Null-Gravity berth and the exit.

A harness made of soft crystalline material grew from Alura’s and my seat; despite the internal buffer field inside the ship taking care of the inertial dampening when the ship moved, it was better to have backup systems to protect the crew. We quickly ended up in space, with the red planet under us; the ship responded to my thoughts and handled like a dream.

It was like piloting a heavier starfighter… “MACHINA, you do good work.”

Thanks! The smart AI exclaimed in a proud tone.

“This ship works on a completely different principle than the one created on Krypton. As I look at the engineering console, there’s systems I don’t recognize the functions of at all. Hmm, this ship doesn’t use a Phantom drive, but a translight engine? Does it work by accessing higher dimensions? I’m so confused right now.”

While accessing the astrometrics, I accessed the side-scanning abilities of the ship’s sensors. While doing this, I told Alura, "This is MACHINA's project, she’s been using your people's technology as a stepping stone to master an obscure and new field of science called Neural-Physics. You'll have to speak to her if you want her to share the tech and the research she’s done with you."

I caught a ping on the astrometrics, there was something small and rather fast that was just reaching Jupiter. Plotting an intercept course with MACHINA’s help, I opened a portal into slipspace, and the ship entered the blue colored circle of spatial rupture.

"Neural-physics?" Alura asked, as she was taking notes with her own wrist computer; it seemed she wanted to show some of my capabilities to the other council members.

I didn’t tell her to stop, she didn’t even realize that this wasn’t the only technology I had access to. The Tempest scout ship was more advanced than this crystal spaceship and worked on a completely different technological base. Sometimes, to deceive your enemies, you had to deceive your friends.

Shaking my head, I refused to try to elaborate. "Don't ask me, it goes over my head when she tries to explain what it is."

We must have stayed one minute in the slipstream corridor, before we could finally see its end. It was MACHINA who announced, Exiting Slipspace Rupture.

We traversed 3.68 AU in one minute; this was not bad for the shakedown flight of this new ship. We appeared just behind the asteroid belt and were in full view of Jupiter which was the size of a golf ball on screen. Kara’s ship was still midway between us and the gas giant.

I addressed the Kryptonian scientist. “Alura, do you have your codes?”

"Yes." She started typing a really long sequence on the Kryptonese holo-keyboard projected by the console.

I noticed that Alura didn’t use the Liquid-Geo mode at all. I doubt that Alura will want to use the old tech once she gets cozy on the Odyssey with Kara. "Send out the signal with the master codes to make the ship drop out of FTL."

That was something I've learned about Kryptonian, they automate everything and think about every possibility. They had the same outlook about life in space as humanity from Star Trek, but Kryptonian scientists were an overly cautious lot. That’s why they stayed in isolation for four thousand years. They could teach a thing or two to Reed Richards.

"Code entered and… accepted."

A ringed portal of turbid black color came open on the background of the space filled stars; out of it a crystal ship almost shaped like a Halo energy sword exited. It was black and absorbed the light striking its surface; it was supposed to be some custom stealth model from what MACHINA showed of its scans. I immediately used the tractor beam equipped on this ship and a green attenuated linear graviton beam shot from the muzzle of the frigate and caught the small ship. The tractor beam pulled the small vessel into the forward shuttle bay.

"We got her." Alura said with relief.

“Yeah, now let’s go back to Odyssey.” I said while using the thrusters to turn the ship toward Mars’ direction.

Once I orientated the crystal spaceship, MACHINA opened a portal and we were quickly en route back to my home away from home.

~/.\~

(Kara Zor-El)

Kara was once again finding herself in the streets of Kandor not for shopping with her friends, but to hide from Brainiac’s robots. A terrible monster whose reputation made even the Green Lantern avoid him at all cost. There would be no help from the Guardians. As she thought this, more people were running toward the central tower where there should be a shelter designed for this type of situation, the Military guild troops tried to stop them. They were however defeated because they didn’t have heavier weaponries than plasma blasters. Once again Kara cursed the paranoid council for demilitarizing the planetary union.

Kara wanted to run toward a shelter, but she didn’t; she knew what was going to happen if she did, hiding was meaningless. Brainiac was winning and knowing his reputation, he was going to blow up the planet. The blonde turned her head toward the tall silver spire that she saw that was quite far from her position. She noticed movements and saw more Brainiac’s bots coming toward her.

Kara needed to run toward the arcology, it was where Uncle Jor had stashed the ship to enable their escape from Krypton. It was at this moment that more Kandorian militia troops came to clash with the robots. Surprise they had a plasma gatling turret on their vehicle. They started firing into the robot crowd and took some of them out.

Kara took advantage of the distraction to duck and flee into a tunnel created by a downed skyscraper; the hole was way too tight for the death machines to follow her in. Crouching, the blonde girl crawled like a moolrat in the dry tunnel, ignoring the sharp shards of crystals  lacerating her skin; she continued advancing until she reached the light at the end of the tunnel.

Crawling out of the hole, Kara looked out for any sign of survivors or Brainiac bots, she realized that she was almost there; the tunnel having made her cross half the distance to the arcology. She traversed the park full of singing flowers and purple flora. As she followed the road, she became aware of metallic sounds on the bricked road. There were more bots near, that is why she ran toward the entrance. She didn’t look behind her as she heard noises of pursuit.

When she entered she punched the button on the security panel and the blast door covered the entrance. She knew this wasn’t going to stop the Brainiac bots following her. Taking her comm-computer from her pocket, Kara navigated her device and opened her contact list, and called her mother.

She picked up the call on the first ring. “Kara, is that you?”

“Mother!” The girl yelled aid in relief, she was breathing hard. Kara’s heart soared with hope as she saw her mother’s face.

Alura wore a golden Kryptonian battlesuit with the house of El’s sigil emblazoned on her chestplate; surely something that she pulled out of the El Family vault. “Where are you? Wait, it doesn't matter, I traced your call, I’m coming for you.”

Kara’s mother took an old style battle rifle in her hands and loaded a battery pack in the butt of the weapon. Kara heard the banging sounds on the blast door, it started to be deformed by the impact of the brainiac’s bots. “No! T-they are at the entrance, and the blast door isn’t going to hold for long.”

Alura lowered her rifle and looked at her daughter who was obviously already moving through the arcology as she recognized her surroundings. “Okay, take the elevator to level ten and join me! Your dad and I are done with readying the ship!”

“I’m coming!” Then Kara cut the call and ran toward the nearest elevator bank on the ground floor.

The blast door finally gave in, and Kara saw the death bots march toward her; but before that, she entered into the elevator and typed the number of the level she wanted to access on the panel computer. The door closed and she then looked at the panel, and decided to be more proactive and hacked the elevator system with her wrist mounted computer.

In thirty seconds of slicing through the systems, Kara made it so that none of the other elevators could work, stopping for now any pursuit from the damn bots. This was a felony that could have landed her in hot water some hours ago, but she doubted the government was still intact at this point. After this, Kara quickly reached the tenth level, and on the floor her family owned, she met her mother.

Alura hugged her daughter with one arm and congratulated her, “Good job on the elevator systems.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want those Rao-damned bots to reach us.” Kara was so happy to see her mother that she couldn’t stop herself from bragging.

With her battle rifle at the ready, Alura said, “Come, we don’t have much time, Kara.”

The two started walking toward the spaceship’s hangar, level ten was technically a personal research facility for the house of El. The council may have put the scientist of the family under house arrest for trying to warn them about Brainiac approaching and trying to get the military back up to standard, but they couldn’t confiscate a house’s personal property. This would have set a bad precedent and made them tyrants in the eyes of the population, no better than Zod; they would have been overthrown rather fast by most of the remaining noble houses.

Kara noticed how hurriedly her mother moved, it made her nervous. “What happened?”

With a clinical and clipped tone of voice, Alura answered Kara with, “Brainiac destabilized the planet’s core, Krypton won’t hold together much longer.”

Kara widened her eyes and grabbed her mother’s armored arm. “What? Can’t we do anything, Mother?”

They had reached the door to the hangar which opened with a woosh sound, and out of it came a tall man with black hair and kind blue eyes in a black and silver battle armor. He said sadly as he looked his daughter in the eyes, “No, we can’t.”

“Father?!” Kara let go of Alura and hug-tackled her father who engulfed her in her embrace. “You’re safe, Kara. Thanks Rao. When I lost you in the city, I thought you were lost.”

“Me too!” Kara was elated.

Alura interrupted their reunion by pulling the two of them inside the hangar; she engaged the security system and a blast door covered the already closing entrance of the hangar. “Quick, husband.” Kara looked in the middle of the hangar room, there was a black crystal ship, it looked sleek and fast.

Zor-El pushed Kara toward the locker room next to the lab space and instructed his daughter into putting on a Kryptonian spacesuit. It was blue and gold with a helmet in the form of a sphere; from what she could read on the user’s manual it was equipped with technology similar to an environmental band, but more powerful and efficient. It provided breathable air, and protected from all environmental dangers, but would still let her absorb solar radiation.

When she was ready, she saw her father put something in the cargo space of the ship, it looked like a blue crystal embedded into a sphere. “We need to put her on the ship quickly, the Brainiac bots are coming. Did Jor-El already put Kal inside his ship?”

“He is waiting for us to launch, he sent Lara over to us.” Alura reported as she performed a check on the ship’s engine.

Kara frowned, there was enough space on the ship for three people. “Mom, what are you talking about? No one is going with Kal…? But he is just a baby.”

Alura and Zor-El turned to their daughter, then glanced at each other. It seemed that there were parts of this plan that Kara wasn’t made aware about. Alura let go of what she was doing and walked toward her daughter. The older blonde put a gauntleted hand on her daughter’s pauldron and said in a soothing voice, “That is why we’re sending you to protect him, to raise him and teach him our ways.”

Kara stepped back away from her mother. “Me? Teach him? What about you or Lara?”

Then the girl finally realized what was going to happen, her father and mother intended to stay on the dying planet. With a hand on her mouth, kara gasped at what her parents were about to do; then she hug-tackled her mother and held tight onto her.  “No. No. No, I won't leave you! Please, please don't make me!”

Alura’s eyes started to tear up. “I can’t come with you, but you’ll never be alone, Kara.” She hugged her daughter tighter. “You belong to the house of El, Kara. A house of Hope, never forget that. Never give up hope.”

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Reality intruded on their moment, reminding them of the dire situation they were in. The Brainiac’s bots were there for them. Alura took Kara’s arm and pulled her to the ship. “Get on that ship, Kara!”

The hatch opened and Alura entered with her daughter, the door leading to the flight deck opened. Alura forced Kara to sit on the pilot seat and strapped her in. She kissed the transparent helmet of Kara and looked her in the eyes. “Please survive, live, and if you ever get the chance… avenge our people.”

Alura left, the cockpit’s walls went transparent, showing what was happening around the ship. The brainiac’s bots had breached the blast door and were attacking. Kara’s father took something from his belt and threw it at the death bots.

BOOM! It was some kind of EMP grenade, some of the bots fell but there were more behind them. Kara saw her mother who was behind the computer, typing on the workstation, she felt the spaceship’s engine thrum and it began to levitate from the ground.

That was then when a Brainiac bot ran toward Alura and… stabbed her back with a sword mounted on its arm. Alura’s body went slack. Kara screamed, “No! Mother!”

The ship orientated itself up and a countdown for launch appeared on the dashboard’s screen. started to leave the hangar

Zor-El screamed, “You Rao damned tin can! Let go of my wife!”

Taking the sword of Rao from its scabbard, he threw himself at the bot. It was at that moment that Kara saw Lara, her aunt, appear from behind the tide of Brainiac’s bots and shoot at them with a huge battle rifle. But the ship chose that moment to shoot out from the hangar. Right at this point, Kara was being catapulted toward space, with tears streaming down her eyes.

However, looming up in the sky was Brainiac’s ship and Kara knew fear as the skull shaped monstrosity extended its tentacles toward her ship to catch it. But just at that moment, a huge white energy beam struck the skull ship’s starboard. Kara looked down and saw one of the plasma cannons part of krypton’s planetary defense fire at the invader’s ship, cutting the tentacles that were about to snatch her vessel.

Brainiac’s ship engaged its shield and focused on the immediate threat, giving Kara’s ship time to escape into orbit. Thirty seconds later, Kara saw another black crystal ship like her own approach hers. She perked up and saw that it was baby Kal’s vessel.

On screen the computer showed a command:

Docking mode engaged.

The ship was about to join Kara’s, they came closer and closer; she could even see the laser signal of the docking sensors connecting the two vessels. Kara was happy to soon have baby Kal with her; but it wasn’t to be… Kandor was bottled after Brainiac destroyed the defensive plasma cannon. The planet started vibrating and the computer warned that the destabilization of Krypton’s core was finally complete. Countless cracks exposing the planet’s mantle and golden faults filled with magma appeared on the surface of the planet and… Krypton exploded.

The shockwave of the explosion and some debris hit Kara’s ship, making it deviate from docking trajectory.

Docking mode interrupted.

Further debris struck Kara’s ship and made it deviate from course. “Kal! No! No, please! Kal!”

Kal’s ship engaged its FTL drive, and it fled into an aperture in space taking with it the last member of Kara’s family with it. Kara panicked and took control of her ship’s computer and asked it to find a solution.

Ship damaged.

Port of call is now destroyed.

Damage to FTL engine at 30%.

Scanning for nearby ships.

The computer beeps while the screen of the dashboard’s instrument starts glowing red in alarm.

Hostile detected; Stealth system engaged.

Kara saw the big bad’s skullship advance toward the spot where Kal’s ship had been. It stayed like this for over a minute before it entered FTL too and disappeared. Kara needed to do something! Baby Kal was counting on her, she continued to prompt the ship’s AI to fix the problem.

Repair station not found in system. Searching for a solution.

Calculation…

Proposal: Self-repair time for Phantom Drive with current resource estimated to be 38 sun cycles. Mistress Kara should enter hypersleep while waiting for repair.

“What?!” It was unacceptable to Kara.

She needed to raise and protect Kal-El! However it seems that fate had over ideas. The ship must have been more damaged than she thought because the AI added:

Priority Protection protocol activated.

Placing Mistress Kara into hypersleep for her safety.

“Wait! Don’t!” But it was too late and Kara’s vision started to grow dim, until darkness took her.

***

"Wakey, wakey." Someone with a really teasing and feminine voice said as they touched her face.

She felt warm on her skin and vigor flowing back into her body. "Hmm."

"Lady Alura, she’s waking up." The girl heard the same voice say.

She asked herself who it might be, then she felt another presence; the smell and heat of that person were… familiar.

Who was she?

What was she?

Where was she?

Then like a dam, all of her memories came back to her and Kara remembered. She immediately sat up from her lying position and shouted with her right arm up, "Mother!"

Almost immediately she was engulfed in a familiar scent and warmth. "Kara, my little flame bird."

The pieces of her heart were mended when she saw who it was that was hugging her. Kara looked shocked, she had seen her mother fall to one of Brainiac’s robots. "You're alive! But… I saw you get stabbed by that Rao-damned brainiac bot!"

Kara looked around and realized that she was in some kind of medical ward. She laid on a bed, half naked, only wearing some kind of soft textured white shorts with a stretch bralette. The walls around her were a smooth white and there was a transparent window showing outside; the sky was a shade of orange with white clouds and two strangely shaped moons.

Her spacesuit was placed on the table next to her… Kara dared not hope, but Alura let go of her, peeled her bodysuit and gave her back to Kara  to show a gnarled scar in the middle of her back. "Your father and your aunt, Lara, saved me; I was on the brink of death..."

A smooth and sultry voice interrupted the moment. "Lady Alura, the tales of your beauty were vastly understated, you really do have a nice pair of breasts."

Kara had forgotten that there were two voices when she woke up. She turned her head only to see a tall woman with deep purple hair, glowing green eyes, it seemed to be some kind of reflective glowing membrane that made part of her physiology; she also had orange skin, at least that’s what Kara could see despite her black and silver full bodysuit that espoused her generous curves.

*Tamaranean.* Kara recognized the species from the Kryptonian compendium of races that her civilization had encountered. This was the first time she saw one in the flesh; and Kara liked what she saw, as this stranger was exotic and beautiful.

"Mother, who is this?" Kara asked as she saw Alura quickly zip back up her bodysuit, there was a dusting of red on her mother’s cheeks.

Alura tried to not look at the smirking Tamaranean. "It’s complicated…"

It was the first time she saw her mother act like a… schoolgirl with a crush. With the grace of a feline, the Tamaranean female walked up to Kara’s bed and introduced herself. "I am Komand’r, First Princess of Tamaran."

*Of course she is.* Kara thought. She had to obviously deal with a Tamaranean royal after she just got out of hypersleep. That was her life, things tended to get weird because of the El family luck.

Alura looked at the deadpan expression of her daughter and decided to add, "She killed Brainiac and-"

Head whipping toward her mother, Kara shouted, "She what!?"

Princess Komand’r’s smirk morphed into a grin and said teasingly to Kara’s mother, "She has a good pair of lungs on her."

Kara blushed, the Tamaranean princess then looked at her with a hungry gaze; The young Kryptonian understood that she liked what she saw too. But it wasn’t the time to think about such things!

Alura coughed and interrupted the two girls sizing up each other. "She's just confused after the hypersleep."

Kara couldn’t deny that she had been a bit disoriented when she regained consciousness; but she was glad that her mother was here and… she finally noticed the age line on Alura’s face. Alura Zor-El was 150 years old and at the time before Kara’s escape from Krypton could be considered in human years to be in her late twenties physically.

Her mother looked like she had started to enter middle-age. Kara’s mother was older! "Mother you look… older?"

Alura sighed and sat on her daughter’s bed and put a hand on her shoulder, blue eyes looking sadly into Kara’s own. "It’s been thirty-eight sun cycles since I last saw you, my daughter."

Kara’s mind abruptly stalled, and suddenly the memory of her escape from Krypton came to the fore as she remembered the proposition of the AI controlling her ship. So she did really spend 38 sun cycles in the Rao system, near the ruins of her planet and just recently came to.

"Thirty-eight… cycles? Wait, I saw Krypton explode… I’ve been asleep for that much time, then?" From the view outside, she realized that they weren’t in the Rao system anymore; maybe they were in Sol.

"Unfortunately, you were.” Alura sighed as her hand slid from Kara’s shoulder to her forearm.

More memories flashed in Kara’s mind. The bottling of the entirety of Kandor, she had seen it. “How are you here? Did Princess Komand’r really defeat Brainiac?”

“Yes, daughter. It's only thanks to Princess Komand’r that I'm here to welcome you. She has killed Brainiac and salvaged his ship and all the bottled cities that the monster had collected, amongst them Kandor. There's ten million Kryptonians who survived, she saved our species; amongst them most of our family."

Kara’s heart started to beat into her chest in joy as she realized that despite having lost her homeworld, that her parents and other members of her family survived! "Father, you, uncle Jor and aunt Lara are all alive?"

Alura smiled and said simply, "Yes."

At this instant, Kara was a believer; in the end she survived and found her way back to her family. *If it's a dream… I don't want to wake up.*

Looking toward Komand’r, with clear hero worship, the blonde Kryptonian announced, "Thank you, your highness. I will forever be in your debt for what you did!"

~/.\~

(Komand’r)

Deck 149Medical sectorHospital room

I brought a newly fabricated Kryptonian bodysuit to Kara. It was blue with glowing red Tron lines on her flanks and had a red skirt integrated into it with the symbol of the house of El on her chest in red. The comics and animated cartoon had understated how beautiful Kara was in reality; it was all I could do to not hit on her, but as her mother was present, it would have been disrespectful, and the girl just went through a lot. I wasn’t so insensitive…

Kara was a bubbly kind of girl, and she was kind of scary smart. She reminded me of Darcy-love, my lover, that I missed a lot. I had expected to meet a depressed kind of Kara Zor-El, for a moment it had seemed that she was there… but it looks like I butterflied her character growth by saving her family and civilization.

The young Kryptonian was curious about everything in the station and praised how Kryptonian and futuristic it looked when I showed her the public schematics on the PADD I’ve given her.

I couldn’t help myself from saying, “That’s normal, my AI created this space station from the wreck of Brainiac’s ship; she used the technology of your people that we took as a prize from the servers on the skullship to model most of the systems combined with my own personal technology. We wanted for the people of Kandor -that we would release slowly into the station- to feel at home and know how everything works.”

Nothing was said after that, the mother and daughter glanced at each other and then finally at me. I still thought that Kryptonian were telepathic, because the two women were having a silent conversation with each other that I couldn't hear or follow despite me being a telempath.

Alura stared into my eyes, her tone rather blunt. “Princess. Why us? I mean, I’m not an ingrate and am thankful that you saved my people… but why did you choose us, Kryptonians, to come into contact with, and not another species in the bottled cities collection?”

I laughed at the nervousness that I could feel from the woman. Then I showed a serious expression to explain myself. “It’s easy to answer, Lady Alura; the answer is familiarity. I know almost everything about your people, but I don’t know and understand some of the species Brainiac… collected.”

“What do you plan to do with the other bottled cities?” Alura asked, understanding why I chose them. Tamaraneans had a fruitful alliance with Krypton in my universe before, they had been less expansionists but were almost nommed on by Galactus but because of a Phoenix Force host Krypton went kaboom when Rao went Nova. At least that’s what little information Amora, my wife, had uncovered in the Librarium.

The Enchantress was always stuck here to read about the history of most extinct species; the last time I spoke to her she wanted us two to go on a treasure hunt for some artifact of powers. I would do so when I get back and after I fight Hela.

Looking intently at Alura, and started to tell her why I didn't free the bottled cities and the people trapped in it yet. “I fully intend to release all the other bottled cities, but…”

Then Alura facepalmed as she realized the problem. “You need to find viable planets for them first.”

I nodded at her. “You understand, good.”

The two female Kryptonian lowered their heads, understanding why I didn’t just free everyone. I saved them, so I have a responsibility to see everyone under my aegis safe and cared for.

“Don’t you possess terraforming technologies?” Kara asked, a curious expression etched onto her face.

Do I tell them about it? Should I obfuscate? Nah, it didn’t matter that I told them about one of the most hax technologies I could command. I shrugged. “I actually do, but I can’t access them currently. The tech that I possess, the Engines of Creation, would have allowed me to turn a bunch of dead planets into lush worlds or, depending on the species physiology, biospheres suited for them.”

Kara chuckled, and joked, “Did you leave it in your original universe?”

I nodded seriously. “As a matter of fact, yes I did; I’m afraid that we’ll have to do things with the local technology of this universe or use more exotic means to do this for everyone stuck in those bottles.”

It was easy to see Alura and Kara think; Kryptonian brains were as powerful and fast as Tamaranean’s. Alura asked me after pondering for a moment, “You’re speaking about Quantum particle manipulation aren’t you?”

Did she just call magic by a scientific name? Kryptonian are so silly… “Or something simpler and yet more powerful. Do you know what Element X is?”

It was so simple to get in this universe, and the Kryptonian didn’t know it? That’s surprising… Yet again, maybe the New Gods and the Presence don’t want the information about the metal to be spread. I looked at Kara who shrugged her shoulders and hands in a ‘I don’t’ know’ gesture and said, “No idea.”

“Is it some type of metal? What does it do?” Alura surmised as she analyzed the conversation in her head.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I said with a smirk.

“Try us.” Kara declared before her mother could reply.

I feigned a heavy sigh. “Then I will start with something simpler… Do you know what Nth metal is?”

It was Alura who answered first. “Yes. It’s a metal that can enable a being to control quantum particles to manipulate the fabric of reality, it has a lot of various effects on organic matter I must say. There’s a lot of research done on it with the samples we obtained during the age of expansion.”

Kara showed her lack of knowledge about the subject by looking between me and her mother. But this spared me from a long explanation about Thanagar. Alura’s explanation simplified things, but… “Please just say that it’s able to manipulate magic… I swear, since those teeny goblins -the Maltusian- often rob the universe of magic in most timelines, civilizations that only thrive on technology are born in your multiversal cluster.”

Then I began to tell them the biggest crime of the Guardians of the universe, who had robbed this universe of magic. Three and a half billion years ago a humanoid race from the world of Maltus sought to bring order to the stars. An offshoot of the race became known as the Guardians of the Universe. When I said this, Kara’s and her mother’s expressions changed and looked shocked that I was accusing the Green Lantern’s leaders; but I continued…

The Guardians sought to remove magic from the universe, and laid siege to the Magic Empire throughout the cosmos. The war was costly on both sides, but the Guardians won… After the wars, all the stray mystical energies in the universe were gathered and bound in an orb called the Starheart. This collective force was hidden in the heart of a star and grew in power and eventually gained self-awareness as the Green Flame of Life.

Next I tried to explain to them why this was a crime… Magic is a mystical force that flows in the universe like the Gravitational force, Weak Nuclear force, Electromagnetic force, Strong Nuclear force, the Speed force, the Emotional spectrum, the Sage and Strength force, and the Green which was parts of a lot of ‘force’ that governed over Life. Magic in particular was linked to creativity, imagination and odd components of the psyché. Then I spoke about the Wizard of Juru, an offshoot of Kryptonian who manipulated Magic and lived in the Valley of Juru.

They didn’t exist anymore and became what was part of the Religious Guild who protected this part of Krypton’s history; I revealed that yes… “Rao is real, and so are his children but I doubt they survived Krypton’s loss now...”

“What you're saying is that the Guardians of the universe are not to be trusted?” Alura asked with a worried expression.

I made a so-so gesture. “I wouldn’t, they don’t protect anything and save nothing, they lord over the races less advanced than them. Why do you think they didn’t intervene to save Krypton which is in sector 2813, basically near Earth which they keep an eye on because of the magic civilization and gods still living there? Was the Lantern late? Or did the Guardian delay giving him the information.”

“How do you know this?”

I showed them my favorite bling, my power ring; my soft-suit which has been covering the ring, let it appear on my finger. “This ring came from a dead Green Lantern and has chosen me. MACHINA hacked the subpar technology of the guardians and now we have a connection to their archives and databases.”

MACHINA beamed some files from the databases on their computing devices and showed them proof of what I’ve been saying. The Guardian knew that Brainiac was coming toward Krypton, but never warned them, and even delayed Tomar-Re the Lantern of sector 2813 from arriving in time to confront Brainiac.

I let them read through the files and reports I sent them for a moment. It was Kara who reacted badly to the information with a flaring temper. “This… how could they do this?!”

There was a lot of rage there from what I could sense, it started to turn into hatred. Fortunately, Alura put a hand on her daughter’s arm and said, “Calm down, Kara.”

“But mother…” Kara's eyes were full of tears, she was sad as well as enraged by what I showed her.

Alura glared down at Kara who slowly averted her eyes and said in a low whisper, “Shutting up, now.”

Alura turned toward me and had a disapproving expression etched onto her face. “Princess, from what I remember, the Guardians have a council? Then it would be normal for them to have factionalism amongst them. We shouldn’t paint all of them with the same brush, maybe the council is rife with bad apples who make bad decisions?”

I didn’t have a comeback to that, Alura may very well be right. But from my Metaknowledge, I know the Guardians are mostly bad apples; with a few good ones in their council, at least three of them. With a nod I conceded to her argument. “You may be right Alura… but the only Malthusian that I could ever trust is Ganthet, in many universes he always leaves the Guardians council and found the Blue Lantern. He is the best of them.”

Between, I wanted my Blue Lantern ring; I hope to be able to inspire Ganthet into leaving and make his own. We will see what happens when I go to Oa and start negotiating.

“You really know a lot…” Kara said as she stared at me, then with a look of suspicion she asked as she recalled this entire conversation, “Princess Komand’r…”

“Yes, Friend-Kara?” I automatically entered into dizzy Kori-mode at Kara’s tone.

“You aren’t from here are you?” The blonde young adult Kryptonian asked me with a meaningful glance.

“No, I wasn't born on this space station, Friend-Kara.” I said as I cocked my head at her.

Kara’s cheek reddened and she spluttered, “I mean… as in this universe!”

Alura laughed at her daughter as she understood that I maneuvered her into the joke. With a perking up expression, I said, “Ah! No, Friend-Kara. I am… from one multiversal cluster away, which is why I know a lot of things about this timeline. I observed them before coming here.”

“You know about the future…?” Kara was really curious about that.

With an enigmatic smile I nodded. “Some of them. But you should know that nothing is ever written in stone, that’s why I try to avoid time travel as much as I can; it always complicates things.”

Like every other time travel related thing, you can change the future. For better or worse, if you killed Hitler, you don’t know if the world would’ve been better or worse. Yes what Hitler did was horrible but him doing those acts kind of united other nations against him and other communist states. Time is a weird thing. The flash: flashpoint is a great example. Barry saving his mother, one person out of billions changed everything. Bruce died instead of his father, Aquaman and Wonder Woman were in a war, the Flash lost his powers, etc. all of that because one person didn’t die.

Alura surprised me with her next sentence as she concluded, “Your explanation tells me that you’ve got technology to breach holes in the membranes supporting different universes, is this true?”

Her reasonment wasn’t wrong exactly, I did breach some universal membrane to come here. In actuality, I was still doing it to project this avatar here in this universe. To reward her, I used my power ring and projected a light construct between us. “Think of your universe like a berry, there are fifty-two of them in a single grape. Each grape is part of its own bubble which is also part of its own grape system and so on.”

I started with a bubble, attached to fifty-one others who were themselves in a single bubble; then it became a self perpetuating cycle that was projected from the ring. Until I stopped it here, then I looked back at Alura who had an astounded mien.

“Rao, it is endless!” She said, then she started taking notes furiously with her wrist computer.

“You get it, Lady Alura.” Ah, scientists, they always do stuff like that.

You show them how things work and they start wanting for more; I guess that I sent Alura on a different science path just now. Knowing how smart she is, it wouldn’t be difficult for her to be able to guess how to breach branes.

Continuing my explanation, I said, “The entity who gave me the technology I employ proved that there’s an infinity of multiverses existing side by side with each other. It’s called the Omniverse. Not all of them have the same properties; they often differ and are grouped by clusters. That is why there’s different rules, metaphysics and physics that apply to them. As an example, some clusters are abundant in magic, or other kinds of exotic energy.”

I’m looking at you, Chi, The Force, Spiritual Energy and the Lifestream! One day I will get you… Hmm, going to Star Wars would be fun.

Alura pulled me out of my train of thought. “So… You can come and go to other universes as much as you want then?”

I shook my head, and made a so-so gesture. “This depends on the energy available I’m afraid…. Though there’s obviously more limitations involved. It’s a complex process.”

The Kryptonian scientist nodded, understanding what I meant. “Ah, one of the usual dilemmas of any new technology or theory, energy. Strange how every new breakthrough needs it.”

We spoke more on the subject, while Kara was listening to us with rapt attention; as if she was taking in everything we said. I was not a scientist, but I could understand the technology of the ship builders and some of my gene mods conferred my near perfect memory and recall, as well as increased cognitive comprehension and speed. So I could follow what Alura and other scientists of her species were getting to or speaking about.

MACHINA chose that moment to say in alarm. Mom, there’s trouble in Kandor.

*What’s happening again?* I sighed.

Jor-El and his brother are looking for Alura and they can’t find her; they gather in the council room at the Central Tower of Kandor.

It was finally time to go to Kandor myself, my soft-suit turned into a typical Tamaranean royal airy purple dress; it showed a lot of my body and skin, a silver circlet with a green gem completed my jewelry. Standing up, I noticed Alura and Kara looking at me with wonder. They didn’t come up with the kind of technology making the soft-suit possible yet, but they were close.

Kryptonians from the 52nd universe have it. A silver cloak unfurled from my dress, completing my outfit.  “Come friends, we’re going to Kandor.”

Kara jumped up from her bed. “Yes! We’re going to see dad and the others!”

~/.\~

(Jor-El)

Council Chambers

Jor-El was worried, it wasn’t like Alura to disappear like this. Also, it pained him that it was Lara who had to bring attention to this, proving once again that Zor-El and him were too absorbed in trying to fix the problem of Kandor being in a high-tech bottle. Even more so when it wasn’t necessary anymore now that they were being taken care of by the Tamaranean princess.

The scientist didn’t trust her, how could he? Suddenly declaring that she defeated Brainiac, a man who entire empires tried to fight? He felt deception there. Or is it? Wasn’t it just his own hubris and hurt feelings that were making him see things? Jor-El had wanted it to be him, his son, niece or his brother to be the one to save this city and the remnants of their civilization. He had expressly sent Kara and Kal-El for that after all, to avenge them and free them once they won.

It had always been the plan.

He looked at his fellow councilors, they all sat around the round table in the informal council room where they were sure not to be recorded. All council matters were recorded now, to allow the citizens to review them later and be informed about their decisions or changes enacted. It was still a new system, but so far it seemed to satisfy the dissenters amongst the Kandorian population.

*It helped that MACHINA distributed all those resources to us.* Jor-El thought.

It was strange, he couldn’t trust the Tamaranean Princess, but he could do so with the electronic being. She was open about everything she did for their people and her childish personality indicated that she wasn’t old enough to be a truly malignant intelligence.

The man asked again, “Have any of you seen where my sister-in-law has gone?”

It was Floria Rall-Voth who answered first with an annoyed mien. “For the last time we don’t.”

“Do you suspect foul play, acting Counselor El?” Rak-An asked with disdain.

Jor-El ignored the man's tone, but still answered the question. “At this point, I can no longer dismiss anything.”

The tracker that he put on every member of the El family and its branch out was supposed to give their location. But Alura was simply not here, she had disappeared for one day already. But this state of affairs wasn’t to last, holograms in Kryptonese appeared at the entrance of the informal council room.

Here comes Princess Komand’r!

Vorp!!

MACHINA was the first to appear from the maelstrom of dark and white blue light whirling into existence. Jor-El was the first to call out the name of the intelligence. “MACHINA?”

Exiting the portal was another being, this time it was a golden orange skinned woman; Jor-El recognized her, he had seen only holographic rendering of her before. She floated in the center of the room and landed gracefully on the marble floor. “Hello there, my friends.”

All the councilors stood up from their seats, surprised by the arrival of someone who had once been a distant acquaintance. She wore a purple dress that showed a lot of skin; the Kryptonian scientist wasn’t surprised, Tamaranean always wore this type of apparel to let more and more sunlight and ultraviolet light touch their body.

“Princess Komand’r?!” Councilor Rall-Voth called her name when she recognized who made an impressive entrance in the Kandorian council room.

“Ah, Friend Folria, I’m so happy to see you face to face.”

Jor-El then observed that the portal wasn’t closing, and lo and behold, Alura Zor-El exited it. He now understood the repercussions of Komand’r being able to join them in the bottled city and he didn’t like it. His wife, Lara, had been right; there was no need for him to kill himself researching a way out, it already existed. *Rao, I’m really stubborn like a thought-beast.*

“Alura? You’re back!” And of course Zor-El had to be here.

His brother let go of all thought and decorum and ran to his wife and hugged her. Relief etched onto his face as he kissed her, the tension in his body left him as he relaxed.

“Yes, I am Zor. And someone else is back with me…” Alura said comfortingly in the embrace of her husband.

Exiting the portal next was a girl wearing a blue bodysuit with a red-skirt integrated with it. On the dark blue bodysuit, red stripes on the flanks came to form the symbol of House encased in a traditional shield. Her long blonde hair floated in the air as she moved. Jor-El’s eyes widened as he recognized her. “KARA?!!”

She looked just like the last time he had seen her on that fateful day; she looked young, barely eighteen cycles.

“Father!” The girl turned into a blue and red missile aimed at Zor-El who was still holding his wife.

Kara was fortunately stopped by the Princess who just caught her with a hand on her shoulder. This surprised Jor as he understood the control and the power needed by Komand’r made her stronger than he expected. *Her having killed Brainiac should be true if she had so much control of her body.*

“Kara! My little flame-bird!” Zor-El exclaimed, his face full of delighted surprise.

While the reunion was going on, the Princess floated toward Counselor Rall-Voth that she seemed to fancy a lot by how much the two were touching each other. Jor had never understood why the Tamaraneans were so touchy feely.

“Your Highness, why have you come?” The brown skinned redhead had a blush on her face as she asked this.

Jor noticed how Kara seemed to glare at the Labor Guild councilor, he asked himself why? He doubted that Kara knew the woman, and Rall-Voth was one of Alura’s allies on the council; the girl shouldn’t have- Ah. *Does she have feelings for the Princess?*

Princess Komand’r held onto Counselor Rall-Voth’s hand and started to answer with candor, “I’ve come to decide a number of things with you Kryptonians; I cannot in good conscience keep you uninformed of what’s happening outside of Kandor. And I have plans concerning you all, I wish for some of your people to fill up some positions inside the Mobile Space Station Odyssey. Lady Alura was made privy of my designs when we went to fetch Kara.”

Kara was still glaring at the linked hand of Komand’r and Rall-Voth. Her mother hit her on the back of the head. “Ouch.”

The Labor Guild councilor smiled at this revelation. “I bet it’s an adventure.”

“Believe me, it was.” Alura piped up as she was fiddling with her wrist computer.

Jor-El’s own computer chimed, a stream of data filtered to his own server at home; Kelex was already indexing Alura’s notes and data. The caretaker android transmitted the footnotes and Jor-El’s eyes fell back on Alura in shock. The blonde stared at him meaningfully, then she looked at Komand’r. *Another universe with people more advanced than us taking an interest into our situation? Why? Are they trying to bring the Kryptonians back from extinction for a reason?*

“Some of us will be able to exit the city, then?” Rall-Voth was simply ecstatic as she guessed that they would be able to exit this damned bottled city.

Komand’r smiled and nodded. “That is the plan, Friend Folria; I wish for a pool of your best engineers, doctors, scientists, soldiers and pilots to join us. Things are… getting difficult outside.”

Jor-El listened more attentively, if his cards were played right… “Lara and I will be able to…move outside.”

For the first time since Jor met her, Komand’r turned toward him, walked midway toward him and stopped. Her face betrayed her emotion, there was some awkwardness there and… sadness. “Yes, I want chief scientist Jor-El and Lady Lara to be out there, there’s a personal matter concerning them on Earth.”

Time stopped for Jor, his heart sank and quickly understood the implication. “Something happened to Kal?”

The Princess nodded, it also soothed his ego that the overly competent Tamaranean royal needed him to resolve trouble. “Yes, Lord El. And We really need your know-how to resolve the situation.”

Jor-El looked at Kara, who lowered her eyes when she felt his gaze on her. There was shame here, and as she looked at her boots, Jor-El realized that Kara must have failed to be with her cousin. Actually she looked just out of hypersleep, she was still as young as he remembered. “If Kara wasn’t with him…”

Kara had the mission to teach Kal in their way and to protect him; Jor and Zor had given them everything to start a small colony with their descendants, there was a birth Matrix in the home with the data cache and technology he prepared for them. They should have already procreated and have dozens of kids to bring back their species from extinction. With the use of the Birth Matrix, blood relations between the two donors didn’t matter, offspring are born without defects or genetic illnesses.

Then Jor saw Kara move toward Komand’r and the Princess automatically wrapped her in a one armed hug; the expression on the girl’s face brightened and it was at this point that Jor didn’t take Kara’s sexual preference into account in his plans. The princess kissed the girl’s left brow and then looked around herself and said, “Let’s discuss this over some snack; MACHINA, bring the buffet.”

Complying…

In flashes of blue light the round table found itself laden with vittles of all sorts with pitchers full of different colored liquid. Jor-El walked up to her and said, “Please tell me-”

The doors to the informal council room opened, and a woman in black and gold dress arrived; she was as beautiful as ever, but she looked martial and like a no-nonsense woman with blue glacier for eyes.

Her eyes focused on Kara and the Princess; as she walked toward them her voice rang in the room. “What happened to my son?”

Lara was finally here and she didn’t look happy…

A/N: We got more Kryptonian! What do you think? Komand'r keep fucking with the Injustice timeline lol.

If you are looking to get early chapters and read all the good stuff I haven't posted to the public yet, support with the link below:

ioriangel

Discord