"The ship pulled in without a sound

The faithful captain long since cold

He kept his log 'til the bloody end

Last entry read 'Rats in the hold

My crew is dead—I fear the plague"

Cold…bleak…desolate—Antarctica…and the wind… god the wind….

Alex took out her binoculars and scanned the horizon. The same gradient white met her gaze in every direction. White dunes of crippling ice….

…Agent Danvers?

Yep…

… Director Henshaw is on the line.

Why do they always have to crash in the damn ice and snow….

Mam?

…Never mind—just talking to myself, Captain. Let's go.

The Humvee Rover was just over the ridge. By the time Alex and her Coast Guard Captain escort reached the top, both sky and snow had turned a sunset reddish-pink. Dark clouds were quickly amassing on the horizon. A storm was coming.

The Captain opened the Rover door letting Alex in to talk privately with her superior. Soon as she was inside she pulled her gloves off, blew into her hands to warm, then grabbed the satphone off the dash.

…How's McMurdo Station treating you? Henshaws's voice crackled and popped with static in her ears.

Coldly.

Funny.

And how's the JLA treating you?

I'm starting to appreciate the Sartre line— hell is other people.

That bad?

Have you ever shared quarters with the Flash?

Okay, point taken.

Speaking of which, how's that intel from STAR Labs paying off?

There's one more place, but there's very little daylight left. Also Concordia and McMurdo are both on hurricane watch.

Lucky you.

Lucky me.

Be careful, Alex.

You got it, boss.

Alex opened the Rover door— Captain McReady had the Red up to his lips and was taking a long drag.

Smok'em if ya gott'em. Right, Cap?

Nasty habit. Sorry, mam.

You really have to stop calling me mam if you want to continue being my escort. It makes me feel a helluva lot older than I am.

Captain McReady dropped the half smoked butt in the snow and squashed it with his boot.

What… should I call you, Agent Danvers?

How about Alex? Just Alex.

Okay, Alex. Where to now?

Well that all depends on how much gas is left in the Rover, and how quickly, you think you can get us back to base before that storm hits us. So I guess the real question is… are you feeling adventurous, Captain?

Call me McReady.

Darkness had descended… and the Rover's instruments were already clocking the winds at 50 miles per hour by the time they reached Alex's next group of GPS coordinates. The sprawl of the open tundra soon closed in around them in the form of icy red canyon walls.

We must be nearing Blood Falls….

Yep.

Alex nodded; immersed in her laptop. Satellite images and 3D topographic maps of the area crowded the computer screen

So, what type of crash site are we exactly looking for here, Alex?

A couple of days ago we were notified that we might be getting a visit…

A visit… from where?

Alex looked over at McReady awash in the blue light from the dashboard panel.

She smiled momentarily—they probably looked like a couple of Smurfs in paramilitary gear from outside the Rover. She was becoming giddy. The cold was fatiguing even with the heat pumping through from the vehicle's advanced climate control system.

Space.

So, aliens….

Not really sure. Strange signals and a consistent trajectory could mean anything from a meteorite to space junk to a downed satellite.

But it was enough to peak the curiosity of both STAR labs and the DEO?

Were you listening in on my private conversation, Mr. McReady?

Well, mam, as Chuck Barry once sang— you never can tell….

Wait stop— McReady!

McReady hit the breaks. The caterpillar tracks locked on the Rover causing the vehicle to come to a quick halt.

What is it?

The canyon suddenly fell apart and away from them into darkness.

In all the topography maps I looked at of the area… I never noticed a valley like that before.

McReady hit the high beams on the Rover—it didn't make much of a difference.

I think we're on foot from here.

I'll grab the gear.

Yeah.

Alex was packing the gear in the back of the Rover when McReady came up behind her, reached over her head, and grabbed the Saiga-12 off the rack.

You never can tell.

Alex loaded a clip into a Glock 17 carbine. Nope, you really can't.

The ravine split away into two possible directions. One was more of a steep incline that they could get the Rover down into the valley if need be. As they made their way down the narrower of the two passage ways they immediately spotted the craft, large and not of this world. It was probably the size of a football stadium, damaged with one side completely blown out and exposed to the elements.

How did that not make a peep entering our atmosphere? A ship that size should have been picked up by any number of arctic stations.

Alex pulled up her binoculars. Nothing… no sign of life, not even a single evacuee….

Maybe it didn't enter via the traditional route, Alex said to McReady.

McReady shot Alex a puzzled look.

One of the DEO's main jobs is dealing with extraterrestrial threats from an area called the Phantom Zone. A place of inter-dimensional space used by Kryptonians to imprison some of the worst criminals in the universe.

You're saying this ship may not even be from our reality?

Alex shrugged. Seems like the most reasonable explanation given the phenomenon.

Reasonable—has a very different meaning in your vocabulary, Alex.

I think we should enter through the damaged section as risky as that might be. Any other way in— we run a risk of setting off a possible security response.

You actually want to go in that thing?

It's my job, McReady. You're welcome to join me or wait in the Rover.

They continued down the ravine until they were on par with the damaged section of the ship. At a given altitude they probably looked like a couple of ants entering a cracked sugar bowl. Again, giddy.

McReady pulled the Saiga around to his chest. He insisted on entering the damaged hull first.

The ship didn't look particularly alien. Whomever the beings were that built it they must have been similar biologically to humans.

The damaged hull exposed a series of loading docks and cargo bays that were black and charred by fire—exposed to the elements they were now frosted over and partially covered in snow. Their UFO was becoming far less U and more humanistic with every turn. The ship's tech however was definitely more advanced than anything Alex had encountered before, Kryptonian excluded.

McReady's flashlight beam struck an unspoiled bit of cargo.

What the hell do you make of that?

Alex followed the direction of the beam to an insignia that was branded on each cargo container—a blue W with a gray Y behind it. Wanye-Yutani Corporation…Building a better tomorrow.

Fuck me…. I should have known Wayne Tech would have built a monster like this. McReady said, brushing the frost off one of the containers.

Alex ran her hand over the insignia. This can't be right….

McReady's satphone suddenly sprang to life with static. McReady you there?

Yeah, what's up Ripley?

You got incoming… looks like a cat 3. Wherever you are—I'd highly suggest finding shelter asap.

Gotcha….

Trusted man, Alex commented.

Better be, he's dating my sister.

Alex sent McReady back to retrieve the Rover before the hurricane hit critical. He would drive it down the ravine and park it deep inside the massive ship's innumerable cargo holds. Once there he would then radio Alex who'd be off trying to locate the ship's flight computer. When McReady tried to protest her going off alone into possible hostile territory she went and pulled rank on him. Tough little vixen. He wanted to yank her into his arms and kiss her, but rather he gave her a simple nonchalant salute and went off to fetch the Rover.

Meanwhile— Alex, after forcing her way into a cargo bay office, was able to hack into one of the inboard computers. The ship was running on auxiliary power, and minimum life-support. She pulled up schematics and maps of each deck. The ship was indeed massive. 13 decks in all. She was happy she didn't need to scrounge around the entire ship after all.

The last order given was to abandon ship, but oddly, no reason as to why… Alex was dumbfounded. She knew Wayne Enterprises, and even given some of their historic advances in all things science, this tech was a hundred years ahead of anyone, again excluding Kryptonians.

And the Yutani Corporation—who the hell were they? As a DEO agent, Alex had to keep up on the financial news just as well as any other—the corporate world was just as vulnerable to alien takeover as any other institution. She hadn't read or heard of any merger involving Wayne Enterprises. And when J'onn introduced her to Bruce at a JLA sponsored fundraiser—he didn't exactly strike her as the merging type.

She dug further into the ship's manifest and when she hacked into the auto navigational routing system— she felt all the air suddenly squeezed out of her lungs and into a singular bombshell gasp. This was not some interplanetary ship, but an… 'M-Class starfreighter with intergalactic coordinates… The USCSS Azuera…. CM-88B Mammoth…launched 2119.'

What the hell….

The ship's cargo manifest listed a mix of equipment used in mining and terraforming operations. Another enigma quickly surfaced in the ship's log—a section of the cargo hold had been barricaded by the crew before the order for abandoning ship was given. Alex picked up her satphone.

McReady, what's your eta?

Pulling in now… What's up?

Meet me at Dock 7.

Rodger on that.

Alex's closed her laptop and put it in her pack. She could now access the Azuera's mainframe from inside the warmth of the Rover. She looked at a photo on the office wall of a father (the cargo bay's foreman) and son smiling as sunlight streamed through the windows of the hold. Human. Somehow the photo didn't make the ship seem any less alien, or foreboding,.

Alex walked out of the cargo bay office and down the steps to the hold floor just as McReady was parking the Rover.

Grab your gun and follow me. McReady complied.

Alex and McReady walked the partial length of the cargo hold, some two hundred yards to the section of the ship that had been barricaded by the crew. A tapestry of metal had been hastily blow-torched across the doors of cargo hold 19. Unfortunately the makeshift fortification had all but fallen apart—most likely during the crash. Scraps of metal were scattered on the frosty floor. One of the quarter ton doors had gone off its track and fallen. It was wide open.

Keepin' in, or keepin' out, commented McReady.

Alex ejected the clip of her Glock and slapped it back in. She signaled to McReady that she'd take point. McReady didn't quibble and got behind her flank as they entered the darkness of the cavernous hold.

A few yards in they spotted the small spacecraft. Alex immediately knew the ship to be a Kryptonian Symbioship, the same vessel that had brought both Kara and her cousin to Earth.

McReady shined the Saiga's flashlight on the cockpit. There was a girl inside.

Alex's heart skipped a beat. It can't be….

McReady stepped in closer. Is that who I think it is?

Supergirl… It's Supergirl….

Not allowing her heart to override her head—Alex heeded to DEO protocol and didn't immediately spring Kara from stasis. How could it even be Kara? She had spoken to her sister not but a day ago. Whoever the person was in the Symbioship—she wasn't her sister. She wasn't her Kara. The life-sustaining tech aboard would keep whoever she was alive indefinitely for now.

Alex and McReady headed back to the Rover to continue the detective work of digging through the ship's log. Maybe they could shed more light on what happened with the Azuera and why it had crashed.

McReady pulled a whiskey bottle and two plastic cups from one of the Rover's many compartments.

You look like you could use a snort. McReady poured the plastic cup halfway to the top and handed it to Alex.

Alex looked up from her laptop, smiled, and politely took the drink. Thanks.

So you mind filling me in on what the hell is going on here, or are you just as in the dark as me?

Here take a look at this. Alex turned her laptop for McReady to see. A three-dimensional star chart popped up on her screen. She touched the screen and the monitors inside the Rover mirrored the same image.

This is the Azuera's last known flight plan.

What are those flashes of light—the coordinate markers for ERBs?

That's what I couldn't figure out, until I realized the autopilot and life-support systems were being run by an artificially intelligent mainframe.

You're shitting me….

Alex looked down at her screen. MU/TH/UR 6000, or just Mother as commonly referred to by the crew.

Mother?

So I asked Mother what an ERB was. E.R.B. stands for Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Those markers up there—are coordinates for opening and closing wormholes. This ship may not just be from the future, but an entirely separate reality.

So, that girl back there, may not be our Supergirl?

I don't think she is plus—Kara was going to hate her for saying this—she looks younger.

Alex took a sip of her whiskey and gave an impish smile to McReady. So we have about six hours to kill before this place is swarming with all manner of DEO agents—got a deck of cards handy?

He smiled back at her. Nope, just the whiskey bottle.

Well, that'll do for now I suppose. Alex said still smiling.

We probably shouldn't drink too much. Stay frosty, right?

I'm probably not even going to finish this cup you poured me….

McReady put the whiskey bottle back in the compartment he had pulled it from.

Alex— I want to confess something…

…Yeah— what's that?

I deliberately pulled this duty when I found out you were DEO.

Alex looked at McReady a little surprised. Okay. And why?

Have you ever heard of Project Cadmus?

No—what is it?

Back in 1982, my father R.J. worked as a copter pilot for a research station here in Antarctica. He died here before I was born. The official story of his death was that he went mad and burned down the entire facility . . . said he froze to death in the snow a hundred yards from conceivable shelter... further proof of his madness I suppose. Anyway— that was the official story.

And the unofficial story?

That they found something in the snow, an alien life form that could assume, takeover any organism it came into contact with. It tore through that station in less than 24 hours. My father killed the creature, whatever it was, but didn't survive himself. He did freeze in the snow, but he wasn't alone. There was another man with him, a coworker—a man named Childs. This man, this friend of my father's made it out alive. Ten years ago, he tracked me down and gave me this.

McReady tossed Alex a cassette tape.

Doc. Blair…. What's on here?

The truth. I have my father's tapes too.

Why tell me?

Because I was either going to get the information I wanted about Project Cadmus from you, or— beat it out of you.

McReady was a quick draw, but before he even thought about it, Alex had him dead to rights with her .45.

You don't need your gun, Alex.

You sure about that, McReady?

I trust you. I know you now. And I'd like to think that the DEO has nothing to do with Project Cadmus. But here—

McReady tossed her a flash drive. That's all the audio from Doc Blair's description and analysis of the creature. Plus everything I could dig up about Project Cadmus—believe me it wasn't much. I figure where I can't get to—you can. Find out if the creature was destroyed, Alex or—

Or?

Or—find out if Project Cadmus is doing some very shady as shit experiments. That's all I ask…. I just… I just don't want my father's death to be in vain.

I'll see what I can find.

I got your word?

Alex had her own sorted past involving the DEO and her father. She if anyone knew what McReady was feeling.

You got my word. Alex holstered her gun.

In shifts they would rest awaiting the DEO's arrival. Alex slept while McReady with the help of MOTHER went through further details on the Azuera's crew history. He tracked down the hangers where the escape pods were and was surprised to see none had been deployed.

The most alarming discovery was that all 119 members of the crew appeared to still be aboard—Deck A, possibly alive in hypersleep chambers. The same deck held med and science labs, a mess hall, and the cockpit. If there was any connection between what had happened here on the Azuera, and what had happened to his father, thirty-three years ago, hell or high water—McReady was sure as hell going to find out.

He was there in the darkness. Naked. Standing over Kara's Symbioship. The interior was lit up—the hatch open. The frost in the cargo hold having melted away— dripped like a soft rain from the ceiling and onto his body.

Was it McReady? Alex couldn't tell… then she was next to him, herself naked.

The cool droplets of melting ice fell on her body – rolled down to her nipples making them hard…. He placed his hands on her shoulders—the floodlights of the cargo hold made his face a perfect silhouette of blackness. His lips where suddenly on hers—they were kissing, passionately. His tongue in her mouth. Then—Kara was there—standing beside them both, naked as they and innocently smiling.

Kara looked at him as if mesmerized—the darkness that radiated from his face began to grow, like it sensed Kara's power, her light— his darkness—breathed out like a jolt, like it wanted to consume her.

He pulled Kara in tighter so that her and Alex were side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder. He took Kara's hands in his and placed one on his cock and the other on Alex's vagina. Alex watched him kiss Kara as he had kissed her, all the while, feeling her sister's fingers gently push in and out of her… Dream…dream… this had to be a—

Alex snapped awake—only to find McReady standing over her. His face silhouetted by the Rover's cabin lights made her start—as if her mystery man had followed her out from her dreams.

McReady grabbed Alex's arm and pulled her to her feet. There was fear in his eyes. Grab your Glock and follow me now.

Alex followed McReady out of the cargo bay and up the stairs to the offices. Once there they got into an elevator and road it up to Deck A.

What the hell's going on McReady?

While you were catching Zs I tried to track down more info on the plight of the crew. I was surprised to find that all the escape pods hadn't been ejected like Mother had reported in her log.

Mother lied?

Mother lied. She also might have deliberately crashed the Azuera. And I don't think she was aiming for a planet.

Why?

McReady shrugged. I never could figure out the mind of a woman. Alex—the entire crew is still on board.

Crew—on board where?

Still in those hypersleep chambers. Another secret Mother was keeping.

Alive?

McReady shook his head. Mostly dead. A few possibly alive. Something bad went down here, Alex.

Show me.

Alex and McReady had to cut through the science and med labs in order to get to the hypersleep chambers. Soon as they entered, Alex immediately spotted the xenomorphs in large glass cylinders. Alex paused at a cylinder; spellbound by the alien creature inside, as a bio-engineer, her curiosity was bursting.

What—are these?

They were cataloged as Xenomorph XX121. Possible origin LV-426.

What's an LV-426?

I'm guessing a planet.

They seem to be some kind of large Chelicerate arthropod…. fascinating.

Alex tapped the glass—the creature remained lifeless, dead.

Yeah—I thought they looked like space bugs too.

Which way to the hypersleep chambers?

This way, but prepare yourself… It's pretty gruesome.

The hypersleep chamber ran red with blood. The glass of the sleep pods had been smashed and crew members had been dragged out and fed upon—pale white and drained of blood. It looked as if they had been torn apart by wild animals.

A parasitic entity, a possible relative of the xenomorph back in the lab, had been ripped out from the chest of a few of the slumbering crew members. Alex couldn't tell if the creature or creatures that did the feeding had found the parasites equal to their liking—their taste—a momentary competition had arisen where the parasitic aliens had found themselves at the bottom of the food chain.

Alex drew her Glock closer to her chest. What the hell had happened here….

McReady grabbed Alex's shoulder. And signaled her to quietly follow.

They came upon a crew member—a young woman, bone white and feeding on another woman, perhaps her mother. She had dragged the woman out of the hypersleep pod next to hers. Once she sensed McReady and Alex watching her she pulled her head away from the neck of her victim—blood ran out of torn flesh like an open faucet—she sniffed the air, cocked her head and swooped around to face them. Her eyes were a crystalline sky blue—and when her mouth opened she revealed fangs like an Arctic Wolf. She growled once, deep, guttural before she sprang at them.

They opened up a hail of fire on her. But it was dawn light suddenly appearing through the cracked hull that sent the creature scurrying back into the shadows of the Azuera.

Alex and McReady had their work cutout out for them if they were going to contain her from ever making it off the ship dead or alive. They tracked her into the mess hall and after a lengthy battle... McReady had her pinned on the floor with a steel table, as Alex was left to the grizzly task of decapitating the girl with the cook's meat cleaver.

Down in the cargo hold and inside the Kryptonian ship—Kara's eyes were still closed—but she was now smiling as tiny pools of blood formed at the corners of her mouth…. and she licked it.