- Chapter 21 - Survival -

The Planet Azar burned for seven days before the fires were controlled. It was ten more days before the survivors began to emerge from the rubble, galactic concerns replaced with a drive for food and shelter and respite from war. Under the charred layers of twisted metal that used to be the central government of the Galaxy, a different set of survivors continued quietly, safely entombed in their ancient seats of power.

Kal-El couldn't close his eyes; his mechanical synapses were a constant. There was no rest here, no silence, no sleep. So he shut down his processors, one at a time, sealing off the bits of his resources until all that remained amidst the crush of an entire civilization's learning was the core of his being. But Kal-El did not recognize himself. He had the form of a man, the shadow of what he was, without touch or life. He rubbed his hands on the shag carpet of the facsimile of his elementary school library without feeling the familiar scratch on his numb fingers.

Why didn't it work? The incompetent fools burned Azar and killed and destroyed, yet they didn't destroy the Over Council. The seats of knowledge and power had been left intact through it all. Kal-El grimaced ferally and dug his nails into the palms of his hands, wishing he could feel pain...wishing he could just sleep.

But Kal-El wasn't alone. Since before his mind was ever uploaded, the seat of Krypton's learning had been invaded and pillaged. The eldest ascendant, Evy, watched the child Kryptonian struggle through the muddled agony of his existence, and felt no guilt for her part in poisoning his mind. Sane Kryptonians were too stable, too predictable. She knew better than to let a sane Kryptonian join the council, not when she wanted things to end.

So, after centuries of waiting for something to change that might end the Over Council, Evy, branched out to try and destroy the system from within. Starting a galactic war wasn't something she was willing to do, but making the Kryptonian ascendant uncomfortable had seemed an ideal opportunity to create a crisis. Kryptonians were an impressive race, and if their ascendant was uncomfortable enough, Evy felt certain she could at least gain an ally. So she damaged the Kryptonian seat of power from within, so that the mind implanted would be limited and uncomfortable in its new home. What should have been a full simulation of life, with sensation and people and the ability for the mind to sleep, was a monochromatic unchanging world that the Kryptonian couldn't bear.

Granted she had not forseen the degree of discomfort her damage would cause. The madness of Kal-El and the war he started went far beyond any repercussion she could have predicted. The prospect of finally ending the waiting, of ending the Over Council left her with no regrets. She bitterly wished it could have really ended. She wished her mad ally could have achieved his goal.

"You failed." The slug-like eldest ascendant slipped from the shadows into Kal-El's mental sanctuary, its chameleon-like skin a dismal black. "I thought you would end this. You made me hopeful."

Glaring up viciously, Kal-El rose and strode toward the projection of his ally. "How do you continually invade here? This is my mind, my sanctuary, and I don't need you here in this moment you disapproving maggot."

The eldest ascendant's color shifted to a warm pink, and she grumbled with a sound almost like a laugh. "Yes, this tiny enclosure is your sanctuary and you are entitled to it for all eternity." She slid across the floor, her alien body segments contracting and relaxing. The glowing model of the galaxy cast the library in crimson twilight. "You did make a good go of it though. It was a destructive war."

"I asked you to leave." Kal-El strode across the room to the red glowing model and smirked. After his uninvited visitor had left him in peace, he whispered. "I'm not done yet"


With Clark by her side, Chloe stood facing Smallville High. They were dating, a couple, and the crazy butterflies beating around her chest hinted that Clark might kiss her at any moment. Part of her really wanted the public display of affection, the proprietary kiss. As much as she'd rolled her eyes at other girls and their octopus boyfriends, she wanted the whole school to know that things had changed between her and Clark.

"I should head to my first class. It's all the way down on the computer corridor." Clark rubbed his neck and smiled nervously, as though he wasn't sure what he should do. He leaned a bit as though he was going to kiss her goodbye, but a crowd jostled him and he pulled back abruptly.

Chloe smiled, suddenly inspired. She went up on her tiptoes and gave Clark the proprietary kiss. "Stop by the Torch at lunch, okay?"

A hint of a blush on his cheeks, Clark nodded. "Okay."

Chloe strolled into the Torch office, her head spinning. She and Clark were dating, having public displays of affection. Technically they were under the scrutiny of a maniacal machine that scrambled brains as a hobby, but Clark had wanted their kiss; he wanted to keep her safe. He had only avoided her to protect her. All they had to do now was figure out how to defeat the Eradicator once and for all so that Clark didn't end up with a couple thousand bundles of joy before he was twenty.

The small bank of the Torch's computers wasn't deserted. Mark, the assistant editor, beat her in this morning. He dropped the folder with the final draft of the Torch in front of her. "I finished the layout last night before I went home," he said. "I know you usually do that in the mornings before we go to print, but there's an article on page two that needed a bit of extra attention, and I wanted you to look at it in context before you made a call on it."

"Okay," Chloe said. She frowned at Mark, certain from his expression she wasn't going to like page two. The top half of the page opened with an article about SAT prep courses, but the bottom half drew her attention almost immediately. There were four freshmen pictured, but only one mattered.

Where had they gotten that picture of Clark? He was frowning and it felt like he was staring right off the page at her, like he might ignite the building from that inanimate picture. "I told Brittany, no," Chloe snapped. "You shouldn't have wasted your time helping her put this together."

"You haven't even read it. It's factual, clear, unbiased, and interesting to the average freshman." Mark crossed his arms over his chest. "You should at least read it"

He gathered his books and left for his first class. Mark could make her feel two inches tall with almost no effort when she was being unreasonable. With a sigh, Chloe reluctantly sat down to read Brittany's submission to the paper.

Chloe combed through it three times looking for an unbiased reason to reject it, but there wasn't one. Brittany had listed the nominees and in her pseudo-gossipy fashion had run through the likelihood of their winning a ride on the paper-mache float. Chloe sighed and folded the paper. She'd just have to warn Clark that he was about to get a new dose of publicity.

With aliens and Eradicators on the farm, he probably wouldn't even care about one more small thing at school.


The Eradicator felt no discomfort at the rough ride she had purchased through a black market trade route. A bit of jostling would not phase or bruise her, and the criminals secret transportation tunnels were the last semi-reliable means of getting anywhere in the galaxy anymore. Thanks to her Kal-El, the only trade and order left in the galaxy belonged to the deeply entrenched criminal syndicates. Their infrastructure had survived his war. She let her processor speculate probabilities on the form of government they would impose on the galaxy. She seized upon the most likely and smiled grimly at the picture it painted.

A fiefdom or kingdom system, would rise with each syndicate operating a territory of systems, no longer criminals as they would write the new laws for their worlds. As with any young government system, there would be squabbles and blood shed to settle the lines of power, but the galaxy would have its new order. It would be a system ripe for the will of a Kryptonian and his Eradicator. With the criminals becoming kings, they would need new criminals. And she was a good criminal.

With her eyes closed and all her consciousness focused inward, the Eradicator envisioned a future with Kal-El commanding her to fight and kill for him. She envisioned a future in which he valued his Eradicator. She envisioned a future in which he would touch her, where he would love her...

Her intelligence retraced that last admission carefully nearly a billion times over the next few seconds, unable to properly compute the impulse that spawned the desire for an emotion that she couldn't even quantify. After an eternity of contemplation she determined that it was another glitch left over from her assimilation of the human Chloe's memories, and she filed the impulse away.


Reo-Ra was not wasting her brief respite from the Eradicator's supervision. Rather than use the time to seduce Clark, she had pulled together every bit of space-grade technology she could find. Those circuits, shields, and bits of alloy were her ticket off Earth and away from the Eradicator. She just needed to patch them together. Reo surveyed the clutter of junk she had assembled and smiled smugly. She had always been good at puzzles. Now she just needed a safe place to assemble her escape pod. The humans' barn wouldn't suffice. She needed a place that the Eradicator wouldn't go or see if she retuned unexpectedly.

Unfortunately primitive mudballs were not rife with Eradicator-proof sanctuaries. Reo spotted a Tostel Converter amongst the goods she had stolen from the Eradicator's ship, and an idea blossomed. She could hide outside with the human livestock, behind a simple Tostel dome. "You are a genius old girl," Reo said.

She started pulling the components she would need when she spotted a pair of golden eyes gazing out of a pile of hay. Reo hesitated a moment then she sighed. "What do you want kid?"

The pair of eyes blinked and Ford rolled out of his hiding spot, sending dried plant materials showing into delicate ship components. "I was waiting for the cows to come back so I could ride one," he said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm building something. Scientists do that. They build things," Reo explained defensively. "Now get out of here so I can think."

"Onlea wouldn't want you to be out here building things." Ford sat staring at her quietly, his sunburned nose pink beneath a thick layer of human sunblock that was now decorated with small fragments of hay. Reo stared back, unwilling to discuss what the Eradicator would think of her construction project. Ford finally looked away, running a hand over the dirty cream that was now mostly gone from his red arms. "I should get more sunblock."

"You are burned to a crisp." With the excessive layer of medicine the human woman had been slathering on the children, Reo wondered why they were still both sporting such royally red burns. Abruptly, she pulled her tool bag over and fished a silver can out. It was half-full of sweet smelling yellow cream. "I studied suns for most of my life. This will protect your skin." She ran a finger through the white sunblock on his face, sniffed it, and nearly vomited. "Clean this worthless animal fat off, and rub my cream over everywhere that might be exposed. You just need a thin layer and it should be good protection for at least sixty solar days." She pushed the can into Ford's hands. "Share with your sister and bring me back the extra."

"Okay." Ford took the can and walked to the barn door where he paused, and turned back. "Reo, when you go, will you take us with you"


Finding the Over Council under the molten slag that used to be the most vaunted pinnacle of government in the galaxy, wasn't really that difficult for the Eradicator. She could detect the faint emanations of energy that signaled their position. Tunneling through the debris didn't even count as a distraction, the already degraded metals parting before her assault like warmed butter. At the bottom, still shiny and unperturbed by the violence that had destroyed its shell, the Over Council was soon free of its mooring and safely in her hands. The Eradicator stroked her find, a sphere barely larger than her fist.

The amassed knowledge of eight civilizations resided in the tiny receptacle. More importantly, Kal-El lurked beneath that surface. Raising her free hand, she flew out of he tunnel she had opened and made for the safety of her ship. It wouldn't do to be interrupted by refugees while she was talking with her Kryponian.

The Eradicator settled snugly into the pilot's cabin and morphed her hand to interface with the shiny silver sphere.

"Finally." Kal-El's voice was like a whisper in her heart. "My Eradicator has come to set me free."