Superman: The Ark of Krypton

By

Jason Richard

Superman flew to the artic as fast as he could, getting there in a few seconds. He arrived at the ark and met Kara in her costume. He assumed she got the signal as well and they flew into the ship, reaching the control room.

"Brainiac!" cried Superman. "What's going on!?"

"I…I…I…" Brainiacs electronic voice stuttered. "Error…error in oper…operating system...system…un…un…unable to pinpoint…point…"

"Not good…" said Kara.

Superman looked over to see her sitting at a console, typing furiously.

"Something is trying to overwrite Brainiac's core files," said Kara. "But it's weird. It doesn't appear to be coming from outside but within Brainaic's system."

"What are you saying?" asked Superman.

"I'm not sure what it means," said Kara.

"Pro…pro…processing…" said Brainiac. "Source i…i…identified. Sys…system reset."

"System reset?" asked Kara, perplexed. "But that doesn't make sense. This new code doesn't match your operating system."

"Not…not…not my O.S." said Brainiac. "Co…Co…Colu."

Kara's eyes widened.

"A Colu system reset?" asked Kara. "But you only have one Colu cell. Is it really capable of storing such a complex reset program?"

"Never mind that," said Superman. "How do we stop it?"

"Right," said Kara, typing faster. "When Jor-El realized the cell he found was Colu, he did install some failsafe programs. We should have a backup of Jor-el's operating system nearby, both in his core systems and in portable drives on the ship. I'll see if I can stop it, but if I can't then we can disconnect his processing core from the ship and reprogram it separately. You go to the processing core while I work here." She pressed a few keys on the side. "Just follow the arrows."

"Alright," said Superman, seeing lights on the floor. He flew away, ready to help any way he could.

Superman flew to the CPU room, following the light, and landed inside. The CPU itself was a small sphere no bigger than a baseball floating in the center of the room, connected to the surrounding machinery by green electricity. It amazed Superman to think that this small device was Brainaic's core. It amazed him even more that a single cell could be the source of both Brainaic's processing power and the trouble they were having.

"Kara," said Superman, trusting her Kryptonian hearing to get the message to her. "How's it going up there?"

No response.

"Kara?"

That didn't sound good. Superman turned around to go find her, when he was met with two figures standing in his way.

Mad Harriet and Lashina of the Female Furies.

"Going somewhere, handsome?" asked Lashina.

"Awwwww, don't' do that," said Mad Harriet, her claws extending. "Stay and play with us."

…

Kara, meanwhile, had been thrown across the room by Stompa, banging into the wall and leaving a dent. Kara, dazed, got up as the large woman walked over, cracking her knuckles.

"Stay down little girl," said Stompa. "You'll regret anything else."

Kara, clenching her teeth, stood up and clenched her fists defiantly.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," said Stompa, before rushing in. Kara followed suit and the two of them raised a fist each to punch the other.