Chapter #2 - Pre-Flight

The low buzzing emitting from the pager on the bedside table was normally loud enough to wake Batman (normally a very light sleeper) from the deepest depths of sleep. However, this morning was not typical by any means. The room in which he slept was unfamiliar. When his hand shot out from under the covers to grab the offending instrument, he accidentally knocked it onto the floor under the bed.

"Shit!" he muttered, still drowsy.

"What is it?" Diana's perky voice floated from the other side of the bed.

He briefly considered an array of sarcastic replies, specifically referencing the inability of the rest of the human race to arise in the same, perky manner as Diana so early in the morning. Bruce bit his tongue, reminding himself that he wasn't really dealing with a normal human being.

"My pager," he responded gruffly, swinging his legs off the bed before reaching down to search the floor. Bruce finally located it on his third attempt, then settled back on the bed. He deftly flicked the 'send' button on the pager to display the test message, which lit up Diana's darkened bedroom on the Watchtower.

"I can't believe you can read that." Diana whispered with a trace of amusement. She wiggled over to his side of the bed, then snuggled her naked form against his. She quickly slipped into her favorite position against him, draping her leg over his, then rested her chin on his chest. Diana wickedly ran her hand down to his groin to see if a certain part of his anatomy was at attention. She lightly caressed him with her hand, studying his face for a reaction to her stimulus. His eyes briefly danced away from the pager in response to her ministrations, asking an unstated question. Her mouth closed to a small grin as she remembered a particularly intense experience shared by the two of them in that very bed a few hours before. She cocked her head coyly, deciding to pretend that she wasn't stroking him at that very second so she focused on the pager, "Then again, anyone who's spent the last 15 years in that Cave can probably read Shakespeare by moonlight."

Her soft expression grew more serious though when she saw his eyes squint in surprise as he read the final text. He did a quick double take at the contents of the message before handing the pager to her. "Suit up." He said roughly, sliding out from underneath her.

"What is it?" she asked, sitting upright for the first time. She played with the buttons on the pager for a moment but couldn't make it work correctly. "I can't read it," Diana stated with a pout, exasperated more at the fact that Bruce had exited her bed without so much as a good morning kiss instead of the fact that she couldn't get the pager to work. She sat back on his pillows, appreciating the sight of his naked body scurrying around the room. He grumbled under his breath, looking for pieces of his costume strewn about the floor. Her brow arched lightly then she wrinkled her nose in apology. "Sorry, I wasn't worried about folding your uniform neatly last night. You didn't exactly complain about it at the time."

He bent over to reach for one of his boots under the bed and Diana perked up in order to get a better look at his sculpted rump. The motion caused the covers to peel away from her body, exposing her generous breasts. He stole a quick glimpse at her body as he suited up into the Batman costume, nearly complete as he secured the cape to his shoulders. She coyly returned his gaze down to her chest, and patted the bed with her hand.

"Come back to bed, lover." Diana whispered huskily. "I'm not done with you yet."

"Diana, I'd love to, but the message said something about your mother. She's in trouble."

"My mother?" She gasped, throwing herself off the bed in search of her uniform. Diana had secured it on a valet the previous evening and quickly fastened the breastplate around her torso, taking care to snugly secure her breasts inside the garment before closing the final clasp. She was in the middle of securing the tiara to her head when she stopped and looked at Batman. "If my mother's in trouble, why did J'onn page you?"

Batman considered her analysis for a moment, then replied, "He's a telepath but more importantly, he's observant. I assume he figured it out on his own."

Two minutes later they emerged from her quarters. Diana stealthily peeked her head out into the corridor. Seeing none of their teammates, she gave Batman the all-clear sign, rolling her eyes as she waved him forward. Diana suspected most of the League knew they had been sharing a bed for the last few weeks (the whispers and surreptitious glances thrown her way during meetings were a dead giveaway). A few days before (after a particularly memorable sexual experience) she voiced her desire to reveal their relationship to the League. Bruce requested they maintain their secrecy until they'd managed to sort out whether their 'relationship' was going to be a casual fling or something more long-term. Until an appropriate opportunity presented itself to make an official announcement (which she assumed probably meant the day the sun went supernova), he'd requested in the meantime they maintain their secret.

Diana was initially hurt by his request. She took great pride in the fact that the two of them had managed to find (and more importantly love) each other, but she realized that his penchant for secrecy was one of the reasons he'd managed to survive the 'never-ending-battle' against meta-humans. Diana ultimately honored his request but still felt unnecessarily guilty whenever she did 'the walk of shame' from the Manor or his quarters on the Watchtower, sneeking around like teenagers instead of superheroes.

He emerged from the doorway a split second later, rubbing the stubble on his jaw-line as he walked next to her towards the Monitor Womb. They made the journey in silence, during which time Bruce slipped a hand into his utility belt and produced a miniature electric shaver he used to remove the stubble.

"A Bat-shaver?" she asked, watching the process unfold before her with a laugh.

"No, miniature Norelco. Tim gave it to me for my birthday," he replied with a grunt. She smiled at the surreal image of Batman using an electric shaver (especially a sexually satiated Batman who'd just emerged from her bed) but that warm image was fleeting. Her mind was racing, trying to imagine all of the possible dangers confronting her mother. Twenty seconds later, they made the final turn from the residential wing to the Great Hall, which housed the Monitor Womb one level above. As it was 4:30 in the morning, only J'onn was on Monitor Duty. The rest of the Hall was empty of League members or even the support personnel who operated the transporters. Given that J'onn had already determined the two of them were in a relationship, Bruce and Diana dropped any pretense they weren't dating and strode into the Womb side by side instead of staggering their arrivals. J'onn nodded "Good morning" to each of them, then handed them each a latte before commencing his briefing.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," J'onn murmured in his deep baritone. "Diana, five minutes ago I received this video message from your Mother." He flicked the nearest switch on the console and Hippolyta's face appeared on the screen. Her demeanor was calm, as befitting a Queen, however Diana could tell by the expression in her eyes that the situation was desperate. A trace of soot was clearly visible on her neck and her clothes were disheveled, illustrating that she was already involved in battle.

"Diana, I don't have much time. Fifteen minutes ago a Dorian Army led by Phylptus landed on our shores. They're armed with some kind of energy weapons I don't recognize...our shields are barely able to defend us..." An explosion rocked the ground behind the Queen and Diana cringed as her mother tried to duck the debris raining down on her position. "Please help us..." The image suddenly disappeared and J'onn turned to face them.

"That is all she managed to send." J'onn stated, a touch of sympathy evident in his voice. "Who would you like to take on this mission?"

"Who's on active duty this morning?" Diana replied automatically, the anger visible on her face. Both J'onn and Batman knew her attention was drawn elsewhere as she stepped to the console to replay the image.

"Flash and Aquaman are on call. Of course we could activate the rest of the League, should you so require," J'onn stated impassively.

"Tell Orin to bring his trident. We may need it. The four of us should be adequate to assess the situation," Batman replied tersely, watching as J'onn keyed the buttons to call their two teammates. "We'll call for backup if we need it. Let's go."

Batman ushered Diana out of the Womb towards the launch-bay housing her Invisible Jet. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked, her face tightening in anger.

"Makes sense. Circe vowed not to touch your mother when we battled, but she didn't say anything about bringing the Dorian Army back to re-conquer the Amazons. Any other candidates?"

"If it's her, I owe that witch a one-way ticket back to Tartarus." Diana replied grimly. "What about Ares? I stopped him in Kasnia... he might be holding a grudge over that. The Dorians worshipped him as their patron God so that might make sense."

Flash and Orin were waiting for them at the launch pad. "No teleporters?" Flash asked.

"I'm not sure if they can penetrate the barrier around the island. Besides, I don't want us to appear in the middle of the battlefield so that some hot-head can try to fry us before we go solid." Batman replied.

"My thinking exactly." Orin stated as they ran towards the jet. "Let's roll!"

The departure from the Watchtower was relatively quiet as they powered up the avionics in the Invisible Jet. After that, all hell broke loose. As the maintenance workers rolled the Jet out of the hangar towards the launch bay, Diana (seated in the pilot chair) and Batman (seated in a fold-out jump seat immediately to her right) studied the three-dimensional navigational chart of their position. They realized the Watchtower was passing almost directly over Themyscira. They traded glances and without saying a word, re-computed the flight path. One second after launch, Diana initiated a retro-burn, halting most of their forward velocity (almost 12,500 miles per hour) in less than two minutes. The passengers were pinned in their seats under 9 G's (nine times the force of normal gravity) until the burn was complete, then they went weightless for a few seconds. Its forward momentum depleted by the burn, the craft dropped directly out of orbit. Diana pointed the nose of the craft towards the Earth and started a quick descent into the lower atmosphere at Mach 10.

Orin looked outside the windows and realized the leading edge of the wings were starting to glow bright red due to the friction of the atmosphere building up on the underside of the plane. He realized that his feet were actually getting warm from the heat and he looked over to Flash for reassurance. "Re-entries are always done like this, right?"

"First time for me." Flash responded in a yelp, wiping his forehead to clear the beads of sweat pouring from underneath his mask.

"Sorry about the ride." Diana intoned calmly from the front-seat. "It would have taken us another hour to get to Themyscira if we performed our normal de-orbit burn."

"Is this type of re-entry safe?" Orin asked, noting that they were descending almost vertically towards the surface of the Earth. He repeated the question as he heard the sound of the wing spars groaning under the intense pressure, noting that he'd heard similar sounds from sinking submarines reacting to the first signs of metal fatigue.

"I think Bats is the only one who can attest to that." Flash replied with mounting panic as he watched beads of molten metal flasch off the surface of the wings. "That didn't exactly work out well for our last Watchtower, you know?"

"Calm down, Flash." Batman barked. "We'll be on Themyscira in four minutes."

"Orbit to ground in seven minutes?" Flash groaned. "I thought only I could go that fast."

Orin sat in his seat, trying his best to maintain the composure of the Atlantean King, or at least maintain his ideal of how the Atlantean King should be viewed by others, when he decided to pursue that thread of conversation a bit further. "What happened to the last Watchtower? I saw pictures of it on the wall of the commissary, but no one ever told me what happened."

"Bats de-orbited it on top of the Thanagarians." Flash responded with a laugh. "J'onn and I thought we were going to bury roasted bat but somehow Supes got him out right before the Big Bang."

"Is that true?" Orin asked the pointy-eared figure seated in front of his chair.

There was no response. Orin looked at Flash with a question poised on the tip of his tongue but Flash interrupted him before he could speak.

"It's a bit of a sore subject for him. Having to acknowledge that he's suicidal doesn't sit well with him."

"Shut up, Flash." Diana said sharply. She snuck a quick glance over at Batman to see if he would acknowledge his actions aboard the Watchtower that day, but he maintained his stoic silence. Diana returned her gaze on the heads-up display projected on the interior of the canopy. She leveled the craft's speed off at Mach 5, trimming the altitude at 75,000 feet as they raced towards Themyscira.

"ETA one minute," she called to her passengers. "I'm going to bring us directly over the island, scan with the camera to see what we're up against, then bring us back on top of the waves in case they're well equipped."

"We have to assume that they are very well equipped to do what they've done so far." Batman observed. "They might have overrun the entire island by now."

"Whatever they're armed with, it won't be easy for them to overrun my sisters." Diana retorted sharply, "Especially if they're Dorians. We still owe them for the fifteen years of slavery they took from my sisters."

"Scanning in 3, 2, 1, Now...." Batman replied, not bothering to debate Diana as to the likely status of her tribe. They would know soon enough. Batman slaved the digital camera mounted underneath the Invisible Jet to the on-board computer, which immediately scanned the pictures for life-signs in the infra-red spectrum. There was a large population of humans surrounding the Great Palace while smoke and flame poured from the surrounding structures. The signature pulses of energy discharges were evident every few seconds, interrupted by larger pulses which Batman surmised were probably a form of grenade or mortar.

Diana eased back on the throttle, then pulled the plane into an Immelman, utilizing the maneuver to descend from 75,000 feet to 250 feet off the surface of the ocean in less than a minute. She watched the mach meter dip below Mach one then locked the throttles at 650 miles per hour, the fastest speed the jet could maintain without announcing their presence to the Dorians with a signature sonic boom.

Aquaman grunted under the strain of the 10-g Immelman maneuver then sat back on his chair, deeply inhaling in order to maintain the flow of oxygen to his brain before he passed out. "Little heavy handed on the roll, wasn't it?" he asked.

"Sorry if I scared you..." she teased, remembering the last time she'd managed to get a rise out of Batman with her piloting skills. "Blame Batman. He showed me that particular maneuver."

Flash and Orin rolled their eyes in the back seat. Flash raised his finger to his mouth like he was about to induce vomiting before Diana turned in her seat and gave him a dirty look.

"If you're done throwing up, we'll be feet dry in two minutes." She announced.

"What does that mean?" Flash asked.

"Means the plane will go from being over water (feet-wet) to being over land (feet-dry)," Batman replied with a smirk over his shoulder. He surveyed the images on the digital monitor located between his seat and Diana's. "Based on these photos, it's another way of telling you to get ready for a bumpy landing. I'd estimate we're up against at least a battalion of ground troops. Looks like they've got the Palace surrounded."