A/N: I can't thank chupedupey and Alpha Zulu 2.0 enough. They made this chapter possible with their suggestions and their encouragement when I wanted to throw the whole thing in the recycle bin
Kara burrowed into Astra. Not even the smell of leather and the bright lights of the hallway could stop the sense of home and safe that Astra had always represented.
"You should be sleeping, Little One."
Kara, who'd been hiding beneath the covers and reading with the aid of the spy beacon's glow, scrambled out of bed. "Aunt Astra!" She kept her voice low, despite her excitement. "Mother said you wouldn't come. That you were leaving for Kandor."
"In the morning." Kara ran to Astra and wrapping her arms around her aunt's waist. "I couldn't leave without seeing my favorite niece."
Kara giggled and peered up at Astra. She looked tired, like Mother. Yet her smile was as warm as always. Kara liked to think that smile was just for her. Something Astra only shared with her. "I'm your only niece." Burying her face against Astra's uniform, Kara soaked in the floral notes of oregus plant juice and the richer smell of H'Raka meat. Foods that Astra said were common in the Military Guild's dining hall. "Do you really have to go? My induction into the Science Guild is next week!"
Astra's hand settled on Kara's hair. "I'm sorry, Kara."
Glancing up at the strange quiver in her aunt's voice, she saw tears glimmer on Astra's lashes for an instant.
"I'm afraid I may not be home for a long time."
The bedroom door burst open, and Astra shoved Kara behind her as armed peacekeepers rushed in. They formed a circle around Astra and Kara. One of them, a Captain from the House of Re according to the markings on his tunic, said, "Astra In-Ze, you are under arrest for treason and murder by order of the High Council."
Alura stood behind the ring of peacekeepers. "Kara, come to me now." She was completely calm and composed. Why wasn't she angry or afraid? Why wasn't she demanding that the peacekeepers leave or insisting Astra was innocent? "Kara! Now!"
"It's alright, Little One. Go to your mother." Astra slowly turned to Kara and knelt. "No matter what you hear of me, remember that I love you. You are the daughter of my heart, Kara Zor-El. Be brave."
Only Astra's plea for bravery kept Kara from screaming as the captain snapped mag-cuffs on Astra's wrists and ankles. Two of the peacekeepers hauled her away, not slowing even as Astra stumbled from the drag of the cuffs.
Even as Kara clung to Astra, her aunt pulled away. "How is Agent Danvers?"
"Still in surgery," Doctor Hamilton replied. "I'll check on their progress and update you."
J'onn nodded respectfully at Astra. "Miss Zorel, General. If you'd join me in the conference room, I believe Agent Lane and her guest will be here shortly." His smile was wry yet amused. "I've asked our canteen staff to cater the meeting. However, I doubt it will be up to your caloric needs, Miss Zorel."
"Kara," she reminded him. Kara's mind was slowly recovering from the shock of Alex's status, the return of her powers, and her reunion with Astra. But she had questions. So many questions. They ran through her mind like a hamster on a wheel. She was aware that Astra observed her closely as Kara followed J'onn back through the warren of hallways.
Each step took effort. She had her powers, yet Kara wanted to curl up on one of the beds in the medical area and sleep. She dropped into the first chair in the spacious conference room. People used this room for real work rather than pointless conversation. Scratches marred the surface and the polish was missing from multiple sections. A whiteboard covered the far wall; Kara could read a list of names and places despite an attempt to erase the information.
Lillian Luthor – National City. Dabney Donovan - unknown. Serling Roquette – Star City.
No one spoke. J'onn took up residence in front of the white board, hands steepled and eyes closed. Astra remained standing. Her posture was stiff; her eyes restlessly scanned the room in a repeating sweep.
Pulling out the phone Astra had given her, Kara slid it across the table toward her aunt. The borrowed earphone joined it. "I thought you were dead." She refrained from bitterly questioning why Astra had never reached out to her, letting Kara know she was not alone on Earth.
Krypton's most decorated general stared impassively (and silently) back at her.
"I always believed I was alone." Maybe she was going to start asking questions. Kara rubbed both hands over her face. Was this the time and place for answers?
Astra stood only a few feet away. Alex, already an unofficial member of the House of El, was under medical care in this very facility. J'onn, and most of the shadow-DEO agents, knew of Kara's powers and identity.
There might never be a better place.
"Why didn't you let me know you survived?"
Astra's expression didn't change. Her eyes were cold and distant. "I was not in a position to find you, kir shed."
Kara sucked in a sharp breath. "I see." She didn't. She really, really didn't. "Does Clark know you're on Earth?" If he did, if Astra had gone to him…
"I have not spoken with Kal-El; although, I am aware of his exploits on this planet."
The conversation was stiffer and more uncomfortable than Kara's one attempt at dating after leaving Themyscira.
"I couldn't believe it when you agreed to dinner." Angelique's smile was soft and a little hesitant. "Diana did not pressure you?"
Kara shook her head but couldn't quite manage to meet Angelique's gaze. There hadn't been threats or arm twisting, merely a plethora of reminders that Alex had refused to accept her betrothal to Kara and that they hadn't spoken or corresponded in over a decade. "No. No pressure."
She should say more. She should reassure Angelique that she'd genuinely wanted to have dinner. Kara cleared her throat. "This is a nice place."
"Yes, the view is quite lovely." Leaning forward, Angelique did not glance out the window at the spires of nearby Notre Dame. Her long, blood red-painted nails brushed Kara's fingertips where they tortured her linen napkin. "I had hoped you would agree to a date but was…uncertain of your feelings."
Feelings. Kara almost laughed. She felt nothing for Angelique beyond friendship. "I'm glad you finally asked me out." If only to get Diana off her back. "I haven't been here before. What do you recommend? Diana did mention the duck?"
Not even food could help Kara through this ordeal. "Let's not wait for Lucy and Cleo. Tell me what I need to know."
J'onn leaned back in his chair. "It is a long story. I'd prefer…"
"Now!" Kara did her best to channel Hippolyta's imperious manner as she stared him down.
Rather than bow to her forceful request, J'onn picked up his phone and pressed several buttons. The Polycom in the center of the table sprang to life and road noise roared through the conference room. "Agent Lane?"
"Director? We're still thirty minutes out."
"I understand. However, Miss Zorel is understandably impatient. I'd like to start now." His deep voice seemed to wrap around Kara, soothing a little of her roiling emotion.
"Go ahead. I've got you on speaker for Kara's friend," Lucy responded. "Wait! Sorry. How's Alex?"
Everyone was worried about Alex. Alex had many friends and supporters. People, like Lucy and Astra, who cared for her. Yet, Alex had allowed Kara, her bondmate, to believe she was an anti-alien federal agent.
Her teetering emotions swung between worry, confusion, frustration, and a soul-deep exhaustion.
"OK. We're ready now. Sorry, Kara."
Kara nodded before realizing Lucy couldn't see her. "Of course."
"Miss Zorel," he was never going to use her first name, Kara thought, "our efforts against Project Cadmus began years ago. Even before your pod landed on Earth. Its aim is, and always has been, to create an army of stronger and more powerful than 'normal' humans."
Grainy images appeared on the projector screen at the far end of the table: men and women handcuffed to beds, their bodies inhumanly muscled; cages of animals (mostly larger primates) tearing apart much smaller species in grotesque displays of strength.
"Then Superman took to the skies, and the focus shifted."
Clark. Of course, it had to be Clark. Kara glowered at the tabletop.
"What had once been solely a governmental project run by the military expanded. America didn't need an army to defeat the Soviet Union or the rise of a second Nazi Germany. Cadmus grew to include scientists devoted to developing weapons to defeat aliens – especially Superman."
Kara read the faint scrawl on the whiteboard again. "Scientists like Lex and Lillian Luthor." She might not like or respect Clark, but Kara had still followed some of the news coverage of his public war with Lex and LuthorCorp. A war that had tragically ended with Lex massacring dozens of people in Metropolis. The other two names weren't familiar.
Not willing to dig deeper into Clark's role in their current situation, she redirected the conversation. "How did Alex get involved? How did weapons development turn into kidnapping me?" What had Harper said in the truck? "What did the Cadmus doctors need from me?"
J'onn didn't reply immediately. He shifted in his chair and avoided Kara's gaze.
It was Lucy who finally spoke. "Alex needs to tell you why she joined up."
"What do you…" Kara tried to demand details.
"No, Kara. I'm not going to tell you, and neither is J'onn." Lucy was resolute. "She had her reasons, and she knew you'd find out about us at some point. She made me promise to let her talk to you."
That wasn't good enough! Kara was here for answers.
Unfortunately, the only answers available didn't involve Alex. "Cadmus still has volunteers for their super soldier program, but Cadmus isn't solely using Earth-based drugs in their enhancement serum now. It graduated to kidnapping aliens and using their blood, their body parts, and their weaknesses to build hybrid humans. What the news has dubbed meta-humans," J'onn said.
Her drive to find out about Alex took a back seat as preternatural dread settled into her bones. "How many aliens? From which planets?" How had the American government been part of this? Why wasn't this front-page news across the globe?
"I can't share that information yet, Miss Zorel."
Lucy apparently didn't agree with J'onn's silence. "Cadmus started small, Kara. Then, about the time you arrived, another much larger group of aliens crashed-landed. The DEO – my father's DEO – was the first on the scene."
Those aliens would have been easy targets unless their ship-board weapons had survived the crash.
"As I said, some aliens provided source DNA that Cadmus used to increase speed or strength in human volunteers. Like the soldiers you saw a moment ago." J'onn appeared unwilling to move beyond the enhancements but went on after glancing at the Polycom. "The other victims were…experiments. Test subjects, if you will."
Test subjects. The phrase inspired images of lab rats. Animals tortured to create better cosmetics or better drugs. As Kara took in all of the information and tried to piece it together, her gaze landed on the one person in the room who had yet to speak.
Astra continued to sit silently, observing everything – and everyone. They'd been apart so many years. Astra exuded the same aura of calm competence Kara remembered, yet there was something buried beneath the General mask. Hardship and pain. Events that had reshaped Astra in ways not even Krypton's many wars or its very destruction had done
Kara needed to figure out what Lucy and J'onn weren't saying, what they were leaving out. Lives depended on the DEO, on Kara, on defeating Cadmus.
As Kara blatantly stared at the scars on Astra's face (scars that should not be possible under Sol's rays), the puzzle began to take on a sickening shape. "In order to build a weapon to defeat Superman, Cadmus needed to know what hurt us, what could kill us."
"Yes." Astra finally spoke. "Your Alex found me and the remaining members of my crew. We had been guests of Cadmus since Fort Rozz crashed on Earth."
Slapping her hands over her suddenly burning eyes, Kara realized this was why Astra hadn't been able to tell Kara she was on Earth.
Kara prayed to Rao her control over her vision held. If she failed, she'd tear the facility apart, taking innocent lives along the way.
Somehow, Kara pushed back the lasers heating behind her eyes.
She made no attempt to control her enhanced strength.
Springing from the chair with enough force to fling it across the room, Kara punched the wall behind her as she screamed. Her hand shattered the thick concrete. Yanking free, Kara turned back to Astra. "They are still alive?"
Astra was the best general in Krypton's history (only the House of Zod's position on the High Council kept his name above hers on the Military Guild's Wall of Honor). There was a human army in this facility for Astra to use. Why was Cadmus allowed to exist?
A single raised eyebrow and the cutting contempt in Astra's expression broke Kara's rage. It implied that Kara had less intelligence than a first year Military Guild cadet attempting to take down a troop transport with a hand-held energy displacer.
"The DEO doesn't sanction murder," J'onn said softly into the sudden silence.
Lucy laughed. "Really? Since when? Do you want me to list all the people and aliens my father and the DEO killed? The only thing standing between Cadmus and certain death are you, Alex, and the General, because the rest of us are ready to end this once and for all." She paused. "I'm here. Give me five to clear security protocols." The Polycom line went dead.
"Kara…" Astra's hand reached for her. "Think! There is more at stake than avenging my scars."
Her words drew Kara's eyes back to Astra's face. Her neck. To the thick ropes of puckered and pulled flesh. The table edge crumpled in Kara's grip. "How can you…"
"Think! I know you are not a fool. Killing humans is not the answer!"
Yet killing those involved with Cadmus would make it safer for other aliens. Kara would never forget her helplessness and terror in the back of that truck. The agony of the green drug as it burned through her veins.
Astra continued to talk, though. Each word landing with the force of a punch. "Humans already fear anything they do not understand. They kill their own kind over differences in religion, sexuality, and skin color. How many would accept those of us from other worlds if they knew how many of us inhabit this planet? What would they do if they knew or witnessed us slaughter scientists and soldiers working for their government?"
Kara wanted to ignore Astra. She didn't want to think about the situation logically. She wanted to fight and destroy and make those involved hurt as much as they'd hurt Astra.
"They'd hate us even more," she finally mumbled. She'd lived alongside humans enough to know how right Astra was. If Kara attacked and destroyed Cadmus, she'd become the superpowered villain Cadmus believed her – and all aliens - to be. Anti-alien sentiments would swell.
She sat down again, started to speak, and closed her mouth on all the words queueing on her tongue.
Despite all the information thrown at her tonight, Kara knew there were important pieces missing. Alex's secrets? Lucy's? How had Cadmus captured Astra and the others on Fort Rozz? The massive prison ship must have held several dozen (perhaps as many as an entire unit) of Kryptonians as well as hundreds of other species. How had they given Astra those scars? Why hadn't Astra displayed any superpowers when she'd been helping to rescue Kara or protecting Alex?
"I can hear you thinking." Astra had moved closer as Kara wrangled her thoughts into some semblance of submission.
Kara hoped that wasn't true. No one deserved to deal with the maelstrom in her mind. "And what did my thoughts tell you?" How was she supposed to treat Astra now? Her favorite aunt, the one person closer to her than even Alura, had been a prisoner of an undeclared war while Kara enjoyed idyllic days on Themyscira.
"Your guilt clouds your eyes, kir shed." Fingers cupped Kara's chin gently. "None of this is your fault. How could it be?"
"Why didn't you…anyone reach out?" Kara's cry bordered on plaintive. "I could have helped!" She'd have been there for Astra and Alex. She could have enlisted Diana and the Justice League.
"I can't believe you belong to a Superhero Club," Kara teased Diana. It was rare to catch her mentor off guard. Even more astonishing to see a blush tint Diana's cheeks. "Is there a secret knock? Do you wear funny robes or hats and have sacred ceremonies?"
Hands resting on her hips, Diana threw back her head and laughed. "I am certain the robes and ceremonies would have evolved had I not managed to curb Bruce's enthusiasm."
Kara giggled, trying to imagine the always serious Bruce in the furry and horned hat she'd seen in an episode of The Flintstones.
"One day, you might be invited to join." There was a new hint of mischief in Diana's gaze – and in her smirk. "I think I shall tell Bruce that your initiation shall be to convince Arthur to wear the suit Lucius designed."
"Lucius makes the best suits!" Kara dreamed of her own suit. Something like Clark's, only without the red breechcloth. "Why do I have to convince Arthur to wear one?"
"Perhaps it is the bright, eye-piercing orange color of the scaled top."
Kara shouldn't have had to bring the Justice League into the fight. Clark was a founding member. "Why isn't Clark here? Why didn't Clark rescue you?" He had to have known that Fort Rozz crashed. There was no way he'd been ignorant of Cadmus and its desire to destroy him. Clark was dating Lois Lane, Lucy's older sister and a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist.
"My sister's boy toy isn't a fan of the DEO. The real one or this one." Lucy and Cleo entered the room in a rush. "Either we're too concerned with controlling the alien criminals who escaped from Fort Rozz and avoided Cadmus, or we're in league with people who want to create soldiers and weapons to keep aliens like Superman from running amok and taking over the world. Take your pick. Either way, he's too good to get his hands dirty. I basically begged him to help us shut Cadmus down before Alex went undercover."
This wasn't about choosing sides. This wasn't about slumming with humans or organizations with which Clark didn't agree. This was about family. Except Kara had learned in her first days on Earth that Clark felt no responsibility to his House or to those who owed them allegiance. "I see." There would be a reckoning with her cousin once Cadmus was no more.
