Chapter 9: In Darkest Night

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman and Green Lantern belong to DC. No infringement is intended.

For as long as anyone could remember, the members of the Green Lantern Corps had served as the protectors of the space ways and keepers of law and order in the universe. The mighty Guardians of the Universe had divided known space into 3,600 sectors, usually centered on galaxies, and each sector was assigned a Green Lantern, usually selected from a native species.

Sector 2814, which centered on the galaxy human astronomers called the Milky Way, had been the beat of Green Lantern Abin Sur for a long time now. For well over a century, as humans would measure time, he had worn the powerful Green Lantern ring. The ring, product of a science so advanced that it might as well be called magic, was able to turn its wearer's thoughts into reality, giving shape to them in green light. Many called it the most powerful weapon in the universe and only those who were able to master their fear were worthy to wear it.

In his long stint as a Green Lantern, Abin had saved so many lives, prevented so many catastrophes, that he could hardly count them all. It were not the faces of the people he had successfully saved that appeared in his dreams at night, though. It was his failures that haunted him, few as they might be.

One such failure, it seemed, was about to come back to haunt him.

The planet called Earth by its inhabitants was not one Abin visited regularly. It was a primitive world in a rather out-of-the-way sector of space. Few stellar catastrophes happened here, no interstellar powers competed for this quadrant, space-faring outlaws sought more profitable gains on more advanced worlds. He had been here only about half a dozen times in his entire Green Lantern career, if that, usually when tracking someone or something. Today, though, was just supposed to be a peaceful flyby, nothing more.

It would turn out to be a far from normal day, though.

"Search parameters triggered," the soothing voice of his power ring rang in his mind. "Traces of Kryptonian technology identified."

Abin froze upon hearing those words, not quite believing what he was hearing. Kryptonians? Could it really be after all these years? Unbidden the memories surged from the back of his mind.

11 years ago:

Abin Sur, Green Lantern of sector 2814, would forever curse the fates or gods or whatever other powers might have been in play that day for delaying him on the planet Orestes for so long. Maybe if his ring had picked up the disturbance sooner, maybe if he had been here a day ago, a week, maybe then he could have done something. But a solar flare had threatened to rip away Orestes' ozone layer and he had been stuck in place for hours, using his ring to shield an entire hemisphere from utter destruction. All the while another planet was in peril, even more innocent lives in danger.

He had visited the planet Krypton numerous times in the past. From the recordings left by his predecessors, he was aware that the Kryptonians had once been a space-faring race, rulers of a vast empire in this region of the Milky Way. As it happened often, though, their empire eventually collapsed under its own weight. Colonies were abandoned for lack of resources, expansion was halted, stagnation set in. The once mighty Kryptonian empire disappeared and its progenitors returned to their own planet.

For as long as Abin Sur had been a Green Lantern, he had only known the planet Krypton as a very insular place, its people not interested in the events of the larger galaxy. They seemed content to stay on their own world, even though their technology easily allowed for interstellar travel. During his last visit here, many years ago, he had noticed a troubling development in that the Kryptonians had begun mining energy directly from their planet's core. Still, they were highly advanced and would certainly see the error of their ways before it was too late. Or so he had thought.

Surrounded by the green nimbus of energy that kept his body safe from the ravages of space, he streaked towards the dying planet as fast as his formidable will could propel him. His ring was scanning ahead, feeding the data it picked up directly into his mind, and it told him that he was far too late. Krypton's core was already collapsing, a chain reaction had already begun, and the planet was breaking apart even as he watched. Continents crumbled, oceans boiled, dust obscured everything from view. Krypton was in its death throes and there was nothing even the most powerful weapon in the universe could do to change that.

Refusing to accept it, Abin poured every erg of his will into the ring on his finger, willing it to go faster, to find some way of saving these billions of lives. The green light blazed brightly around him, preventing fragments of the crumbling world from hitting him, and he still sped towards the center of the destruction. He sent a beam of green energy ahead of himself, hoping to somehow contain the uncontainable, knowing he was already too late.

The planet's abused core exploded outward, fusing matter into energy, irradiating everything it could touch. Not even the fabled Green Light could contain the raw fury of a dying world. The ring's automatic feature quickly redirected all its power towards protecting its wielder, surrounding him in an impenetrable aura, preserving his life. And Abin Sur watched, safely protected, as a world he had walked numerous times in the past simply died.

He had failed, it rang out in his mind again and again. He had failed.

Cruel fate would also have it that Abin Sur was on the entirely wrong side of the dying planet, so even his mighty power ring completely missed the small space craft that successfully escaped the calamity.

Ever since that day, Abin Sur had kept a look out for survivors of the planet he had failed to save. The Kryptonians had been a space-faring race in the distant past and had retained the technology, even if they refused to use it. Surely some had seen the doom coming and fled. Surely some had survived despite his failure.

He had never found anything, though. Not until today.

"Can you idenfity the source?" he asked his ring. "Is it active Kryptonian tech or just some leftovers from their colonization era?"

He had come across quite a few old Kryptonian colonies in his time. All of them had been dead, empty, long since gone to dust. Occasionally there had been remnants of Kryptonian technology, but all of it has ceased working eons ago. All that remained of the once great Kryptonian empire.

"Energy signature indicates active power source," the ring told him.

Could it really be true? After all this time, could he have really found some survivors? He had to be sure.

"Home in on the source," he commanded and shot down towards the surface of the planet. The ring guided him towards the planet's northern pole. Whatever it had picked up was somewhere among the ice. It made sense, really. Earth was a primitive world. Surely if there were Kryptonian survivors here, they would hide their presence from the natives.

He finally spotted his destination. If one didn't know exactly what to look for, one would easily mistake it for just another ice berg. Abin Sur had seen Kryptonian crystal construction before, though. It was clearly a base of some sort and it was clearly active.

"Any signs of life?" His ring scanned the structure, even as he became aware that he was being scanned in turn. No Earth-build sensor would be able to pick up a Green Lantern in stealth mode, but Kryptonian tech was more advanced. Clearly he had been spotted, which was just fine with him.

"No biological life within the structure," his ring said, threatening to make his hope crash and burn. Was this just some left-over outpost then? An old computer waiting for the return of its makers, not knowing they were all dead?

"Alert," his ring suddenly called for his attention. "Object approaching at supersonic speed. Impact imminent!"

Before Abin Sur even had time to react, he was suddenly yanked out of his own flight path by something incredibly fast and strong. They travelled at least a hundred miles or more before Abin could even begin to orient himself again and by this time his attacker had let go of him, sending him tumbling through the air and onto the frozen ground.

When he finally regained his bearings, he found himself face to face with a floating woman. A woman with eyes burning an angry red and something he recognized as a Kryptonian family sigil on her chest.

"You are not welcome here!" the Kryptonian, for what else could she be, growled at him.

The open hostility somewhat took him aback, but he had been a Green Lantern for a long time and being met with suspicion was nothing new.

"I mean no harm to you or this world," he said calmy. "I am Green L..."

"I know exactly who you are, Abin Sur!"

Okay, he had not expected that.

Kara-El certainly remembered Abin Sur. Growing up on Krypton, there were certain things one inevitably picked up, even as a child. Kryptonians were suspicious of other worlds and other races. They had been space travelers once, but it hadn't worked out so well for them, so now they happily stayed on their own world and everyone else could just happily stay on theirs, thank you very much. There was no outright xenophobia as such, Kryptonians didn't hate aliens or wished to exterminate them, there was just this general agreement that everyone would be far better off sticking to their own kind and their own business.

The one exception to that unwritten rule was the Green Lantern Corps, the legendary protectors of space. Even Kryptonians had to admit that the members of the Corps did good work and were to be admired for their deeds. More than 300 years ago, when Krypton's moon Wegthor had exploded due to a botched weapon test, it had been a Green Lantern who had saved the planet from the fallout.

When Kara was a child, almost everyone on Krypton knew the name of Abin Sur, the Green Lantern responsible for their sector of space. He had been on Krypton several times in the past, had prevented catastrophes and saved lives. Kara had never seen him in person, but she recognized his face from newscast and pictures. Kryptonians regarded him as a hero, despite his alien nature.

When her planet had crumbled around her, she had very briefly hoped that the great hero Abin Sur would swoop in to save them all. No hero came swooping in, though. Krypton died.

"I know exactly who you are, Abin Sur!" she growled, anger surging forth at seeing the face of the hero who never showed.

He was obviously puzzled by her reaction. "I fear you have me at a disadvantage," he said after a moment. "If we have met in the past, I must admit I do not remember."

Kara scoffed. "I didn't expect you to. You have probably forgotten there ever was a planet called Krypton."

She saw him flinch upon hearing the name of her home world. "You truly are a Kryptonian then?" he asked, his face filling with something that almost looked like joy. "I have searched for so long..."

"Congratulations then," she interrupted him. "You have found the Kryptonian, your search is over. My name is Kara-El, last daughter of Krypton."

"Last?" he asked, his face filling with sorrow. It only made her more angry. What right did he have to feel sorrow for the death of the world he had not saved?

"My world died, Green Lantern, in case you missed the memo. My entire race died. Every last one of them. There are none left but me." Hell would freeze over before she told this guy about Clark's existence.

"I know about Krypton's fate," Abin Sur said. "You have my deepest sympathies. For years I had hoped that some had escaped Krypton's end. I looked for your kind all over the galaxy. It... I am sorry to hear that you are the sole survivor."

"Nice words, Green Lantern. Feel free to leave now and don't bother coming back. This planet already has someone to protect it. Earth doesn't need a hero who'll only turn up a decade after he was needed."

The Kryptonian's words cut deep. He could easily see her anger and a part of him very much felt like he deserved it. He had failed to save Krypton, there was no denying it. But still, his sense of pride would not allow him to shoulder the entire blame.

"That which destroyed Krypton was not a threat from outside," he said. "I shall carry the guilt of not being there in time to save your people for the rest of my days, but in the end they caused their own demise."

She had already begun turning away from, but now she stopped and raised an eye brow at his statement. "So we had it coming, is that it? Is that why you were not there, Abin Sur? Does the great Green Lantern only save those he deems deserving?"

"I WAS there on that day," he yelled, immediately taken aback by his own vehemence. "And I did everything I could to try and save your world!"

"You were there?" she asked him, the fierceness of her anger burned like fire. "You were there when the ground shook and tore open? You were there when the sky began to burn? When the oceans boiled? When the crystal towers collapsed and my people died by the millions because a few old men were too stupid to accept the truth of what was happening? Tell me how you were there, Abin Sur, for I certainly did not see you when my parents put me in a rocket, hoping against hope to save me. There was no green light there to save them or anyone else. So where were you, Abin Sur?"

"I WAS THERE!" he insisted again, all his guilt unloading itself in the form of anger. "I flew to Krypton as fast as I could! I did EVERYTHING I could. I wanted to save your people!"

"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU?" she yelled back.

Qquite suddenly his anger faded, for he recognized that the anger of the woman before him was not really directed at him. She was angry at the fates, the gods, or whatever other powers had been at play that day, just like him. She was angry at an uncaring universe that allowed the short-sightedness of a few to seal the fate of an entire world.

"I failed," he simply said. "I tried my best, and it was not enough on that day. I am deeply sorry."

Standing in front of her, he slowly slid the Green Lantern ring from his finger. His uniform faded away, to be replaced with the civilian garb he wore when he was off duty and back on his own home world. The green nimbus around his body winked out and he stood before her as a defenseless man.

"I failed in my duties as a Green Lantern. If you wish to enact retribution for my failure, I will not keep you from it."

He saw numerous emotions pass across her face. Surprise, anger, fury, sorrow, and finally just a bone-deep tiredness. The woman, Kara, was certainly much younger than him, but for a moment she seemed to feel just as old as he often did these days.

"Put your ring back on, Abin Sur," she finally said, wrapping her arms around her body and turning away from him. "You have an entire space sector to protect. You can't do that without that ring!"

He did as she told him to, the Green Lantern uniform manifesting on his body once again. He was uncertain about his own feelings. For so long he had hoped to find survivors of Krypton, but he had never really thought what to say to them when he finally found them. Had he hoped for absolution? Had he thought that the guilt he still felt 11 years later would somehow vanish? He didn't know. The only thing he had found today was a survivor who, it seemed, was still reliving that dark day, just like he did.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Kara-El?" he finally asked when the silence seemed too oppressive. "Any service I can perform?"

A few hours later Kara looked around the bridge of the space ship Abin Sur had taken her on. The technology was unfamiliar, but she was able to guess at most of the functions easily. She just wondered why it existed in the first place.

"I thought Green Lanterns didn't need space ships to travel through space?" she asked the question that had been on her mind since their arrival here.

"They don't," Abin said, having sat down in the command chair. There was a set of manual controls, but he didn't touch them, apparently steering the ship directly via his power ring. "But patrolling an entire sector means long journeys and I occasionally prefer sleeping in an actual bed."

She just nodded, not able to think of any other topic for small talk. She wasn't even sure what she was doing here, to be honest. Rao, this entire day was turning out very strange.

Realizing how much anger she still carried with her for the destruction of Krypton was sobering. She had thought she had dealt with most of it, left it behind her. Seeing Abin Sur, someone who had been regarded as a hero back on her old world, had apparently caused many feelings to well up from deep inside. She had barely recognized her own voice as she basically blamed him for Krypton's destruction.

She already been primed for a fight, she realized, almost looking forward to unleashing her strength against the Green Lantern. Then he effectively disarmed her by disarming himself in the face of her wrath. It wasn't him she had wanted to hurt, after all. The people she really wanted to hurt, the people who had laughed at her father and uncle and ignored their warnings, thus dooming billions, were long dead.

When the Green Lantern had offered her his services as penance, she had immediately jumped on the opportunity without thinking about it for any length of time.

"Take me to Krypton," she had said.

So he took her to his ship, fired up the engines, and then they were off, streaking through hyper space. Towards… what? What did she expect to find? What could she possibly find out there? Abin Sur hadn't asked. Maybe it would have been better if he had. Maybe it would have forced her to think of an answer.

The journey didn't take long, the Lantern's ship, powered by the fabled green ring, was very fast. Eleven years ago Kara's ship had needed several weeks to cover the distance between Krypton and Earth. Abin Sur needed but a few hours for the same distance. They didn't talk much during the entire time. Not at all, actually.

"We are there," he finally said, tearing her from her thoughts. Kara's eyes found the ship's main view screen and looked at what was left of her home.

The giant red sun, Rao, was easy to identify. It looked different from space than when seen through an atmosphere, of course. There was no more atmosphere to be found, though. From her astronomy lessons in school she remembered that Krypton's system had been home to six planets. Now, though, there were only five.

A massive debris field lay ahead of them, circling the red sun. An eerie green glow seemed to infuse every single piece of rubble, familiar from a piece of rock she had recovered from the torso of a cyborg. Kryptonite! Millions of tons of radioactive Kryptonite. All that was left of her home, all of it lethal to her.

"Don't fly any closer, please," she told Abin Sur. She was sure that the ship had radiation shielding, but she didn't really see the need to test them today. It was bad enough that she could already feel her powers weakening, the absence of the yellow sun light slowly draining her cells. She didn't need Kryptonite poisoning on top of it.

"I admit I have not been here since that day, either," Abin Sure said, having brought his ship to a halt.

For a good long while the two of them simply stood there on the bridge of his ship, staring at the graveyard in front of them. For a time Kara imagined she could still see the planet, the pieces fitting back together. The red sun would rise over the crystal towers, which were whole and intact. People would be milling in the streets, her family among them. There were no quakes, no fissures, no dust clouds blotting out the sun. Just Krypton, whole and alive. But it was a lie, a phantasy. Krypton was gone.

Finally Kara turned around.

"Please take me back to Earth," she said. Back home, she added within her mind.

"Have you found what you hoped to find, Kara-El?" he asked, even as he turned his ship around and brought them back into hyperspace.

"I don't know, Abin Sur. Have you?"

The Green Lantern contemplated her question, then seemed to decide upon an answer. "Not what I hoped to find, no. But maybe what I needed to find."

She considered this, then nodded. "That sounds about right, yes."

A few hours later she was back on Earth and her eyes followed Abin Sur as the Green Lantern steered his ship away from Earth again. With her eyes no longer clouded by anger, she had seen the guilt on his face and she believed his words. Maybe meeting her would bring him some amount of peace.

This encounter had been strange, sobering, and possibly cathartic for her as well. Seeing the remnants of her first home world had hurt, yes, but in a way it had also been liberating. Krypton, the planet, was gone, never to return. She had always known this, of course, but knowing and accepting were two different things.

Krypton lived on, though, here on Earth. It lived on in her, it lived on in Clark, the last children of Krypton. And it was time that Krypton's last son knew about his heritage.

At the very edge of the debris field that had once been the planet Krypton there was something that was not part of the debris. It was a piece of technology, constructed after the destruction, and left here for a very specific purpose. It was a satellite, well-hidden even from the power of a Green Lantern, and its purpose was finally fulfilled.

"Kryptonian life signs detected," was the message that the satellite began to broadcast. On its metallic surface three circles, arranged in a triangle, briefly glowed as the message was sent. Then the satellite fell silent again.

End Chapter 9

Author's Note: I have not yet decided which human Green Lantern to use in my story, but given the time frame, it was pretty clear that the first GL Kara would encounter would have to be Abin Sur. Abin having been on Krypton before it died is canon. It's also canon that a Green Lantern tried and failed to save Krypton, but it was not Abin Sur. I changed this for my story, though. And if you recognize who or what that bit at the end refers to, then know that it is the version from the DC Animated universe.

As for the time frame regarding the destruction of Krypton, there are many different versions of how long the rocket of Kal-El (and Kara) travelled between the planet's death and its arrival on Earth. Some versions say but days, others say years. I'm going with Kara's ship having travelled but a few weeks at the most, simply for expediency. So Krypton died when Kara was 13 and there is no time skip due to her and Clark having been frozen in stasis for years or anything.