Chapter 104: Flying Towards Destiny
Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.
Kandor, New Krypton, 1,000 years in the future
"Good morning, class," the teacher greeted her students. "Today we will be focusing on a topic I know many of you have been looking forward to. Today we begin studying the life and times of Kara-El."
Looks of awe and anticipation were visible on every young face in front of her, even as excited mutterings echoed through the classroom. Fifteen years had passed since Kandor had been saved and relocated to the future and every single one of the children present here in this classroom had been born on this world, New Krypton, formerly called Sanctuary. They had never seen a red sun in the sky, had never experienced the much higher gravity of their old home. They were the future of the Kryptonian race, far away from the world their forefathers had abused to the point of no return.
"All of you are aware, of course," the teacher began, "that Kara-El was the woman who saved this city. She led the mission through time that brought us here, 1,000 years removed from our original era. What many of you will not yet know, however, is that Kara-El is famous and revered not only by our own people here on New Krypton, but also across all the worlds of the United Planets."
New Krypton was now a member of the United Planets, but most Kryptonians were still somewhat reluctant to actually travel to other worlds and meet people from other races. Hopefully that would change with this new generation. Turning around, the teacher brought up an image on the class view screen. It showed a huge statue standing in front of a museum on a distant planet called Earth.
"Across the United Planets, Kara-El is known as the Superwoman, the greatest hero of all time. She is also called the Seeder of Worlds. And today, class, we will learn how she came to be known by this particular title."
She switched the image on the screen. "Now remember that these events took place over a thousand years ago from our current era, and only the broad strokes of events have been publicly recorded. But we do know that it all began but a few months after Kara-El returned from the future and the fight against Darkseid. Kara-El and several of her closest allies were travelling into the region of our galaxy once controlled by the Dominion."
Dominion Space, the Present
"We are approaching the Elia system," Adam announced. Kara, who had been lost in thought, looked at the monitor screen in front of her.
"Is it a good or a bad sign that we haven't run into any border patrols, you think?" Hawkwoman asked, coming from the back to join them. It was Shiera's very first time in deep space and despite the seriousness of the mission, she was enjoying herself.
Quite a few more of her friends and allies had wanted to accompany her, but Kara had put her foot down. It had been downright irresponsible of her to take so many of their heavy hitters off Earth (and then into another time) for the mission to locate her son and fight Darkseid. This time she would not repeat that mistake, especially as this was supposed to be a mere diplomatic mission.
"It is difficult to track spaceships in hyperspace," Kara told Shiera, getting up and stretching. "We might well have just gotten lucky."
"I'm taking us into real space well outside the system's inner orbits," Adam told them, preparing to shut down the hyper drive. "Just in case."
Kara nodded, her stomach cramping in anticipation. Soon she would see the results of Brainiac's handiwork. She would see the remnants of a world that a machine created by her people had destroyed in her name.
"Transition to real space in 3, 2, 1..."
The bright flash of a hyper flare briefly obscured their view, but a second later they could finally catch their first view of the Dominion's capitol system. Said view being of a huge Dominion battle wagon that passed right in front of them. A moment later that battle wagon came under fire from... another Dominion battle wagon?
"Evasive maneuvers," Adam yelled, wrenching the controls around and bringing the Javelin out of the firing line as the two behemoths spit energy bolts at each other. Kara looked around, her super vision taking in all of the surrounding space in a heartbeat. Everywhere she looked, there were battles going on.
"It's a civil war," she whispered. "Dominators fighting Dominators!"
With no immediate danger for the Javelin, Adam levelled out their flight and brought up a tactical display of the near space. There were dozens of contacts within a few thousand kilometers, all of them engaged in combat.
"Well, I guess we know what's going on in the Dominion then," Hawkwoman remarked drily. "Not that surprising, really. A highly centralized, strict authoritarian system that loses its ruling caste is all but certain to descend into chaos."
Looking to the side, she saw the devastated look on Kara's face. She slung an arm around her friend's shoulders. "Hey, this isn't your fault, Kara!"
"Isn't it?" Kara asked, her eyes fixed on the battles going on outside. "The Dominion has stood for thousands of years. And now... this!"
Adam kept his eyes on the screens. "Best I can see there are at least three sides fighting it out here, but it might well be more, considering the chaos. I'm trying to decipher some of the radio messages that are flying around, maybe we'll learn more then."
Kara nodded. "We should also let Gardner know what's going on here. A Green Lantern might not be allowed to interfere in normal political affairs of established star nations, but the Dominion was vast. A civil war could well endanger countless innocent lives if they are caught in the crossfire."
"I'll send out the message," Hawkwoman told her, patting her shoulder.
With both of her friends busy, Kara had nothing to do but watch the carnage going on outside. The Elia system was a battlefield. A far cry from the ordered formations she had seen from the Dominators during their invasion of Earth, this seemed to be every man for himself, as best as she could tell. Her heart skipped a beat as her enhanced vision came upon the debris belt around the system's star. That was all that was left of Elia, proud capitol of the Dominion. Now, just like Krypton, it was nothing but a stellar graveyard.
The rational part of her mind knew that this was not her fault. The Dominators were the ones who had decided to attack Earth. Brainiac had decided to retaliate by destroying their home planet. Still, she had been the catalyst for all these events. So a small but very loud part of her mind kept chanting "Your fault! Your fault!" over and over again.
"I got something," Adam suddenly said. "Most of the signal traffic is in code, but someone is transmitting in the clear right now."
A moment later a garbled voice came over the com system, speaking the Dominator's primary language. The ship's computers automatically translated it into English.
"Dominators! Stop fighting! End this madness! We are finally free of the High Caste and their tyranny, yet you have nothing better to do than slaughter each other? Please, I implore you! Stop fighting!"
Kara's eyebrows shot up upon hearing this message. "A Dominator denouncing the High Caste and advocating for peace? I think this is someone we should talk to. Adam, can you pinpoint the source of the transmission?"
"On it!"
A moment later the Javelin accelerated, speeding towards a different corner of the system. The fighting continued all around them, the lone voice of peace apparently unheard. Then the transmission suddenly cut off.
"What's going on?" Kara asked.
"I pinpointed our peace-loving guy," Adam told her, pointing to the screen. "I fear he is not popular around these parts, though."
A small Dominator ship was now visible on the screen. As they watched, it came under fire from a much larger Dominion warship. Its shields held against the first salvo, but the second one smashed into the small vessel's hull, tearing apart the hull plating and sending the ship into a spin. Without hesitating, Kara sped into the airlock and was out in space but seconds later. Pushing on her speed, she bridged the remaining distance in no time at all and interposed herself between the damaged craft and its attacker.
"Cease this attack, Dominators," she ordered over her com, speaking Interlac. "This craft is under my protection."
She had not expected them to comply and was not disappointed, as the Dominators opened fire upon her. Speeding up, she cracked their force field with a double punch of heat vision and her own body used as a missile. Crashing right through their engineering section, she left the warship adrift with nothing but emergency power remaining.
"Our peace advocate's ship is heavily damaged and losing atmosphere," Adam's voice came over her com. "I'm trying to dock with it."
Kara quickly made another circuit around the other ship, checking that no further hostiles were in the immediate vicinity. With the message advocating peace now silenced, everyone else seemed to be content to get back to killing each other and leave the two smaller ships alone. Part of Kara wanted nothing more than to dive into the battle and disable as many ships as possible to stop the killing, but she eventually decided against it. They couldn't just fight blindly here. They needed information first.
Entering the ship, it quickly became clear that they had come too late. Of the crew of three Dominators, two were already dead. The third was clearly not long for this world.
"Take it easy," Adam said in Interlac, carefully lowering the heavily wounded Dominator to the ground. "We're here to help."
"Hu-humans?" the Dominator whispered, his Interlac barely understandable. "Here? How...? Did you... did you escape the camps?"
Kara froze. Strange enough that a random Dominator would recognize a human on sight, but camps? What camps? She did not like the sound of that.
As she stepped into the dying Dominator's field of vision, his eyes widened as he saw the symbol on her chest. "You! You... you are the Kryptonian! The... the High Caste wanted... wanted you... for their army!"
Kneeling down beside him, she gently laid her hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry, I do not understand. What camps are you talking about? What army?"
The Dominator swallowed heavily, clearly aware that his time was limited. "The... the High Caste... those madmen! When... when they learned... of you! And the humans... and the half-breeds... they wanted an army! An army in... in your image!"
Kara nodded, having expected something like that. During the brief occupation of Earth by the Dominators, they had tested hundreds of humans while also running tests on her while she had been their captive. They had theorized that the Dominators, the galaxy's foremost experts in genetic engineering, would want to create their own Kryptonian hybrids. Now this theory seemed to be confirmed.
"They can't have come far with any experiments, though," Adam said. "Brainiac destroyed Elia only days after the invasion was repelled."
The dying Dominator chuckled, coughing up blood. "Those fools! They... thought themselves unassailable... invincible... then the War World came! And the eternal empire descended into chaos!"
"What camps were you talking about?" Kara implored, fearing that their time was running out.
"The ex...experimentation camps," the Dominator coughed. "Planet... planet Vukar Tag! Coordinates... coordinates in the nav computer! You... you must… stop the madness! Please! Not... not all of us are like them! We... we just... just want… free… free…"
His voice failing, the Dominator's hand reached up and scratched at the red disc on his forehead, the one that signified his place in the Dominion's rigid caste system. One of his nails drew a long, bloody line right through the disc before his arm fell to the ground. With a final rattle, the Dominator who wanted to stop the fighting died.
"Rest in peace, my friend," Kara said, carefully closing his eyes. "I promise, your message will not be silenced!"
Sitting back on her heels, Kara looked at her two friends.
"I don't know about you," Adam said, "but to me that sounded like the Dominator's are keeping human prisoners in some kind of camps and are experimenting on them."
"I am not sure how that can be possible," Kara replied. "We checked every single Dominion ship that was allowed to leave the Sol system after the invasion was repelled. There were no reports of missing people during the occupation, either, apart from those that were freed from the Dominion ship alongside myself."
"Could they have secretly abducted people from Earth before the invasion?" Shiera proposed.
Kara sighed. "Only one way to find out. We need to find that planet, Vukar Tag, and check it out. If there are really human prisoners there, we cannot abandon them. Especially if the Dominators are somehow trying to create Kryptonian hybrids like Kona for an army."
"We also need to find out who is actually in command now with the High Caste dead," Shiera told her. "
"Let's get to it then!"
It took them half an hour to make sense of the nav computer on the Dominion ship, the biotechnology so very different from their own systems. Finally, though, they managed to extract the coordinates of the planet called Vukar Tag and program it into the Javelin's navigation system. During that time the fighting in the Elia system had died down somewhat, one side apparently having driven the other two off. Kara was not sure what the point of the battle had been, as the War World had left the system lifeless.
"Okay, let's go then," Kara decided. "Hopefully we will get some answers at Vukar Tag."
Adam activated the hyper drive. "Hey, you know what the Dominion words 'Vukar Tag' translate to?"
"What?" Shiera asked.
As the stars disappeared and the swirling colors of hyperspace took their place, Adam chuckled. "It means 'Deepest Well'! Now doesn't that sound like a fun place?"
Dominion Space, Vukar Tag system
According to the navigation charts they had access to, the Vukar Tag system was a rather out-of-the-way place, a system with a small yellow star and little strategic value. It only contained three planets, two of which were uninhabitable. Thus they knew to investigate the third planet in their quest for answers.
Once again Adam programmed their journey to end on the outskirts of the system. The moment they came out of hyperspace, Kara was already out the airlock and flying next to the Javelin, just in case they ran into yet another space battle. This time, though, they were greeted by nothing but empty space instead of laser blasts.
"I can see the planet," Kara said after having taken a look at their immediate surroundings and judged them safe. "There seems to be a sizeable garrison fleet in orbit, plus some huge orbital installations."
"Your eyes are better than our scanners," Adam remarked. "We're still too far out to pick up anything, but by that same token they shouldn't be aware of our presence yet, either."
"Can you pick up anything over the coms?" Kara asked.
"No, all frequencies are silent. Makes sense if this is some kind of secret installation. We will need to get closer."
Kara mused this over. There were a lot of Dominion warships over there. Not quite as many as the fleet that had invaded Earth, but still too many for a single Kryptonian and a Javelin to take on with any hope of success. She tried to get a closer look at the planet itself, but something in its atmosphere seemed to disrupt her vision powers, rendering the planet opaque to her eyes.
"Okay, I will try and get a closer look at the planet," Kara decided. "If there are truly captured humans down there, we will need more assistance in order to liberate them."
"Yeah, I wouldn't put it past those Dominators to simply bomb all prison camps from orbit if they suspect something," Shiera muttered.
Aware that the Dominators had methods of detecting Kryptonians, Kara decided to acquire some camouflage. It only took her a few minutes to find a decently sized asteroid, which contained quite a bit of metal. Positioning herself, she pushed the asteroid towards the planet and then simply clung to its side. Hopefully the metal inside the rock would mask her own energy signature to the point where no one would notice her arrival.
"We'll go com silent now," Kara sent to the Javelin. "If I do find something, I will send a ping over our emergency frequency. One ping means 'come running', two pings mean 'go and get help', understood?"
"Clear. What if we get no ping from you at all?" Shiera asked, sounding worried.
"Give me five hours before you do anything. If you hear nothing from me by then, something on that planet is really rotten and we will need all the help we can get."
Her friends weren't happy with her decision, but finally accepted. So Kara draped herself over the asteroid and spent the next two hours just twiddling her thumbs as the floating rock made its way into the inner system and close to the planet of her interest. Making sure to keep the rock between herself and the garrison fleet, she could only see so much during the agonizingly slow journey.
Finally, though, she was close enough that her own energy signature should be lost amongst the excess energy radiating off the many ships, so she pushed away from the rock and let herself float closer. Looking around, she saw the vast orbital installations that had warships floating around them like insects. A few were obviously space docks, but the vast majority of them seemed to have another purpose. She could not ascertain what that purpose was, though. Right now all of them seemed to be doing little more than float in orbit, their energy signatures barely perceptible.
Directing her eyes to the planet below, she could easily make out the surface. Why had she had such trouble looking at it before? Maybe some kind of high-orbit radiation belt or something? Impossible to tell right now and not really all that important. The planet itself was a rather desolate place, she saw. Almost no vegetation, very little in the way of water, it seemed to mostly consist of rocks and sand. No discernable Fauna, either.
The only signs of life were a large number of Dominion-style bases and buildings scattered over the surface. There were many of them, probably even more on the far side of the planet. Whatever was going on here, it clearly hadn't started just a few months ago. Some of the buildings seemed pretty old and worn, as if they had been here for centuries already.
Looking closer, Kara finally found what she had been looking for.
"Rao have mercy," she muttered involuntarily, her words lost to the vacuum of space.
Directly beneath her there was a vast complex that obviously served as a detention facility of some kind. High walls surrounded the buildings, weapon emplacements were pointed inward, and a large number of guards patrolled the perimeter. And inside... yes, those were humans. Many, many humans, in fact. She could not make out the exact number, but there had to be hundreds of them.
She still had no idea how this was possible, but right now it did not matter. Repositioning herself, Kara angled downwards and entered the atmosphere of Vukar Tag. Going slowly as to prevent a highly visible reentry lightshow, she had time to notice that the planet had a viable atmosphere despite having little in the way of vegetation. Terraforming? Probably, but why go to the effort of doing it in such a desolate place when they were probably hundreds of more livable worlds in the Dominator's territory? Still more questions.
Finally reaching the surface, she flew low and kept to sub-sonic speeds. No one seemed to have noticed her presence yet and she would prefer to keep it that way, too.
When she was still several kilometers out from the prison camp, though, something happened. At first, she was not sure what it was, only that it tickled her senses in uncomfortable ways. Seeing as her flying power was a result of her ability to manipulate gravity, she was very sensitive to fluctuations in the gravity fields. Something was shifting.
Deciding to be safe rather than sorry, Kara touched down on the surface of the planet and looked up. Her vision easily zoomed in on the vast orbital installations and she could see that those huge machines she had no clue about were in the process of powering up. Gravity seemed to bend around them in strange ways.
"Some kind of gravity well generators?" she wondered aloud. "But why...?"
Suddenly the world tilted sideways. Kara stumbled, her senses unable to grasp her surroundings, her balance shot. The sky lit up as if a thousand bombs were going off at the same time. What had been a pale blue sky with a yellow sun shining brightly just a moment ago now turned a deep purple and the sun had vanished. Kara found herself on her knees, her senses slowly rightening themselves, her balance returning.
Getting back to her feet, she looked around. Something was different, something more profound than the sky having changed color. Those orbital machines had clearly done something, but what? Looking up, she tried to spot the machines in question. Maybe now that they were active, she could figure out what...
Where were they? They had just been there, hadn't they? Come to think of it, where were the many warships that had been in orbit a minute ago? Kara strained her senses to the utmost but could not find anything. The planet's orbit was empty.
No, she reconsidered a moment, it was worse than that. There was nothing up there. Nothing at all. No ships, no sun, no stars, nothing. It was as if the entire universe beyond the atmosphere of Vukar Tag had simply disappeared.
Kara shot up and flew into the planet's upper atmosphere, trying to pierce whatever barrier or force field had apparently sprung into place around the world. There was nothing to find, though. She did not meet any resistance, there was no barrier. Just a whole lot of nothing and still more nothing.
As she floated high above the planet, contemplating the utter nothingness out there and the many human prisoners below, Kara was at a complete loss what to do next.
End Chapter 104
Author's Note: I did say that Kara has got a few more things to accomplish to get that big statue in front of the 30th century Superwoman Museum built, right? Well, we are now getting into that. For those wanting to spoil themselves, this storyline is (very, very loosely) based on the Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2 from 1991. Don't worry if you are familiar with that story, though, I have changed quite a few things.
Up next: the secrets of the Deepest Well, exposed.