It's me, DB. I know it's been a long time since I last updated, and I am hoping after school picks up I will be able to update at least every week or so (sorry for the delay). If it means anything, this story is taking a ton of research on characters, comics, events, timelines, and random information on things like space travel. It is also confusing choosing the way Brainy left Colu. Did you know some sources say Brainy left Colu just to join the Legion while others say he was outlawed for being too smart? I chose to have him leave on his own accord, so keep that in mind. I did my best to seperate the paragraphs more.

I do not own the Legion of Superheroes or anything. Hopefully you knew that. Continue.

A slight miscalculation. That's all it was. Or maybe not so slight. Brainiac Five stopped feeding the ship's computer coordinates.

Everything was going according to plan.

Except for a few outlying problems.

Like the extra guards, the High-ruler's firm determination to keep him on Colu, the unexpected Coluans who were waiting in the hanger… and of course there was the issue of The Nebula running out of fuel and its composure to keep from falling into a rusty pile at any moment. Sure, he had not expected it to be easy, but to deal with this mess was just annoying. The excess guards in the beginning were easy enough; he had been planning to use the nanotech bomb anyways. The second set of guards had been a nuisance as well, causing him to waste a first-class prototype of a holographic prerecorded simulation of that size before he could test it properly.

He could have reverted to his battle form, but the smaller the target, the more difficult to hit, and Brainiac Five had no intentions of testing the other Coluans' accuracy.

Then there was the Coluan High-ruler. Even when he had started to leave in The Nebula she had attempted to block his path, figuratively speaking. Every Coluan being on the planet was intertwined with each other. The Hive-mind's unity is what has saved Colu time after time, but the connection had nearly cost him his freedom.

The High-ruler did not want him to leave. The urge to submit to the orders and simply surrender had almost been too much. Almost.

The most reoccurring question was what he was going to do when the next Alignment arrived. If his past scenarios of a Coluan not actively in the Hive-mind when it occurred were correct, then he was, almost certainly, going to go completely and utterly insane. Permanently.

Shaking his head as if to shake the thought from his mind, Brainiac Five turned his attention back to the impending predicament: The Nebula's lack of fuel. Typing in instructions into the computer, he read the current data concerning fuel. Only 3,000 gallons of esteigine, or 200,031 parsecs of travel before the ship became unable to move, leaving him stranded. He frowned at the numbers. He had known that the Coluans would not leave a foreigner's ship fully fueled, but he had hoped to cover more ground before having to leave the crumbling ship. 197 parsecs were not nearly enough to reach Earth.

Now he was forced to choose a substitute destination until he could find a replacement ship to continue on. The current transport was beyond even his reach of repair. In fact, the only reason Brainiac Five had taken The Nebula was because of its outsider origins. If he had taken a Coluan (and more practical) vessel, then there was a possibility of his people overriding the systems and then his epic voyage would become a short joyride. Despite his efforts to avoid the latter, if he did not find a close inhabited planet, all of his efforts would be meaningless.

"Site all of the solid planets within 200,000 parsecs of our current location," he commanded the ship's navigation system. A hazy holographic solar system appeared in front of him.

"Gelolin, Ardesco Kilco, and Garwit of the Lateo system," the computerized voice replied as the holo-map spun to the right, showing three relatively close planets.

The planet on the left, assumedly Gelolin, was a white sphere covered in ice with large grey wisps twirling in the atmosphere; most likely powerful storms. The Nebula would be torn apart on entre.

Moving on to the right, there was a red orb, slightly smaller than Gelolin. Ardesco Kilco looked acceptable at first glace, until Brainiac Five zoomed the map in closer, revealing it had multiple spots of flaming magma and was completely covered in volcanoes. Bursting into flames was not on his schedule.

That left Garwit. The small planet was multiple shades of green with patches of deep blue. It resembled a smaller version of an early Earth with less water and more forest.

"Search for data on the planet Garwit." Brainiac Five waited for the response as the map raced to focus on the green planet. Minutes passed. Why did everything have to be so slow?

Finally the ship found the information and replied to the irritated controller.

"Garwit: Small planet covered in vegetation 195,021 parsecs from current location. Most of its inhabitants are a wide variety of flora and fauna with a small amount of intelligent residents.

Capital city: Galvan.

Current population: 5,186. 52 percent natives, 43 percent humans, 5 percent other.

Technology Level: third highest in the Lateo system."

A small, inhabited planet within his fuel limitations. Even with the low technology level, any inhabitable planet was better than Colu. Garwit would have to do.

"Set itinerary for Garwit."

The speeding space-ship was coming closer to its target. Brainiac Five watched as the small planet became larger and larger while working on fixing an electrical circuit that had corrupted near the back. He normally would not fix a part of something he was about to abandon, but the sparking energy was beginning to unnerve him. He had left The Nebula on auto-pilot while he covered the thin exposed wires. He did not see the point in wasting time controlling the ship if the ship could manage itself just fine.

Or so he thought.

He was abruptly flung harshly to the wall, along with anything unattached.

There was a loud bang as the haphazard objects slammed into him, crushing him harder against the steel wall. Turning his head, Brainiac Five found himself staring at a sharp duristeel screwdriver inches from his face.

That was… uncomfortably close.

He struggled to get out of the rusty pile while moving away from the implanted screwdriver. Following his escape through the chaos, he did his best not to stumble across the compartment as the turbulence increased, causing the unattached matter to thud as the objects were thrown unsafely around the ship.

He gripped the controller's chair as soon as he reached it to keep from being tossed around with the other objects. After safely maneuvering into the seat and fastening himself in as best as he could, he swept his violet eyes over the blinking disarray of red lights.

The Nebula had hit the atmosphere of Garwit and was out of control. The friction and speed had been too much for the old ship to handle, so now the vessel was bearing nose-first to the ground.

His first flight in space, and Brainiac Five was going to crash-land.

Great.

He switched the steering to manual and grabbed the controls with both hands. The ship was still shaking, so all of his instruction to the navigator was as if he was talking to someone while riding a jackhammer.

"Fff-ffI—ind the n-nneeEeearrrest cleaaar-rrr aarRrea!" ("Find the nearest clear area")

"Unable to identify voice command," came the automated reply to the agitated controller.

"Ff-ffF-IIINE!"

Brainiac Five focused his electronically enhanced eyes on the view screen. He was going to have to navigate and steer while trying to not get hit by flying objects at the same time. He could feel the intense heat as The Nebula continued to burn through the atmosphere.

He tried to bring the ship upwards as he saw the tree covered ground get closer. The inertia of the ship was making it almost impossible to stop the ship from its current course, but Brainiac Five put every ounce of strength he had in leveling the ship. The Nebula slowly straightened out as it rocketed towards the trees. The scrape of metal on wood was painfully loud and he could feel the snap of trees being broken underneath the ship's hull. The old vessel was about to hit the hard ground when Brainiac Five, having fast reflexes, immediately let go of the controls to activate the energy shield on his belt. In spite of him knowing it would not matter, he shut his eyes when the ship hit the ground.

The impact was instant.

It was if the ship had run straight into a steel wall. Brainiac Five could feel the bone-crushing pressure on his shield, he could hear the explosions coming from the engines, the sound of ripping rubber as the aged harness holding him frayed and snapped, sending him straight forwards.

The brute force of his collision sent stars behind his closed eyes before they were enveloped in creeping shadows. He heard the fizzing of his shield dissipating as the energy core's power supply was consumed. Fighting the growing darkness of unconsciousness, Brainiac Five commanded his body to move, his eyes to open, but nothing was listening. He could not stay where he was. If the ship exploded with him near with his energy shield deactivated like it was now, he would be sent back to Colu in a test-tube. A very very small test-tube.

Gradually his commands went through and his eyes snapped open, leaving him to blink repeatedly to reflect on what he was seeing. A canopy of trees was blocking the sky, a small amount of sunlight slipping through onto his face. He was not in the ship like he had thought, though it only took a glance to find out why.

The Nebula was a pile of twisted rusty metal, smoke rising from the giant hole in the windshield, 25 meters from his current position.

He had been hurled 25 meters after crashing straight through the windshield of the ship. Once again he underestimated the problems of the old vessel; he especially had not been expecting for the harness holding him in to snap. If it was not for the energy shield, Brainiac Five was sure he would be… well, he wouldn't be anything recognizable.

Finally getting his systems to function properly again, he struggled to his feet, still a tad shaky from the crash. Walking carefully around the scraps littered around the crash site, he managed to reach the ship, or what was left of it.

It was unquestionably never going to fly again. Half of it had been torn off and was farther away, while some of the jets were missing, leaving gapping holes in the metal hull. After running a check inside of the ship to put out any fires (because the last thing he needing was a flaming forest), he placed a few choice items into a rumpled knapsack to take with him. He needed to find civilization before night set in; Garwit seemed to have a large amount of nocturnal predators.

Brainiac Five slung the scruffy backpack over his shoulders and walked into the forest. His internal clocks had been jumbled during the crash, so he had no idea what time it was, which was beginning to actually irritate him.

Of course, he could calculate the time if he could see the planet's sun, but he was not coming into any clearings and the trees were extremely tall and thick.

The tree with branches lowest to the ground was a little further ahead. Brainiac Five reached the broad trunk and looked up into the green canopy. The closest branch was a good thirty meters off the ground; not a problem if you had extendible parts. He took a small jump upwards as he simultaneously extended his arms until his hands grasped the rough branch. He pulled himself up onto the branch and crouched for only a moment before leaping up to the next branch.

After pulling himself through the onslaught of green leaves, Brainiac Five's head emerged from the dense foliage.

The full force of the suns rays hit his face and he shielded his vision from the piercing glare. Once his eyes adjusted to the bright surroundings, he took inventory of his environment. The wide canopy of trees created a thick lush carpet for the sky; it was hard to find anywhere where you could actually see the forest floor. The sky was a clear blue hue, with small wisps of white clouds scattered around.

A glimmer in the distance caught his eye. Increasing his vision range, Brainiac Five discovered it was a small city, glistening metallically in the sunlight. He took an educated guess that the city was the capital, Galvin. The distance from the sheltered city though, was quite large. From he looks of it, it would take a minimum of two days to reach civilization. Time is the essence, which brought Brainiac Five to his original problem.

He averted his observations and turned to the south. There was only one sun in the Lateo system, and it was an intense red orb shining past halfway between the center of the sky and due west. Based on where his crash-coursed ship should have landed, it was somewhere between 3 and 4 in the afternoon, leaving only a few short hours to make his way towards the city.

After he was sure he had a good bearing on the direction of the city, Brainiac Five jumped down from the tree branch to branch. His feet hit the solid ground, and he commenced his expedition to the city of Galvan.

Well, Thanks for anyone who read to here! Comments are appreciated; I like the knowledge that someone actually cares about this story or noticed any problems. I know that I am not the only one who is getting annoyed with calling Brainy "Brainiac Five" all the time, but it will be a while before he is called anything other than that. When that moment comes, we will all through a party and praise the nick-name-giver. Also, I am sure some of you are anticipating Brainy talking to someone OTHER than his computer. Do not fear, there will be some character interactions in the next chapter. Until then…