Issue #7 This is where the Action is

Kara was dyeing. The grip of the Sterregoi on her neck was too strong. She sent a prayer to Rao, before the world went black.

S

Alex was stationed at the north-east side of the cave. She knew that Agent Laningham was to her right, and Agent Eller at her left side. All of team beta moved simultaneously towards the cave to decrease the space for the Sterregoi.

She heard cries of pain – the ambush of her fellow agents must have failed. She moved faster now, running towards the cave to see if she could help.

A red blur passed her field of vision. 'Kara', Alex thought. Then there was a loud noise from crushing rocks not far to her left. After she had passed a few rocks she saw a horrifying scene: Supergirl lay on the ground, not moving with the Sterregoi on top of her. From her position Alex could see Kara's face clearly, it was in an unhealthy red/purple color.

Without hesitation, Alex took aim at the dark shaded alien above Supergirl and fired.

It wasn't a perfect hit, she had to admit. The electric charge almost hit Supergirl too but the shot landed on the Sterregoi's leg.

The force of the impact threw the Sterregoi away from Kara. Heavily, it landed on the ground and a spasm shook it's limbs. But Alex didn't pay any attention to it. She only worried about her sister.

Some of the most basic (and most vital) parts of her training to become an agent for the DEO had been checking the condition of an injured fellow agents on a mission. She checked for Kara's heartbeat now and relief overcame her as she felt her pulse. Weak and slow but Alex could feel it. There were not cuts or stabs, bulletproof skin seems to include the sharp claws of a Sterregoi. Also the color of her face slowly returned to normal but Alex noticed the bruises on her neck where the Sterregoi had choked Kara.

Then Kara opened her eyes and took a sharp, deep breath.

"Kara!" Alex exclaimed happily.

Kara started to cough. "Alex", she tried to say but her voice sounded very rough, it was hard to understand her and she grimaced in pain.

"Hush", Alex said. "You just had a..."

But she stopped when she saw a movement behind Kara. The Sterregoi got up and tried to stand but fell back on one knee. It shrieked at the two girls who just looked back at him and them half crawled, half stumbled away and out of sight.

Kara's breathing had returned to normal and after a few seconds of rest she got up again.

"I can finish this now", she said. "It is weak, this is our chance. There are other agents near the cave injured. You have to get them help."

Before Alex could stop her and tell her that she shouldn't go, that she needed a doctor and some rest, Supergirl rose in the air. All Alex could do was watch her sister fly away, following the Sterregoi.

Then she followed her sister's advice and went to the cave to look for the injured agents.

S

Supergirl didn't feel well. Her throat hurt, breathing wasn't as easy as it should be and her head felt dizzy. It didn't help that she was flying. Flying made her headache even worse, the brain was struggling to process all the information it received from Kara's senses. Her vision was a little blurry, her hearing sometimes more, sometimes less out of focus.

However, she was still able to make out movements of a dark figure underneath her on the ground. In the twilight it was already hard to recognize the Sterregoi as it ran limping, trying to get away.

Supergirl took a moment to collect her thoughts and senses, then rushed towards the alien.

But before she had reached it, she had to stop. The sudden change in speed and direction made her see stars and the dizziness came back stronger. She wasn't ready for a fight yet.

Slowly, quietly Supergirl landed on the ground, where the Sterregoi couldn't see her. Taking in deep breaths, she started to feel better. Her throat still hurt, but she could breathe freely again.

Supergirl got up and looked at the Sterregoi. And the Sterregoi looked back. It had seen her and started to run away. Apparently it had shaken off the aftereffects from the two electric shots that had hit her just moments ago. It ran fast.

And now Supergirl realized where they were. The Sterregoi had almost reached National City. The first buildings were just a mile away. She wanted to stop the Sterregoi from entering the city but it was too fast. It had a good headstart before Supergirl and she had trouble to keep up the speed of it. Within seconds they reached the first houses. The Sterregoi ran onto the street, passing speeding cars while Supergirl flew over them and slowly closed in on the creature.

Before she could reach it, though, the Sterregoi took a quick turn and vanished in a small, dark alley. By the time Supergirl landed in the alley, it had already climbed on a dumpster and jumped with a big leap up in the air. On level with the third floor it grabbed onto the railing of a fire escape. Then it leaped again and again, jumping up the entire building at the fire escape and climbed to the roof.

Supergirl had flown up and landed on the same roof. She wanted to talk to the creature. Tell him to stop fighting but seemed more like an animal than an intelligent being. It behaved like an animal: the cry was to cry intimidate opponents, it's actions were purely based on instinct instead of thought and reason, and it had made no attempts to communicate with any humans. Supergirl wondered how it was possible that it had arrived on earth in a high tech spaceship but she couldn't worry about that now. Not during the fight.

Actually, this was more running than fighting. As the Sterregoi started running again, Supergirl picked up the chase. They ran across the roofs now. From time to time they had to leap from one roof to the next and once, on a roof with clotheslines and drying bed sheets, Supergirl almost lost track of her adversary until she found a blanket with claw marks and followed the way behind it. There it was, just vanishing around a corner. It had reached the end of that roof and jumped over to the next one just as Supergirl turned around the corner. This time she didn't jump over the gap, though. She stopped, aimed and sent a short, low energy blast of heat out of her eyes at the Sterregoi's leg. The heat ray hit it's target and Supergirl had to feel a little sorry that the alien had to endure so much pain on it's legs. As she jumped over to the roof the Sterregoi fell down on all fours. There was a burn mark on it's right lower leg. When the exhausted Supergirl landed beside the creature, it kicked out with it's good leg and hit her in the stomach. She fell down but immediately got up again, simultaneously with the Sterregoi.

They looked at each other weary. Neither wanted to show the other one how badly they were hurt, how exhausted they felt.

Then, after a short, silent moment, both ran forwards at each other. And both tried to throw a punch with their right arm. Supergirl's fist met the Sterregoi's claws head-on. There was a loud bang caused by the collision, so loud, that it completely drowned out the sound of knuckles breaking under Supergirl's fist.

The Sterregoi had broken it's fingers and it yelled out in pain. Supergirl hadn't anticipated this crash either and suffered consequences of it too: her right hand had also made an unhealthy noise that nobody had heard because the crash of the impact was to loud. But now she could see, and most of all, feel how her knuckles started to swell and turn blue. She decided to fight with her left hand for now.

Trying to finally end this, she turned to the Sterregoi and punched him the head. She tried to knock him out but he leaped forwards and gave Supergirl a massive headbutt right on the nose. It made her stumble backwards and when she touched her nose with her hand, she felt blood.

That attack, though, must have drained the Sterregoi of it's last ounces of energy, it tumbled, fell down, and didn't get up.

When Supergirl was sure that the Sterregoi wouldn't get up in the next few hours, she sat down and leaned against a smokestack to rest a little.

This had been one of the hardest battles Supergirl had ever fought.

S

"Oh my god! Kara, you look terrible. What happened?"

"You should see the other guy." Kara chuckled and wiped some blood from under her nose.

She had just brought the Sterregoi to the DEO who had designed a special cell for him. Then she had immediately returned to the cave to look for her sister and the other agents.

"How is Luke Gordon", Kara asked. He was the one that had been stabbed by the Sterregoi when it ran out of the cave and she didn't have time to check for his condition.

Alex took a moment before she answered. "It doesn't look good. He's on the way to the DEO now but he had lost so much blood... He might not make it."

"Oh no." Kara was shocked to hear it. She hadn't known Gordon well but it still hurt like a sting in her heart. "Was anyone else injured?"

"Only minor cuts and bruises for a few others. They're fine."

"Thank god. Let's go back to see after Gordon", Kara suggested. She was done with this place, she just wanted to get away from the cave where their plan had failed so horribly.

Kara didn't want to fly back all the way alone, so she got in one of the SUV's with Alex. Even though they didn't talk much on the way, it was nice to be next to her sister, Kara thought.

They arrived at the DEO. In the command center Hank greeted them with a stern expression on his face.

"What's going on? How is Gordon?" Alex asked.

"He... he didn't make it. He passed away a few minutes ago."

Kara hid her face in her hands and Alex looked shocked.

"There was nothing that could have saved him. The doctors did everything they could."

"Of course they did everything", Alex said. "This is just so horrible. I knew him. Gordon... was such a friendly guy."

It took them all some time to deal with this. Even though every agent is aware of the risk they take when they go on a mission it doesn't make it any less painful for the bereaved.

Everyone was a lot more quiet today. Kara called Winn and explained what happened and he offered his condolences. Then Kara left the DEO to go home and rest. Hank had taken it upon himself to inform Gordon's wife, a task that nobody liked to carry out but Hank felt like it should be him he who delivered the message.

Kara arrived at home and just got ready for bed. She was too exhausted to do anything today and she knew that tomorrow, once she had a good night's sleep, the world would be a brighter place.

S

End of issue # 7

There is one more issue for Volume 1 coming up. So stay tuned to find out more about this strange alien spaceship that the Sterregoi arrived in. I hope you'll like it.