"The hell is a Gordonian?"
"I guess it's like a Thaanigarian but…green?"
"…"
"I know, I know."
Percy let out a breathe, pulling Kara a little closer on the couch. She'd gotten back to the house late, having spent almost the entire day with the League meeting with the head hierarchy of the invading army. The Thaanigarians, a group of humanoid aliens with thick, feathery wings like an angels, had descended upon Earth with an entire invading army. It had sparked more than a bit of a panic, and though the League had done what it could to stem the panic, but there was only so much they could do.
"You believe them?" He asked. Kara shrugged.
"Shayera and Carter vouch for them…"
"But," Percy prompted.
"But," sighed Kara, "I don't like it…" She worried at her lip, and began to idly play with Percy's fingers. "You don't send an entire army and claim peace. I don't know…Clark trusts the Hol's, and they obviously trust their own people, but I just don't like it."
"What does the rest of the League think?"
Kara shrugged, "Mixed bag, really. Diana wants to see the best in everyone but thinks we should be careful. Arrow and Canary are pretty skeptical, Shazam is…Shazam." Percy snorted. "The Lanterns are looking into it a little. According to them, the Gordonian's and Thaanigarians have been killing one another for centuries, so at least that part of the story seems to check out."
Percy shifted on the couch, repositioning himself so he could scratch behind her head.
"I don't like it," he said after a moment's silence. "Feels…"
"Hinky?" Grinned Kara, and Percy frowned good naturedly, poking her in the nose.
"Yes, hinky."
"What're you thinking?" She asked. Percy frowned, and Kara watched his brow furrow as it always did when he started thinking.
"I'm just thinking that this stinks of misdirection."
Kara waited for him to collect his thoughts. He idly played her hair as he thought.
"They knew enough to come here, and you said they contacted the League themselves, right?" She nodded, and Percy grunted. "Which means that they were aware of its existence, or at least that they had two of their own inside."
"Shayera mentioned that they've been sending annual reports since they came here," said Kara. Percy's brows rose.
"Bet the Bat loved that."
"Yeah, there was a bit of an episode," she chuckled, "But you were saying?"
"Right," he said, "So they knew about the League's existence, but chose not to send an advanced warning about this supposed invasion?" He scoffed, "Bullshit. If I was in their position, I'm sending a warning to my people as soon as I can." He shook his, "Something else is going on here, we just can't see it."
"You think it's an invasion?"
Percy frowned, "I don't think so," he mused. "It just…doesn't make much sense. There isn't much strategic value for them in Earth, at least none that I'm seeing. Seems like they had to come pretty far out of the way to get here, so what purpose would they have in trying to conquer the planet." He pressed a kiss to her hair, "Plus, it doesn't make sense for them to try and pull something when they know that there are some of the most powerful beings in the universe roaming around."
"Oh?" Kara said coyly, swiveling around in his arms to face him, "And who might these almighty defenders be?"
"Elastic man is pretty formidable."
Kara blinked, then scowled and pinched him hard in ribs. He yelped, and tightened his grip around her. He grinned, and bent down to capture her lips. She sighed happily, her eyes fluttering back as she traced her fingers along his abdominals. Her communicator beeped, and she swore, breaking off the kiss and reaching down to her purse, discarded on the floor.
"Hello?" She asked, not trying to hide her agitation.
"Apologies, Supergirl," came the deep baritone of Martian Manhunter, "But the Hawkman and Hawkgirl have called for an all-League meeting. It begins in fifteen minutes."
Kara groaned, collapsing back into Percy's chest. She was half tempted to tell Manhunter she couldn't make it. But she wasn't in the mood for catching hell from her cousin for missing a meeting.
"I'll be there," she sighed, and clicked off the communicator. She looked up at Percy, an apology already on her lips, but he just chuckled.
"Go," he gestured to the window. "Occupational hazard babe,"
"You're the greatest," she smiled, untangling herself from him, and pressing a quick kiss to his lips. In a flash, she changed and was flying out the window, racing high into the lower atmosphere.
Much of the League was already assembled as she arrived. She took her spot at the table, Diana seated to her left and pouring over a bevy of information on a holographic screen in front of her. Kara glanced around the room, but didn't see her cousin. Wanting to talk to someone, she leaned over and whispered to her friend.
"Percy doesn't like this," she said. Diana stopped what she was doing and looked up at her, she blinked, as it took a few moments for her to register what Kara had said.
"What are his thoughts?" She asked. Not for the first time, Kara was thankful for the older immortal. She knew Percy, knew his experiences and wasn't going to discount his judgement out of hand.
"He thinks it doesn't make sense for them to be here out of nowhere like this. That if they were genuinely concerned about the safety of the planet, they would have sent a warning first."
Diana nodded, worrying at her lip. "That concern has been raised as well. Both Shayera and Carter found it odd that they received no information of their comrade's sudden arrival. Shayera was a high-ranking officer in the Thaanigarian army, for them not to inform her of this potential threat is…odd."
Kara was about to respond, but was cut off as the doors to the meeting room opened and Clark and Batman, flanked by Shayera and Carter strode into the room.
"We have received a message from Thaanigarian high command," announced Hawkgirl. "They have requested our presence in the Sahara."
"The hell are they doing out there?" Asked Green Arrow.
"They have set up their forward operating base there," said Hawkman, "We are unsure why."
Kara found herself speaking without thinking.
"I don't love the sound of this." All eyes turned on her. She tried to ignore the stares and focused on her cousin. "They call us in the middle of the night, drag us out into the middle of nowhere without warning? It doesn't feel right."
"Are you suggesting that our people are planning treachery?" Demanded Hawkman, taking a menacing step forward. Shayera put a hand on her husband's shoulder, and spoke over him.
"These are our people, Kara, we trust them. They do not mean us harm."
"I agree with Supergirl," said Batman, cutting through the tension, "which is why we will be taking precautions."
Superman took a step forward, "We'll be splitting the League in half. The founders, Kara, and John," he gestured at the second Green Lantern, "and Shazam will be going to the meeting. The rest of the League will remain here on the Watchtower."
The Hol's looked displeased, but didn't raise any further objections.
"Captain Atom will be manning the Zeta terminal," continued Superman, "he will be prepared to send reinforcements at a moment's notice."
"Assuming things do go to hell," said Black Canary, "do we have any way of getting us back to the Watchtower? Are the portable Zeta's up and running?"
"Not yet," answered Martian Manhunter, "It is not an ideal situation, but it is the best we can do at the moment."
"And for the record," said Superman, clearly noticing the red twinge around Hawkman's neck, "This is just a precaution. A worst-case scenario. Chances are that the Thaanigarians are here for our own best interests."
"But it's better to be prepared for the unexpected, than to walk willingly into an ambush," said Batman coolly, clearly not caring if he offended the Thaanigarians in their midst. "Now let's go."
At the dismissal, the League all rose and began to gather into their assembled teams. Kara followed Diana out of the room, and down a corridor to the Zeta entrance. Captain Atom took his position behind the terminal, and began inputting coordinates.
"We put a tube in Nouakchott," he said, "it'll still be a hike to the FOB but it's better than flying all the way there."
"Everybody ready?" Asked Superman, glancing around the room. At everyone's nod, their world erupted in white light.
It was still a ten-minute flight to the Thaanigarian base from Nouakchott, The sun was just beginning to rise over the dunes when they got their first glimpse of the Thaanigarians. It wasn't a military complex, so much as it was a small city. Large, pristine metal towers lined a massive wall that Kara judged had to be at least three miles around. She could make out a number of massive gun emplacements, barracks, hangers, supply depots and endless waves of Thaanigarian soldiers marching up and down the compound.
But that wasn't everything. Confusingly, in the center of the miniature city, she saw what appeared to be massive, industrialized, construction equipment. Stranger than anything she'd ever seen before, and immensely complicated looking. She tried to get a better look at the odd technology, but couldn't make heads or tails of what it was for. The only reason she knew it was construction equipment was because it was currently in use. One of the machines scooping massive hunks of sand and earth free of the desert as others were pounding in metal pylons.
She didn't like this. She didn't like this whatsoever. Sure, if there really was an incoming invasion, then it made sense for the Thaanigarians to begin preparing for it, but this was…something else. This didn't look like a simple, short-term military encampment. She didn't know what this was.
They were met about halfway to the city by a platoon of Thaanigarians. In the lead was a scrawny looking man. Sinewy muscle covered his lithe frame, and his wings were a strong, healthy shade of gray. The group landed on a small dune maybe a mile from the city.
"Captain Kragger," greeted Shayera,
"Lieutenant Hol," said the man, Kragger. His gaze shot over the rest of the League, a dismissive sneer passing over his face for the briefest moment before morphing back into a ask of passive professionalism.
"I hope your journey wasn't too arduous," he said, "Commander Talak extends his apologies for the remoteness of our operation, but felt that it was…necessary. He did not want to scare the local population by building our encampment near any human settlements."
Kara frowned. There was a slight hiccup in his heart when he said that. The tiniest palpitation. She sniffed. He was sweating. Odd, given how cold it was in the desert with the sun still yet to rise. She glanced behind him, listening hard. The men behind Kragger…their hearts were hammering. They were sweating. Their grips on their strange looking weapons were tight. Strained. She scanned around the facility, looking. Listening. It had fallen quiet. Oddly quiet. But through the quiet, she could hear something. The soft shifting of metal. The creaking of gears turning against one another. She felt the minute shifts in the sand under her feet.
Then…chaos.
Pylons, the size of cars, sprang from the sand all around them, encircling the League. Electricity sparked and crackled from their jagged tips, and she just managed to dash out of the way before the circle erupted with electrical currents. The members of the League that hadn't been able to get out of the way screamed as millions of volts of electricity scorched through them.
Kara scrambled, desperate to stop the assault, but in the short time she'd stopped to gather her bearings, the legion of Thaanigarian soldiers had turned their weapons on her. Jets of green energy arced towards her, and her entire world erupted in pain. The kind of pain she had only ever felt a handful of times before. The pain of the radioactive mineral of her home planet.
Kryptonite.
She was vaguely aware that she was screaming, but she hardly noticed. She couldn't move, couldn't think. Her entire world was little more than pain. Agony. She desperately tried to do something, anything. Someone was shouting, but she couldn't hear what it was. Something beside her exploded, and the pylons were blown to ribbons, courtesy of Green Lantern. The explosion threw the soldiers off-balance, and the pain momentarily dissipated, just long enough for her to dash out of the way.
But the Thaanigarian ambush had taken its toll. Hawkman and Hawkgirl were both down for the count. As were Batman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman. Her cousin was curled up on the ground a dozen or so yards away. Kara realized that he must have been hit by the same attack that had hit her.
Plasma fire from Thaanigarian weapons erupted around them. Shazam was swarmed by nearly a dozen of the hawks, and was under a vicious barrage of various sparking, metallic weaponry. The Green Lanterns were trying desperately to hold their own, back-to-back and holding off fire as green bubbles of willpower slowly cracked under the barrage of fire.
Kara tried to get up, to race to their assistance, but the soldiers with the Kryptonite had recovered. She tried to get out of the way, but her movement was sluggish. Hampered by the first does of the radioactive rock. Wave after wave of pain slammed into her, and she collapsed once more.
She was vaguely aware of someone screaming in her communicator. But the voice was unintelligible. Made deaf by the intermittent static and noise of battle.
"…tower under att…requesting…everywhere…someone…ease…."
The last thoughts running through her mind, before darkness encroached around her…
Were what was going to happen to Percy.