Chapter 8 - Awakening

The persistent, blaring klaxon roused Kara. Blinking away her fogginess, she weakly lifted her hand to her eyes, shielding them from the bright light as she tried to focus on the figure by her bed.

"Kara!" Cat gushed with happy surprise, before being violently shoved into an array of medical monitors, helplessly tumbling to the floor.

The male intruder, in black DEO tactical gear, barreled towards Kara with a glowing green dagger.

Kara's eyes widened as she grabbed his forearms. A jolt of pain shot through her and nausea welled up as she struggled with him, unable to keep the green blade from inching closer. Her weakened state would have made it difficult to keep the blade away, but the kryptonite made the struggle impossible.

After a dull thud, the man collapsed.

"Kara! Are you all right?" Cat asked urgently, tossing the fire extinguisher, unconcerned that it hit the felled man before rolling off and clanking onto the floor.

Kara grimaced as she shifted on her bed to distance herself from the green dagger on the floor. Cat realized what Kara was doing and immediately acted to remove the threat. Quickly stepping over the man, she grabbed the dagger and threw it out the medbay door, before returning to the disoriented patient.

"Kara," Cat breathed out with relief, instinctively reaching out to gently cup her cheek and look her over. "Had I known a loud noise would wake you up, I would have brought some pots and pans to bang together," she said with a smirk.

Kara trembled as she looked uneasily at her unconscious attacker, then to her protector. "N . . .nahkluv."

"What?" Cat eyed her curiously, wishing the annoyingly loud klaxon would stop.

Before Kara could respond, another violent explosion shook the building. Debris fell from the ceiling, hitting Cat.

"Zha!" Kara frantically called out, stumbling out of the bed to go to Cat's side.

SGSGSG

After nearly an hour of utter chaos, the gunfire and intermittent explosions stopped and the turmoil in Prisoner Retention was finally quelled as J'onn returned the last escaped prisoner to his cell.

"Damn it!" Alex spat in frustration as she unsuccessfully tried to free her foot from beneath a slab of concrete a prisoner threw at her. She spotted the director. "J'onn! I could use some help here!"

J'onn quickly went to her side, pulled the slab off of her foot, and helped her stand up. "You Okay?"

Alex tried to put weight on her newly freed foot. "Ahhh!" she moaned in pain. "Shit!"

"Guess not."

"Could be worse," Alex said tensely, glancing around and spotting the dead prisoner, who attacked her. "I could be him."

Spotting Lucy arriving and checking on a few agents, the Director called out. "REPORT!"

Lucy quickly stepped over some debris to get to their side. Her brunette hair and black uniform were covered in grey dust.

"Not a lot to report yet, Sir," Lucy said and coughed. "The attack has apparently stopped but there are at least three dead. One agent, Buchanan at the armory, and two . . . ," Lucy said then saw the body near Alex. "three prisoners," she amended. "I don't have a full assessment on base-wide casualties, injuries, or damage yet. Communications are down and the medbay and labs are inaccessible, blocked by debris."

"Kara, Mom . . . ," Alex exhaled worriedly.

"Alex, that area was furthest from the fighting," J'onn offered softly.

"And Vasquez is leading a team to get through to them," Lucy added, receiving a brisk nod from Alex, who trusted Susan completely.

"I have Agent Goodwin working on reestablishing base-wide communications. Grady is leading a team to search each sector for any signs of the attackers or additional bombs. And Quinlan is leading the cleanup of our command center, which thankfully has minimal damage," Lucy continued her report. "But for now, we don't know anything about the attackers or their motivation," she said with frustration.

"It was a messy attack," Alex offered thoughtfully, her mind racing. J'onn eyed her curiously.

"Okay . . . ," Lucy said as she wiped away a layer of dust off her shoulder.

Alex shook her head. "How many prisoners went for the armory?"

"One. The one that was killed by Agent Buchanan, before he succumbed to his injuries," Lucy reported.

"That just doesn't make sense. The emergency containment fields came on line, neutralizing most of the aliens' powers and securing the exits. So, to have a fighting chance of escaping against armed Agents with the authorization to kill on sight, they would have needed to get weapons from the armory . . . or take down the entire containment system, including the emergency backup, which wasn't event attempted," Alex argued.

"How would they know how to take the entire system down?" Lucy challenged. "Information about DEO operations is extremely well-guarded. Especially with recent upgrades to information security and compartmentalization," she added, knowing her father was behind most of those upgrades.

"The same way they got access to the DEO to plant the bombs undetected. The DEO is compromised," Alex declared, prompting Lucy to frown, knowing she was obviously right. "But why waste that access with a sloppy prison break?" She questioned.

"Perhaps the goal wasn't to free the prisoners. Had our agents not been as disciplined and well-trained, many more aliens would have died, which might have been the goal," J'onn offered, prompting Alex to nod before her thoughts turned to Kara and her vulnerability.

Lucy noticed J'onn and Alex look at each other worriedly. "What?!"

"It was a diversion," Alex stated with dread.

"Director!" A dusty and smudged Vasquez swiftly joined them and held out clear-plastic evidence bag with a glowing green dagger inside it. "I found this in the corridor near Medbay," she urgently reported.

"Fuck," Lucy said.

SGSGSG

As J'onn phased through a wall to get to the medbay and labs as quickly as possible, Vasquez and her team labored to remove the rubble blocking the path. Agents who were not assigned to a specific recovery team pitched in, including Lucy, who was the one coordinating the teams. She was not about to sit still, just waiting for reports when she had two good hands.

Lucy glanced over to Alex, who was slowly removing rubble while grimacing in a mix of worry and physical pain from her ankle. "Have faith, Alex," Lucy said. "All Danvers women are formidable. And the one that's unconscious has a fierce guard dog . . . um, cat protecting her."

"I second that," Susan said confidently, removing another rock and dropping it in a growing pile, sweat dripping from her dust-covered brow.

Alex looked at Lucy and Susan appreciatively, but fear was winning against faith.

SGSGSG

"J'onn! Thank God," Eliza called with relief, carefully holding her arm as she stood from her lab stool to meet him. Dr. Hamilton was beside her with a gash over her brow.

"Are you two ok?" he asked, glancing over them.

"Sir, all hazardous materials and project samples have been secured, so the area is safe from chemical, biological, and radiological hazards," the Chief Medical Officer succinctly reported. "Dr. Danvers is in need of an X-ray and cast for her broken arm. But we have no access to the Medbay to treat her or . . . check on our current patient," she added uncomfortably.

"I couldn't check on Kara!" Eliza cried out in frustration. "Something is blocking the door. And from what I could see, she wasn't in her bed. Without her powers . . . ." Eliza trailed off, distraught.

J'onn shared a worried glance with the women before the three quickly headed to the Medbay, where the Martian paused a moment to assess the area. He swiftly cleared the large debris, then twisted and tore the dented doors from their frame. After tossing the doors out of the way, he turned to the anxious women and held his hand up, signaling them to wait.

"J'onn?" Eliza asked in confusion.

"Wait," he urged quietly, making her sigh with frustration. Eliza complied with a frown, but strained to get a glimpse inside medbay through the newly opened doorway.

J'onn scanned the room, which had no signs of Kara or Cat. What he did see was an agent prone on the floor, covered with ceiling debris. "Dr. Hamilton!" he called, carefully putting his fingers to the agent's jugular as the CMO came in, with Eliza following.

Eliza looked around, surprised to only see a downed agent.

"He has a pulse," J'onn announced.

Dr. Hamilton nodded as she knelt down beside him, and started to assess the agent's condition. After a nod from her, J'onn moved him to the medical bed.

"Mom!" Alex called out as she quickly hobbled towards them, with the help of Susan at her side. "Are you okay?"

"Broken arm, manageable for now," Eliza reported confidently.

Immediately taking stock of the situation, Alex asked with concern "Where the hell is Kara?"

"And Miss Grant," Susan added, glancing over the medbay.

"We don't know," Eliza said uneasily, then looked at her limping daughter. "What happened to your foot?!"

"A sprained ankle with bad bruising," Alex reported, then glanced at the prone agent with surprise. His emergency station was not in the medbay. "Williams is our mole?" she said with irritation, trying to remember all her interactions with him and if anything suspicious stuck out. But nothing came to mind, damn it. She should have noticed something, she thought angrily.

"Our mole? What's going on, Alex!" Eliza demanded.

"Vasquez found a Kryptonite dagger in the corridor near medbay. We think all the chaos was a distraction to get a shot at Kara," Alex said tersely.

"But . . . that doesn't explain where she is now," Eliza responded worriedly, glancing over the room again for any clues.

J'onn touched his now-working earpiece. "I'm here, AD Lane. Hear you loud and clear. What?! What do you mean it's gone?!"