Lena stays close to Bolt's side. Unsurprisingly, she feels much more secure when she's at the side of a massive dragon-like animal, who would have guessed?
It's a little difficult manoeuvring through the hallways with Bolt, the Kryptonian ship not built to have a H'Raka roaming its halls. The cargo hold is plenty big enough for him but they aren't leaving him behind so instead, they have to slowly coax him to follow them, the nervous animal unsure the entire time.
To be fair, the distraction that Bolt is giving them helps them not to panic too much about the prospect that the door to the ship was already open when they entered which means that any number of wild animals could be onboard waiting for them. That's a fun thought. Not.
Kara leads the way, Alex barely a step behind her, occasionally grabbing at her sister's arm to make her point the flashlight in another direction so she can see and making Kara more and more annoyed every time she does it, the feeling of being grabbed when she's already on edge about to make her react in a way that is less than dignified.
Lena notices the last time that Alex does it, Kara shrugs her off rather harshly and the hand not holding the flashlight is clenched remarkably tight. "Kara?"
Kara is quick to turn to check on her, protective at every turn. "Yeah? Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, Can you let Alex have the light and lead the way?" Lena nods to Alex, who just looks confused.
Kara looks equally confused but that just leads her to hurry up and hand Alex the flashlight, concerned about why Lena might need her to do that. The way she passes it to Alex is actually kind of aggressive, she pushes it into Alex's hand without checking she's got a good grip on it and barges passed her so she can get to Lena, oblivious to the harsh way she's treating her sister.
Alex would be annoyed about it but really, she's just happy to have gotten the flashlight to herself. They still have one more since two of the three packs are still with them but Alex knows her flashlight is right at the bottom of hers so she thought it was just easier to briefly redirect Kara's whenever she wanted a good look at something than go searching through her pack when Kara's light is already plenty bright enough to illuminate their way.
Lena waits until Kars is right beside her before reaching out to clasp their hands together, keeping Kara at her side and preventing her from straying. "Hey."
"Wait, did you ask me to come over here so you could hold my hand?"
"Yeah, that and because if your jaw clenched any tighter, you'd be grinding your teeth into dust and there's no dentist out here." Lena shrugs, tapping her thumb against the back of Kara's hand mindlessly.
Kara squeezes her hand back, grateful that Lena is so observant because she'd feel really bad if she hurt Alex in any way just because she's on edge and overly reactive, something she can't deny she is and something she wishes she wasn't.
Alex keeps inching ahead, leading them through the ship. It's a big ship but it isn't too hard for her to figure out which way she's got to head, they're just heading from the back of the ship to the front, so it should be a straight shot. Should be.
They come to a point that makes them stop. They need to think and to evaluate their options.
Alex shines the flashlight around, letting them all see what their choice is before looking back at both Lena and Kara. "What do we do?"
Kara stares up ahead at the spilt in their path where the ship changes its shape, splitting into two separate floors as compared to the previous one they were contending with. "I don't remember whether or not the control room is on the upper or lower floor."
"Can you try and remember?" Alex pushes, apprehension sitting heavy on her shoulders and making her slouch despite her tensed muscles.
Kara just shakes her head, "I don't know, Alex."
Alex sighs harshly and it makes Kara feel the need to swallow down her guilt, upset that she's upset Alex by not knowing even when there's a rational part of her brain telling her that she hasn't done anything wrong and Alex hasn't even accused her of anything.
Lena steps forward, bringing Kara with her by their joined hands. "Can I have the flashlight for a moment?"
Alex hands it over without a fight, relinquishing it happily because it means she isn't about to have to make the decision for the group and end up accidentally sending them off somewhere dangerous.
With the flashlight now in hand, Lena shines it at the walls, which are mostly just some kind of metal that is white and has small golden ridges across it in what is either a pattern or some kind of meaningful message she's not privy to.
She runs her hand over the nearest part of the wall, letting go of Kara so she can inspect it much more closely, struggling to hold the flashlight and touch the wall with just one hand. "Hmm." She hums as she thinks, her brain whizzing and connecting dots that she previously didn't know could be connected.
"Alright." She murmurs and then looks back over her shoulder. "Kara, do you know how to get into the control panels in the walls?"
"Yeah. I do know that one," Kara manages to summon up a smile, glad to have an answer to at least one of their questions. "The whole wall panel will come off in a section. Here, let me." She runs her fingers across the open space of the wall and over the little ridges she remembers her father cursing back when she was younger because they make it harder to find the groove needed to take off the wall panel, their whole design built to mask the gaps for taking the panels on and off.
It takes her a minute to find it. She knows what she's looking for but Bolt is clunking his massive feet on the ground, unhappy that they aren't moving anymore and his nerves are easily matched by both Lena and Alex because Lena is running her fingers over the grip of the flashlight, her nails dragging over the rubber grip to distract her from the overwhelming urge to run and hide. Alex isn't much better, tugging on her sleeves and cracking her knuckles interchangeably.
Kara tries her best to ignore it and just keeps searching until her fingertips fall into the little divot in the wall, one that would have been much easier to find if there was electricity flowing through to the ginormous strip lights in the ceiling. She presses down and as she does so, the panel swings open like a door. "Got it."
She pulls it open all the way before taking hold of the door and pushing it up and just as she has seen her father and her father's colleagues do many a time, she lifts it right off its hinges and moves it aside, leaning it up against the panel beside where she's working. "Ok. Light?" She gets Lena's attention, holding her hand out for the flashlight that has been in all of their hands at the point.
Lena gives it to her but shuffles over to press into her side so she can see what's going on inside the panel.
Kara begins to shine the light into specific parts of the control panel, taking stock of the wires and pipes and circuit boards that she's just exposed. With nervous, shaky fingers, she reaches out to move some of the bundles of wires out of the way so she can see everything going on, lurching back in shock and fear as she uncovers a snake dangling from a pipe and staring right at her.
Lena stumbles back with her, her heart beating so loudly in her ears and her back pressing up to Bolt, who doesn't seem to mind and has actually kind of settled a little in the wake of the pressure of her body against his winged side.
"What is it?" Alex asks, her gun suddenly in her hand and her finger hovering over the trigger.
"There's a snake in the control panel," Kara replies in a hushed voice.
Alex frowns. "Why are you whispering?"
"I don't know."
Alex shakes her head and takes the sword from the sheath at Lena's side, directing the point of it into the panel and moving the wires out of the way to get back to the snake, an awful deep pink thing that is obviously a resident of The Scarlet Jungle, its skin the perfect camouflage against a lot of the plants, the colours close enough that it can't be seen amongst a lot of the foliage, which is kind of terrifying.
Alex nudges the tip of the blade forward until she can see the snake and then quickly jabs it forward in an attempt to slice and dice it. Instead, it just falls to the bottom of the panel with the slightest bit of pressure, stiff and dead as a doornail. "Well, that's been dead a while. Think we should take it for Astra, get some bonus points for bringing her an extra sample?"
"If you get it" Kara curls her lip in disgust, "I'm not touching that thing."
Alex gives it another jab with the sword to confirm it really is dead before she reaches out and quickly grabs its tail, moving quicker than Kara has ever seen her move as she whips the cover off the top of Kelex and drops the snake inside before covering it up again. "Ok, you can do whatever you were doing before again." She waves back at the panel with a limp hand, stepping back because after picking up a dead snake with her bare hand, she's done her part as far as she's concerned.
Kara gestures for Lena to come closer again, something Lena is hesitant to do. "What is it you wanted to look at in here?"
"Something I've noticed in a lot of alien ships is that they put maps in their control panels, often not of the actual ships, but of the wires so you can find where to fix your technical problems but most wires are kept in the control room so if we follow the bulk of the wires, we find the control room."
Kara's eyes light up and she directs the flashlight down to the floor where the snake just fell before running her hand across it, brushing away all of the dust and dirt that has collected in there. Her efforts pay off too, she uncovers a laminated page full of Krytponese and a rudimentary design of the ship.
She picks it up and studies it for a moment. "I guess us Kryptonians aren't like other aliens. I've got a simple blueprint of the ship labelled with what each room is. The control room is on the upper floor but has access to the room below it, which is the engine room. We can go either way and still get where we need to go, basically.
"Oh, ok." Alex sounds happier now and suddenly remembering herself, hands the sword back to Lena before finally digging through her own pack to find her flashlight too so they don't have to keep on passing Kara's back and forth between them.
Lena takes a deep, composing breath, gripping the sword in her hand rather than sheathing it again, noticing Kara making sure her shirt is tucked behind the knife at her waist so she can get to it easily if she needs to.
They set back off, Kara keeping hold of the page she just acquired in case they need it and holding her flashlight at hip level, not being as careful to shine it in every nook and cranny now that Alex has taken over that job with hers, using the remote for the Kelex in her other hand to bring him along with them.
Together, they manage to make it to the door to the control room with nothing scary jumping out at them, something they are immensely grateful for, and it leads to them all sighing in relief collectively.
There's a screen beside the door and a manual crank just below it and it doesn't take much power of deduction to figure out that the door opens on its own when there's electricity but since there's not, they have to do this the hard way.
Kara steps up to the crank, neither Lena nor Alex making any attempt to do so, just looking at her expectantly so she tucks the map into her back pocket, folding it with a little bit of difficulty because of the lamination.
The flashlight gets clamped between her thighs and both hands are then free to start cranking, the mechanism is extraordinarily stiff and rusted so it's very hard work that she's not getting any help with.
She heaves and sweats for well over a minute before Alex puffs out an impatient breath, "Need a hand."
Kara grunts, "I've got it."
"You don't look like you've got it, Supergirl."
"Shut up." Kara snaps, the annoyance making her all the more determined to manage it on her own just so she can prove to Alex that she's just as strong when she's powerless as when she's under a yellow sun even if she knows she's being silly. She'll probably laugh about this when they are back on Earth waiting for the next problem they will have to solve.
With that surge of motivation, Kara pushes the crank hard enough for the door to open just a few inches, enough for her to be able to shove her foot in the gap to hold it open and be able to grip each sliding door to push them open that way since it gives her much more leverage to get them open.
They are instantly blinded by the amount of light in the room, the windows all letting in the light from outside, reflecting in a deep red glow from both the colour of the sun and the reflections of all the trees around.
"We made it," Lena announces with a smile pushing past Kara to step inside, Bolt following close behind her and further pushing Kara out of the way, eliciting an indignant sound of pure offence.
"Rude." Kara finally manages to get out, following her in and locating the main console immediately. She heads right for it, eyes pinned on her goal to the point where she trips over something because she's not looking at the floor.
Kara lands with a harsh thud and skids across the floor slightly. "Ow!"
"Are you serious?" Alex guffaws but her laughter and her smile drop rapidly when she sees what Kara tripped over. "Oh shit."
"What?" Kara asks, slowly pushing herself back up onto her feet and taking Lena's hand as it gets offered to her. She sees Alex staring at something wide-eyed and instinctively rushes to see what she's looking at.
A pile of bones just a couple of feet away from her has her stumbling backwards, Lena's body preventing her from getting too far. They are very obviously Kryptonian and have been thoroughly licked clean. "Oh, that's not good."
"Maybe, maybe not." Alex says, "We already figured the owners of the ships would be dead, come on, it's obvious that the ship has been here for a while, I guess we know what happened to them though."
Kara ducks her head, lifting it almost immediately when she realizes it makes her look at the bones when she does so, something she very much doesn't want to do. It makes her feel physically ill to look at them and she's really not in the mood for that, they have work to do. "That doesn't make me feel any better."
Alex's eyebrows pull together in pity, "I know. It doesn't make me feel particularly good either. Let's just get the power back on and figure out what we're going to do from there, alright?"
"Yeah, ok," Kara says, trying to dismiss the awful situation so she can just get back on track. She turns back to the console she was heading for before she tripped and pulls out the chair in front of it, pausing before she sits down because there's a big blood splatter across it. "Don't sit in that." She announces, pushing it to one side and instead looking over the controls while remaining standing.
Lena's eyes are watching her closely, stuck between wanting to embrace her and make her feel better the only way she knows how to and wanting to let her get on with her task so they can get out of here, far away from all of the horrors in this tin can.
Kara works on the controls quickly, finding the power button and then her fingers rapidly working across the screens to bring the lights back on. It probably takes her less than twenty seconds to do so and it's actually kind of impressive to watch.
She steps back from the console and for a moment, Lena is confused because nothing appears to happen, the system takes a few seconds to kick in before she hears the generators begin to come alive and then the lights flicker on, the console lighting up with it now that it's officially turned on.
"Alright, so we've got light. Now we just have to move on to whatever the next step is." Kara says, eyes flickering across the screens and console, trying to find something to give her a clue about where they should go next.
She pulls out the map of the ship from her pocket and scans what each compartment is and if any of them might hold anything that could help them get out of this ship and back to somewhere they can take off from and meet up with the others. They have everything they need and more, everything except an exit strategy.
"Uh," Kara tilts her head as she spots something on the lower floor, "huh, it looks like there might be a little armoury section downstairs, that could definitely be helpful."
"Are you kidding? That's more than helpful." Alex grins, looking over her shoulder but then moving back when she's reminded that she just looked at a page that's in a language she barely speaks. She recognises maybe six of the characters.
Kara cracks a tiny smile, "ok, let me see if I can check the system to get the doors open. It's taking a while for it all to start working again, probably because it's been sat idle for so long."
After a little bit of clicking and tapping of the controls, Kara sighs. "The doors are jammed, those doors don't have manual cranks down there, I'll have to get the pressure systems going myself down in the engine room. Give me a minute and I'll get them open, maybe by then the rest of the systems will be up and running."
"I'll come and help you." Lena offers, partially because she feels safer with Kara but mostly so she can snoop at the Kryptonian systems, a little upset they don't have time for Kara to explain all of this technology to her so she can study it. It's incredible. Maybe there are blueprints in The Fortress of Solitude for Kara to show her when they get back to Earth though.
There's a hatch in the floor just off to the side from the control panel and Kara makes quick work of opening it up and peering down it, wondering why there's such a big hatch until she comes to the conclusion that it must be so big because it's easier for the engineers and mechanics to get new engine parts in by taking the glass windscreen out and bringing it straight down into the ship that way.
It makes it easy to climb down the ladder and land on the metal floor with a quiet clang, the grates shifting slightly under her feet.
The lights definitely make it easier for her to find the piece of machinery she needs and she's very happy she doesn't have to wander around with a flashlight now, this is much better.
"Over here." She calls out to Lena when she sees where she needs to work to get the pressure back to the doors. "Can you come and help me—"
CLANG!
Both Lena and Kara whip their heads around to see where the obnoxious noise has just come from and breathe out the biggest sigh of relief ever when they see Bolt splayed across the floor having just dropped himself down into a room full of very sensitive equipment a dragon-like animal probably shouldn't be around.
"Bolt, buddy, what are you doing?" Kara approaches him, rubbing her fingers beneath his chin and smiling at him as he presses himself closer to her. "You're basically a puppy, you know that, right?"
Alex peers her head down, "If you think I'm staying up here by myself, you're very wrong."
"Come down then." Lena rolls her eyes and gets to work on sorting the pressure out for the doors, the system for it particularly easy to figure out, she's seen a lot like it before.
Alex is at their side in an instant. "It's creepy up there by yourself."
Kara just shrugs and works with Lena, getting the pressure up to the level they need in just a few minutes and only a small amount of difficulty.
"Ok then, I'll go and open up the doors now." Kara is about to head up the ladder but there's a small screen on the wall beside it, remarkably similar to the one outside the control room door. Upon further inspection, it's clear that it's a summary of the ship's status and they can open the doors through it. Jackpot, they won't have to head back upstairs then.
Kara flicks through the menu part of the screen first, trying to get to the door controls quickly so they won't have to spend any more time here than absolutely necessary and also so she can get her hands on a weapon that will have some actual power behind it. A sword and a knife are pretty good but not against leopards with immensely thick skin, that's just asking for trouble and they find enough trouble without asking for it.
"Damn," Kara mutters. "I can't open only the doors to the armoury, I can only open all of them. If want to only open certain ones I would need a key card or handprint access, which only the crew have and for one, I'm not crew and secondly, we don't have a crew member or a hand of a crew member on us."
"I'd be worried if you did have the severed hand of a crew member, Kara." Alex tries to joke but it falls flat, nobody is really in the mood for jokes, they just want to get out of there. It doesn't stop Alex from awkwardly chuckling at her own joke though.
Lena starts climbing the ladder back up the stairs and only when she's up at the top does she speak. "Are you guys coming? Just open the doors, we don't have much of a choice so we might as well get it out of the way and then head off."
Kara tilts her head, acquiescing and just doing what Lena says, opening up all of the doors so they have access to every room in the ship rather than just the hallways that run across the entire ship. Once that's done, she climbs the ladder after Lena, taking her hand when it's offered to help her up the last few steps. "Thanks."
"No problem, darling," Lena answers, with a tiny smile, her attempt at calming Kara's nerves along with her own.
Kara's nerves don't calm though, especially when she spots what's on the screen of the control panel now that the system has finally kicked in fully. "There's a breach on the left side of the ship."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning there's a massive hole in the side of the ship and we just opened the doors letting any animals that could wander in come right to us." Kara runs a hand through her hair, stressed beyond belief. "We can't not go to the armoury so we're going to have to go through the ship even when we might run into a bunch of wild animals trying to do to us what they did to that guy." She points to the pile of bones, her stomach churning.
Alex, whose head is just poking out of the hatch, gulps audibly. "Please tell me I just heard that wrong."
Kara brings her hands up behind her head, turning her back on Alex and Lena for a second so she can think. "We need a new plan. The first step is to secure ourselves in here so we can make a better plan."
Alex and Lena share a look, one that holds an entire conversation, one where they debate following Kara's instructions but ultimately decide that they don't have enough choices to try and do anything other than make for the crank beside the door.
Alex reaches it first, working to crank it shut as quickly as she can, wishing she hadn't made a jab at Kara earlier because it's much harder than she thought it would be. "Wait, we have power now, can't we just shut it that way?"
"No, I set it to open all the doors and keep them open so it has to be done manually," Kara answers quickly on her way to try and get Bolt back up the hatch, something she already knows is going to be hard work, even without having to watch her back down there.
She plants her foot on the first rung of the ladder and begins to descend but as she does so, she peers down to find Bolt huddled against the wall, beginning to whine and stamp his feet.
She follows his line of sight to see exactly what has caused him to act like this and for a second, she freezes.
It's too late, they're inside.
She's not leaving him behind, they can't get home without him. She drops down the hatch, forgoing the rest of the ladder completely and does the only thing she can, she jumps onto his back and tells him to fly, her thighs digging into his sides as he tries to lift off towards the hatch, a space far too small for him when his wings are spread.
He gets caught but his front legs and the majority of Kara get through the gap, the pure strength in his front legs keeping them up while Kara climbs off him and onto the upper floor before gripping his head harness and pulling him up. Lena rushes over to grab the other side, not yet aware of the catastrophe that's happening below them.
As they have him three-quarters of the way free, he lets out a mighty scream and a breath of fire, the sound deafening.
Just a second after the first scream, there's a second and it just emboldens them to pull harder, to try and save him from the teeth and claws gnawing at him from below.
The pain and the help he's getting seem to help him and on pure adrenaline, he tucks his wings and drags himself up and out of the hatch, sprinting his way across the room and pressing himself against the far wall, the door now shut, thanks to Alex, so he can't escape the control room.
Kara flings the hatch door shut as quickly as she can and locks it. Searching for the poor H'Raka as soon as she's done, her eyes are immediately assaulted with the sight of blood.
They have a severely injured H'Raka and they have been cornered into one room. They have nowhere to go.