The Power Girl
By Alejandro Gonzalez

PHASE ONE – Power Girl

CHAPTER ONE

"Hurry!" A man screamed, sprinting as sweat poured down his face. "The teleporter's only going to be in proper alignment for a few moments!" His short brown hair clumped with wetness as his ragged breaths stabbed at the cold climate-controlled air of the transport building. He carried in his arms a small baby girl, tiny tufts of blonde hair shaking back and forth as she cried. Guards' footsteps thundered behind as his wife and he sprinted onward. Six and a half months he'd put into these calculations; they weren't about to get him now.

"Jor-El! They're gaining on us!" Lara, his wife, shouted, looking behind her as she ran.

He pressed a button on his belt computer, and the steel doors ahead began to shut. Both of them dashed through, and he clicked another button. Thunderous explosions sounded right outside the transport chamber.

Sixteen technicians took notice immediately. A clamor arose as shouts of protest echoed. Jor-El held up his blaster pistol and fired a single shot. "Listen! You all are going to flee the chamber through the ventilation!" He announced. "Anyone who disobeys will be killed!" The scientists scurried about, pulling off the grate to the ventilation ducts and crawling out. He immediately grabbed a transport vehicle and set his daughter in it. Next to her he placed a single piece of metal, a hexagonal prism, with his family crest, a shape resembling an 'S' on top and bottom faces.

Lara began typing memorized commands into the computer's holographic keyboard. "Are you sure the coordinates are right, and she won't be subject to the disease?" She looked to her daughter, beginning to quiet down in the vehicle's inner seat.

"She'll be fine, Lara," Jor-El replied. "The pestilence won't get to her. In fact, once she gets to Earth's orbit, not much of anything will get to her." He set up the vehicle and closed the lid, kissing his daughter on the cheek once more. He then set up a series of calculations on each terminal. "I'm going to trust what that Earth man said."

"That may be true," Lara protested, "but can you be sure the coordinates are correct? You might be off by several years on the distance. You don't want her to materialize in deep space."

Jor-El shook his head. "No, our Kara will materialize on Earth," he said. "To a six sigma degree of certainty, I've pinpointed the surface. Her cells will begin metabolizing solar energy into power within microseconds of arrival." He looked at his wife.

"What if she materializes in open ocean?"

"She could materialize in an active volcano," Jor-El protested. "There is no climate on Earth the vehicle can't safeguard her from. I've checked. Lara, the only place she isn't safe, is Krypton."

Lara felt moisture on her face. She wiped her mouth, and drew her hand up. She gasped; what greeted her was the familiar red blood with purple streaks going through it. "Jor-El," she uttered, tears welling up.

He shook his head in sorrow. "The damned fools on the ruling council didn't understand in time," he thought out loud. "The biological weapon didn't just stop the civil war; it's going to kill us all. I pray I'm off on a calculation somehow."

The ceiling opened up slightly, as five particle cannons pointed at the vehicle. Their hair stood on end as electricity charged the air. Strange colors and odors appeared as waves of warped space entered the air. Five red beams impacted a sphere around the vehicle. Errant bolts struck safety railings and charred them black. Power circuits held, but barely. Jor-El smiled; he hadn't been wrong on the circuitry requirements.

The smell of melting steel filled the air as the doors were burned open by torches. Neither one cared as a brilliant flash lit up the entire chamber, all the way to its twenty-meter ceiling. A small pile of charred pieces of safety paper were left as the vehicle had vanished into thin air. Soldiers ran, but stopped, as the El's had succeeded in their mission.

A goateed man of powerful build stepped forth. Blood oozing from his nose, purple tinged streaks in red blood. He said not a word as his enemy and former friend Jor-El, surrendered effortlessly to him, smiling. Zod new the smile meant success. He swore mentally he would locate the interloper who'd left the planet.

Millions of light years away, on a small blue planet, a sphere of red light emerged out of nothing six feet above grass. A bolt of lightning shot out in multiple directions as a craft roughly eight feet long and five feet wide materialized and hovered above the grassy field. A moment passed, and it landed. "Arrival on Earth complete, Kara Jor-El," a computerized voice said.

A vehicle drove up, startled by the lightning display. A young woman and man stepped out of the pickup truck and walked carefully up to a safe distance ten feet away from the craft. The young man shook his head in disbelief. "Oh my god, it's a spaceship!" he said. He slapped himself. "Is this real? Anne, don't get any closer!"

The woman's curiosity got the better of her. She found herself stepping closer. A few feet more, and she dashed up. "Holy shit, James! Look!" She stared at the baby in disbelief.

He couldn't believe his eyes. "It's a kid!"

He ran to his truck and got a crowbar. With a nudge, he got the bar under the glass and began to tug. It gave way surprisingly easily. Upon opening, the small piece of metal next to her embedded itself in a port next to the control console. A hologram appeared in front of the two. "Hello, people of Earth," a man in an exotic uniform introduced. "I am Jor-El. I am a basic recording. You will learn more in time. Right now, you have found my daughter, Kara, and I ask that you take care of her. By the time she is old enough to understand this message, she may be the only survivor of a deadly plague and bioweapon built to end war, but may have ended all life on Krypton."

The young woman and man on Earth stared in disbelief. After a few minutes, the woman spoke up. "My name is Anne Starr," she replied. "This isn't a joke, is it?"

"That thing's a recording," James interrupted, "it ain't going to respond to you."

"I am a recorded consciousness," Jor-El corrected, "and I can respond. To answer your question, no, this is no joke."

James looked forward suddenly as if he'd been shot. "Uh, um, so, uh, you want us to take care of your daughter?"

"I know it's a lot to ask," Jor-El said. "After all, I haven't even met you. But my daughter is going to be very important in your planet's future, after all. Earth's sun has a feature that will become very useful. For now, please take her to a safe place and we can discuss this further there."

As the truck drove off with spaceship balanced on the back, Anne Starr cradled the infant in her arms. They both decided to keep her, and she decided to name the infant Karen.

At the age of thirteen, Karen found the first major surprise of her life. She had been developing powers for about two years already, as Jor-El's information had said, but she had no clue where these abilities came from, despite her parents' suspicious behavior.

At the dinner table, two weeks after her thirteenth birthday, she broke the ice. "Alright," she said, letting out a deep breath. "You knew these powers were going to happen. I think you should tell me."

Her mother and father looked at her and confirmed her belief. James turned to her. "Look, sweetie, we never meant to hide it from you, we just wanted to wait until we knew how you'd react," he said.

Anne left the table and got a metal sliver from the high cabinet. "Here, this is yours," she said, throwing it across. "Follow us."

She left the table and followed them out of the house and into the garage. James lifted a section of the carpet, revealing a large panel. He grabbed the secret handle and pulled it open, revealing a craft, metallic and slightly aged looking, with a small hole in the right side of the opening. At her parents' behest, she stepped down the short ladder into the chamber below the garage. The metallic sliver shot from her hand into the slot, and a white light shone into her eyes.

Suddenly, she found herself surrounded by unfamiliar décor, a very cold, metallic appearance to the walls and furniture, and two people dressed in outfits very much out of style as well as not human. The man was a very well-defined individual. He held himself in the posture of a man of quiet authority, his hair and beard clean and properly edged. The woman had reddish-brown hair, long and smooth, garbed in an elegant, if bizarre, dress.

The man looked at her, and the setting changed as he stepped forward. The woman disappeared, and the surroundings changed to a field of exotic plant life. "Welcome, Kara," Jor-El said, quietly, with a smile on his face. "I have been waiting for this moment for many years. I am Jor-El, your father."

She stood in stunned silence for a moment, before words entered her mind. "What do you mean, you're my father? I have a father," she argued. "Where am I?"

"This memory, this information," Jor-El explained, "is all that's left of the once mighty planet Krypton. I sent you here because I needed you to survive."

She backed up in disbelief. "You mean, I'm an alien? What do you mean, you needed me to survive?"

The surroundings changed again. She saw images of cities, where entire populations were collapsing dead, red blood tinged with purple streaks. "Our planet fell into civil war, with the ruling council on one side and Zod's military on the other," he continued. "Finally, scientists for the council emerged with a bio-weapon which would take out Zod's armies. It was, sad to say, too good at its job."

She looked at the scenery. "So, everyone is dead?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry to say, but according to my calculations, not a single person would have survived. You are alive due to your unique situation." The surroundings changed to a three-dimensional display of the Earth's solar system. "Earth is orbiting a G-type main sequence star, whose luminosity and unique radiation signature is several times that of Krypton's red dwarf star Rao. Kryptonian physiology reacts to these radiations, with the yellow star granting us powers such as those you're developing, while red weakens us to normal."

"So, that's why I'm getting stronger?"

He drew closer. "Kara," he said, running a hand through her hair, "you are going to do great things. You may be above average now, but in time, you'll be akin to one of their gods of legend, for what you'll be able to do. It's important that you remember you are a child of Earth as much as you are a child of Krypton. Never let your power go to your head, and remember, no matter what happens, I will always be here for you."

A tear dripped from her eye. "Why couldn't you come with me?"

Jor-El paused. If he could cry, he would have. "I would have loved nothing more," he admitted. "Unfortunately, Zod knew I was planning on getting you off the planet. I gave myself to him to buy you some time."

"How do you know I'll succeed? How can I guide people when I can't even run my own life?"

"Kara," he said, kneeling to her level. "Trust me. You are an El. If you fail, you will get back up and succeed. I have faith in you."

"I love you," she said, hugging the image.

"And I love you," Jor-El replied. "If you need me, I will be here."

The image faded, and Karen returned to her body. "Hey, you ok?" Anne said.

She smiled. "I met my other parents," she said.

"Oh, honey!" her dad said, embracing her. "We've waited so long to share that with you. We just found your ship off the main road. It appeared out of nowhere."

"Well, I'm glad you found me," Karen replied.