Kara’s ring shocked her awake. “Space-Girl Michelle to Space-Girl Kara, Emergency.” Echoed the transmission. Kara sat up in bed and ran to the front room to not wake Ben. “I’m up.” replied Kara.
“I know this goes against protocol because you are pregnant, but get to the ship and fly to headquarters now. Digs is already flying it to meet you at the park by your house. Michelle out.” transmitted Space-Girl Michelle.
“Fuck.” said Kara, finding a pair of shorts and shirt, then put her sneakers on without socks and ran down the street. Kara quickly reached the bushes, saw she was unobserved, and activated her Space-Girl armor just as David flew into the park lights off and landed. David popped the hatch and Kara ran in and sat at Ops.”
“Thanks Diggie.” said Kara.
“Just Digs is fine with me.” said David, throttling the ship up into the sky, the neighborhood boomed below them and car alarms echoed.
“I like Diggie, it just sounds cute.” Kara said. Diggie punched the throttle and entered infinite speed through the atmosphere. Kara realized then it must be a bad emergency for Digs to hammer his beloved ship through the sky like it was stolen. The ship cut out of infinite space almost as soon as it entered because Digs was hammering a bit of power he could get.
David didn’t even bother with evasive maneuvers as he flew full throttle to the hangar bay. The galaxy echoed in green light. “What’s going on?” asked Kara.
“Massive temporal disruption, the galaxy is falling.” said Digs as he flew the ship full speed and did a 180 and banked the engines full-forward, throwing them in the back of their seats as he did a zero spin stop. “Go find Michelle now.” said Digs.
“Thanks Diggie, and hey good flying.” Kara shouted as she ran out. Digs facepalmed and told himself he couldn’t believe Kara was their only hope.
Kara ran through the corridors, not even stopping when she bumped into people. Kara ducked around the corridor and ran as fast as she could to the briefing room.
“You need to travel through time. The Vax have sent their own agent back in time, and we have reason to believe it is going to kill Therese when she was little, to prevent her from ever defeating Brainenock when he possessed my predecessor. This will change the timeline, and the Michelle will destroy the Space-Girls, and the Gopher King will have conquered Haremar.” said Space-Girl Michelle.
“Why me?” asked Kara.
“It’s either you or Therese, you guys know the layout, and well she’s in rehab. We have only enough energy to send one of you, our temporal maps told us when the agent arrived, use this and quick, our temporal shields are failing.” said Space-Girl Michelle, as they both looked through the blue haze and some rubble and decay forming around the Space-Girl headquarters.
“This is a prototype, it’s not as good as the one the last Space-Girl Michelle had, I’m sorry, it will get you there, but it might not get you back, and if it does that it’ll be fried forever, anyways.” said Space-Girl Michelle.
“Might?” asked Kara.
“Well yah, there is a flaw in the circuit, are you sure you want to go?” asked Space-Girl Michelle.
“Therese is in danger, of course, I am going.” said Kara.
“Okay, safety not guaranteed.” said Space-Girl Michelle as she made the final adjustment.
Kara activated the device, and felt herself sucked into a vortex of green light, she flew through time and space and landed in a shrubbery. Kara activated the camouflage system of her armor and looked around. Kara knew right where she landed, she was in Therese’s yard. Kara saw Therese’s much smaller in the past yard and saw her younger self and Therese piling boards and against a tree and a ladder. “Freaking, of all the moments in the timeline.” thought Kara to herself. Kara tilted her visor up to look around, the Vax were camouflaged against enhancement sensors, and she would have to rely on her own senses.
Little Therese climbed the ladder and up to the platform on the tree and had Kara pass her up more boards. The girls laughed and giggled, excited to build Kara’s dream of a tree fort, they were going to build Space-Girl Headquarters. Little Kara ran into the house to get them some juice boxes and a blanket.
Kara looked around, she smelled danger, then she noticed the leaves in the tree looked funny. Kara leaped through the air, using the power of her armor to boost her jump, and she caught the reptilian Vax as it went to strike little Therese. Kara grabbed her knife from her belt and stabbed it into the Vax, firing an energy burst from the knife and vaporizing it. The Vax vanished in a puff of smoke, screaming as the energy knife destroyed it. Little Therese shrieked as she saw the reptile monster die.
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“You killed a Vax, who are you?” asked little Therese. Kara smiled, even then Therese knew so much about Space-Girl Michelle.
Kara turned, and the startled little girl leaned back and started falling. Kara caught her before she fell.
“You look just like Kara! She’s my best friend forever!” The little girls said excitedly. Kara smiled, but then saw the timeline changing, saw their friendship ending over stupid things, and then saw Therese without her implant defeated by the Brainenock possessed Space-Girl Michelle, Kara saw the destruction of the galaxy forming.
“I’m so sorry.” said Kara as she let go of little Therese, who fell, and Kara winced in pain as little Therese’s head banged against a board and blood flew out everywhere.
Young Kara walked out of the house, seeing her friend fall and screamed, and shrieked, running over to her unconscious friend. Therese’s parents ran out of the house and called 911 and started CPR on their daughter. Kara hid in horror as she witnessed the fire department and ambulance come and take her friend away and watched as one of the police officers walked Kara home, who was screaming and yelling for her friend.
Kara remembered being so angry at the police officer for keeping her from her friend, finally despite her small size, several officers had to intervene to carry the little girl home because little Kara was so determined to go find her friend. She sat in the tree camouflaged and cried as the police drug her younger self away. Kara decided to stay in the tree hidden and cried until she fell asleep, her chest hurting from what she did to her lifelong best friend.
Kara awoke later in the evening, noticing Therese’s mother had come home to pack bags so she could stay the night at the hospital. Kara lowered herself from the tree and rang the doorbell before lowering her Space-Girl visor.
“Hello, can I help you?” asked Therese’s mother.
“I’m a Space-Girl, I need to talk to you.” said Space-Girl Kara.
“Come in Kara, please come in before someone sees you.” said Mary.
Kara entered the house and said, “You know it’s me?” as Mary shut the door.
“A mother knows, lift your visor, I want to see you.” said Mary.
“You’re older, you obviously came from the future.” said Mary after Kara lifted her visor.
“A Vax came back in time to kill Therese, but I stopped it. Look, I know you are an android, not that there is anything wrong with that, I did and always love you as my mother, but you are our mother and I trust you with the timeline, so I need to tell you something.” said Kara finally getting to her point.
“I knew you girls would become Space-Girls one day, I just knew in my heart from the day you girls met.” said Mary proudly and with regret.
“Well, we do, Therese saves the galaxy, they’re going to put an implant in her head, it has to stay there, no matter how bad it gets, I promise you she will always love you. This device gives her the strength to save the galaxy, and her life isn’t easy, but she always loves you.” said Kara.
“I’ll always love you both.” said Mary.
“Tell me, about you.” asked Mary.
“Well, in a few years my dad beats the shit out of me, my mom, mom you know she’s a drunk, and the only thing I have going for me is you never give up on me and thank you for going to court to get custody of me that summer until mom dried out.” Kara said, hugging Mary.
“I’m sorry.” said Mary, hugging Kara. The phone rang, Mary reached over and answered it.
“It’s Rodge.” Mary said, listening. “Yes, absolutely I think we need to let them do that experimental treatment, trust me I’m her mother, I’ll be there soon to explain but do it. Okay, I love you, goodbye.”
“Is there anything you want me to do for you?” asked Mary.
“Just please don’t ever give up on me. And don’t let Therese know my dad almost killed me, or that she stabs me a few times, she will have so much else going on at that time.” said Kara.
“This will always be your home, and you will always be our daughter too, I’ll never give up on you. I love you.” said Mary.
“Promise, don’t let her know she hurts me. I’ll be okay, but I never want her to know.” begged Kara.
“I promise, and I will always love you.” said Mary.
“I love you.” said Kara, activating the time travel device and flying through time and space to present-day Haremar, having adjusted it to locate present date Space-Girl Therese. Kara fell through the sky and landed in a pile of straw with a loud thump.
“Hi Kara.” Therese said, who was sitting on the ground next to her. Kara gathered herself and remembered what happened, and sat up rubbing the back of her head.
“Thank you for killing the Vax.” said Therese.
“Our whole lives, you knew I dropped you from the tree. I am so sorry.” said Kara.
“Hell of a thing to live with, but I always loved you.” said Therese.
“But our whole lives you knew I did that.” said Kara.
“You said you were sorry, I just figured it was an accident.” Therese told her. Therese looked forward and stared across the grasslands in front of her. “Besides, you did save my life by killing the Vax, it probably would have killed both of us.” Therese added, taking a long piece of grass and putting it in her teeth.
“When you warned me about the timeline where you don’t get hurt, you knew what I was going to do.” said Kara, still in shock.
“I’ve known since we were little girls, like I said it is a hell of a thing to live with, but I knew you had your reasons, I knew you were a Space-Girl. Let me ask you this, are you as screwed up in the head as I am?” asked Therese.
“I’m not sure where you are at, but I’m at least nine point nine out of ten on the fucked up in the head scale right now.” said Kara.
“We need to get back, I need to keep Gina from stealing my Peter back.” said Therese.
“You knew she was making a move? I thought you were too drunk to notice.” said Kara.
“Drunk yes, stupid no. I sat next to them both in math class, remember? I was so happy when they broke up.” said Therese.
“We’ll go back home soon, but is it okay if I just sit here with you for a while?” said Kara, looking at the grasslands.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” asked Therese.
“Real nice, can I have a sip of your coffee?” asked Kara.
Therese scooted over, handed Kara the cup of coffee and laid down next to Kara on the grass. “Check out those clouds.” said Therese.
Kara laid on her back with Therese and looked up at the sky. “We haven’t done this since we were little, how’d we get so stupid and forget to look up at the clouds?” asked Kara.
“I don’t know, let’s not forget this time. Look at that one, it looks like a rabbit.” Therese said smiling and pointing at the sky. The girls laid on the grass, it was cool and soft, and they looked up at the sky.