Kara watched with a calm face as the medical robot worked on her missing leg. Psions may not have used anesthesia on their victims, but they did keep some to use on themselves, just in case of an accident, or a rampaging experimental subject.
So, she barely felt anything as the robot sliced open her healed knee and started connecting the prosthetic circuitry to her nerves, but she was feeling a little nervous.
Kara wasn't really worried about the robot. Despite being somewhat backwards, Psions were still far more advanced than Humans. Even their worst machines still made modern hospitals look incompetent.
Really, the only reason so many of their test subjects died was because they usually didn't care to keep them alive. Finding out just how much trauma an individual was capable of withstanding before death was part of the experiment.
No, Kara was worried about the piece of kryptonite resting on top of the medical tray close by. It was an unfortunate necessity if she wanted the medical instruments to pierce her skin, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
At least the remaining Psions had finally been killed last night. Kara didn’t know how she should feel about that. On one hand, she still hated them with a passion but, on the other, she knew her cousin wouldn’t approve.
After the fight, the control room had been a huge mess. Computers and delicate devices were melted or filled with projectiles, and there was Psion blood everywhere.
Still, after Kori had moved the Kryptonite into a safer location, Kara had managed to use the controls to reconfigure the ship’s security robots, ordering them to hunt down any monster or Psion they found.
It had been an impulsive move. Kara had been filled with anger, pain and adrenaline when she gave the order. The result was an empty ship, with every Psion executed, but Kara couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
Kara was used to dealing with crystal based technology, but she did remember using Earth technology, and she had been raised by scientists genetically engineered to be smart. So, she understood how to manipulate Psion’s computers fairly easily.
Almost a week later, they were still in the Vega system. Their ship was massive, but it was geared heavily towards research and, since they were never supposed to leave the system anyway, had very little in the way of propulsion.
Turning her head away from the piece of radioactive rock, Kara looked at her new leg once more. It wasn't very pretty, and it wouldn't hold up to the kind of stress her own body could take, but it was stronger than steel and allowed her to stand without having to rely on her flight.
Kara had lived two lifetimes being only as strong as a normal human, having a leg only slightly stronger than steel wasn't all that hard to swallow.
It helped that Kara had managed to include a hidden plasma weapon and a short range personal shield on the prosthetic. The shield was capable of blocking heavy caliber projectiles while completely ignoring most energy weapons.
By Rao, if Kara was gonna be forced to have a prosthetic limb, she was gonna have a badass one!
Kara had half expected to be able to regenerate her leg, or at the very least her eye. Unfortunately, it seems like it would take time to fully recover from her healing coma and all the Psion’s experiments.
Creating a prosthetic eye was a little harder, what could she put on a bionic eye that she didn't already have as a Kryptonian? Instead, Kara had just put on an eyepatch and accepted that she wouldn't be getting a new eye anytime soon.
Finishing the operation, she tested her new leg, moving the individual toes and then the joints before putting it against the floor and slowly getting up. There weren’t any problems.
Really, flying was awesome, but Kara had already started to miss just walking around.
The leg itself was made from an extremely heavy dark gray metal, but it was still no wider than her own leg. All of its mechanical parts were hidden behind a metal shield, but it still granted her 80% of her feet movement.
The prosthetic wasn't perfect, the technology far behind what Krypton could do, but it would serve, for now.
Kara and Koriand'r found themselves alone on the huge spaceship. There had been other prisoners before their escape but, when they started flying towards the command room, the Psions had decided to execute every other test subject lest they manage to get reinforcements.
Kara refused to blame herself for their actions, but it still hurt to know she could have saved some lives; If only she had been paying more attention to her improved vision or hearing, she could have acted.
Walking away from the medical bay, Kara couldn't help but look at her new leg from time to time. In the docking area, she found Koriand'r carrying a giant crate of tools from further inside the ship, her arms lifted above her head.
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The girl's face opened up into a giant smile. "Joy! Congratulations on the new leg, my friend!"
Koriand'r smile was contagious. Kara couldn't help but return one of her own. "Thanks, princess, want some help with that?"
"No need, it is just machinery for the automatons. Not very heavy, yes?"
"I suppose." Kara said. She was still unused to the fact that a ton of metal wasn't heavy. By Rao, a hundred tons may not be heavy for her right now. "You're looking better…"
And Koriand’r was, there was no mistaking that. Kara hadn't noticed before, but a week of good food and rest, coupled with her increased metabolism, had caused Koriand'r to recover at a prodigious speed.
The Tamaranean had bulked up. Koriand’r had looked like a beautiful but anorexic teenager before, now she was a very fit young woman, with obvious muscles and great curves.
"Thank you." She said and laid the crate down so the maintenance robots could get to it.
Thankfully, while Komand'r had laid waste to the remaining ships when she escaped, she hadn't left them completely beyond repair. By focusing on only one of the ships, the both of them had managed to get it working without much trouble.
In only a few more hours, the robots would be finished with the essential repairs and they could leave this cursed place once and for all. "Friend Kara, we have gone through battle together, shared the breaking of the feast and lunch for days. Please, why have you continued to refer to me by title?"
"I… suppose I just didn't think about it?" Kara confessed, a little embarrassed, Krypton didn't have royalty, but her previous life had taught her to treat royals with respect. "How about I just call you Kori then?"
"That is more than acceptable." Kori nodded and then floated up. "That should be enough to finish the maintenance, I believe. I am going to take one last sunbath."
Kori floated away while Kara sat down atop another empty crate and continued to play with her new prosthetic, deploying the shield or practicing taking out the small handgun hidden inside. When she finally reached earth, it would probably be full of people who knew her cousin's weakness. Kara wanted to be ready for them no matter what.
A few hours later, the mechanical bots beeped and started entering the repaired ship. It looked terrible, with patches of different colors all over the hull, some of its guns were missing and it used mismatched propellers, but it would work.
The robots would have to continue repairing the non-vital parts still damaged inside, but it was ready to depart. Kara sent Kori a message and started gathering her things.
They had managed to find what remained of Kryptonian technology on the ship, as well as all Kryptonite, which they kept in a lead box created by Kara using her heat vision to seal any openings. Soon, they were both comfortably sitting inside the ship and watching the research center from a few million kilometers away.
Kara took a strange sense of pleasure in watching the reactor of the large research station overload and explode. The ship actually broke apart in at least a dozen pieces then, with a flash of light, exploded with devastating power, shattering into millions of pieces and destroying all Psion research inside.
"In Tamaran, we do not like to live in the past or hold grudges, but I must confess I am glad to see that place gone." Kori said as she hugged Kara's neck from behind, finding and giving support.
They watched quietly while their ship picked up speed away from the station. Eventually, even Kara's enhanced vision couldn't make up the pieces anymore. With a sight, she tapped Kori's arm to be released and turned towards her. "Are you sure you don't want to be left in Tamaran?"
"Correct, the Citadel is still in control of my home. To return now would only force my parents to turn me away once again." Kori started to float away slowly, but Kara grabbed her by the arm.
"Come with me to earth then?" She asked and dragged the orange girl away from the window. "I'm sure we can get some help for your people there."
"Truly? Earthlings must be mighty warriors indeed, if they are willing to face the Citadel just because someone asked!"
"Ah… well, you'd be surprised what people would do for a hot girl." Kara laughed. Kryptonians didn't really have romance, but she had been a teenage male in her previous life, she still remembered how horny it made her. "As for being great warriors… they have some, but the majority is ‘very’ far from a Tamaranean."
"Then… please, how can they help me fight?"
"Well, let me explain a little about their heroes…"
It took nearly a week for the ship to leave the Vega system but, after that, the maintenance droids inside finally finished fixing the ship's drive. It allowed them to travel much faster, arriving in the solar system in only another two weeks, despite the huge distance between them.
Kara and Kori spent some of that time sparring, with the golden princess teaching Kara how to fight while flying, how leverage worked when you had no need to keep your feet on the ground and even just how to face a resisting opponent.
Kara didn't become an expert in less than a month, but at least she was no longer restricted to ramming things very fast. She also managed to get a handle on her improved strength. Kara hadn’t broken a glass cup in nearly a week.
Kara had also spent at least an hour every day teaching her companion about earth culture and what to expect when they arrived. Making sure Kori remembered how fragile most humans were was a work in progress, and the princess just couldn’t understand why humans would frown on too much exposed skin.
It took only a moment for their ship to land on the dark side of the moon. Kara had chosen the location because she didn't want to risk getting detected by any villain like Luthor, Vandal Savage or Brainiac.
Also, she supposed she wasn't ready to meet her cousin just yet, not without knowing which version of him she would find. Kal El hardly ever went bad in the comics but, when he did, it was always bad, Injustice and Justice Lords bad.
Grabbing a bag filled with gold and platinum she had found while passing through the asteroid belt, Kara put the ship under camouflage and took a small tank of oxygen. Ordinarily, she thought she could hold her breath long enough to make the travel between Earth and the Moon but, while her lung had healed from being harvested by Psions, it wasn't working at full capacity and she didn't want to risk it. Kori herself didn't even need to breathe.
"We're here." Kara said to her companion, noticing how Kori held her own bags of precious metals.
"Excitement! Eagerness! I can not wait to finally meet an Earthling! Do you think they will like me?"
"Nobody could dislike you Kori, it's impossible." Kara laughed. She took one last, deep breath, before holding it in and flying away from the ship, Kori quickly flying after her.
Kara took some distance from the hidden ship, not wanting to draw any attention to its location. Finally, she really let her power flow.
For the first time, Kara started flying as fast as she could, quickly gaining speed. In less than a minute, she stopped feeling the Moon's gravity pull. Seeing as she was alone, Kara stopped for half a minute so Kori could catch up.
When the Tamaranean stopped beside her, Kara pulled out her communication device and typed. "Will I have to wait for you?"
A few seconds later, Kori typed back. "No, I seem to be much faster than usual. I can also fly much easier in space."
Giving her a nod, Kara flew away, accelerating from zero to a hundred in a single instant; if she wasn’t in space, there would have been a sonic boom.
Even without a suit, the cold of space didn't really affect Kara. She was also managing to hold her breath fairly easily and feeling pretty great.
Then Kori flew beside her and bumped her shoulders, making her lose control and tumble through space for a second. Regaining her orientation, Kara saw her friend waiting for her and laughing quietly before flying away, leaving a trail of light from her hair.
"Oh she didn't!" Kara thought and narrowed her eyes, Kori’s figure quickly gained distance. It took her less than a second to take out her communicator at super speed and type again. "It's ON!"
Kara started giving it her all, flying faster than a bullet, much faster. The planet itself seemed to become bigger and bigger after each blink of her eye, soon filling her entire vision. With a silent laugh, she tackled Kori and started tickling her. Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran was very ticklish.
Kara took her victory with grace, leaving the squirming golden girl lying in the air. She pulled out her oxygen tank and took a few breaths before putting it away. Lifting her nose at the recovered princess, Kara smirked, Kori pouted.
They returned to their journey, quickly entering the atmosphere and making sure to decrease their speed so they weren't flying fast enough to gather visible heat.
Kara may have lost Krypton, but she had been an Earthling in her previous life, she still had fond memories of the planet, in a way, they were much better than her current ones.
Her human parents had been much warmer than her Kryptonian ones. Also, their memories weren’t tainted by the pain of her entire planet exploding.
Taking a long breath, Kara smiled, she was finally home.