Kara Zor-El’s first memory was of her father, his image across the glass of the birthing matrix. In truth, she could barely open her eyes at the time, so she couldn’t really see his shape all that well, but she remembered the large, tall figure standing above her pod for a few seconds, a second figure slightly behind him. She remembered him staring at her for a full minute and then walking away, leaving only her mother to keep her company.
Kara didn’t remember him coming to see her again but, in fairness, most of her time inside the birthing matrix was spent either sleeping, developing her body, or being educated by the learning program there. Later, she liked to think he came to check on her often, but she just didn’t remember it, and didn’t dare ask.
Still, her parents were there when she finally stepped out of the birthing matrix. Having reached the desired level of development in both body and mind, she stumbled away from the chamber and took her first steps on the crystalline floor.
Kara nearly fell, but managed to right herself and look at the couple in front of her, her biological parents. Alura In-Zee was a tall, blond woman wearing a white robe with the symbol of the El house in front of it. She had a proud smile on her face and her eyes were filled with affection.
Zor-El was even taller, with perfectly styled brown hair, he wore a mixture of robe and armor, black and with a tall collar, it had square shoulder pads in white and a red cape wrapped around his neck, tied with a golden strap. The El crest rested on his chest in white and he had a black circlet around his forehead.
Both of them stood a little apart from each other, their backs straight, but Zor-El wasn’t smiling. Instead, he watched her with a critical eye, his arms crossed behind his back. On instinct, Kara did her best to copy his posture and saw a glint of approval on his eye.
“Good, from today on you’re the newest member of the El house,” Zor-El proclaimed. “Cloth yourself and follow your mother, Kara Zor-El.”
Her father didn’t wait, walking away with sure steps as she watched his back. Kara was still covered in the embryonic waters of the birthing matrix, but Alura helped her wash it away and dress herself.
“Excuse your father, he has always been a little rough,” Alura said as she finished drying Kara’s hair. “We were both looking forward to your birth.”
“Thank you, Alura In-Zee.” Kara said, testing out her voice for the first time and doing her best to not sound stupid.
“Please, call me mother,” her… mother asked, stepping away from her and smiling at Kara. “Now, come. Your father is a busy man, but he managed to reserve a few hours with us.”
The prepared clothes fit her perfectly, neatly covering her chubby limbs. Kara used her fingers to adjust the clasp for her environmental helmet, but her mother shook her head and prevented her from activating it. “We will not be going out today, there’s no need for a helmet.”
“Yes mother.” Kara answered and tilted her head in confusion when she received her first hug, Alura’s arms enveloping her body completely.
Kara’s first birthday was spent with both of her parents, an extremely rare happening from then on. She walked through their home in Argo City, being shown the facility and having the security features updated with her DNA in mind.
She especially liked the time spent with her father as he showed her the experimentation rooms and the various devices she could play with and study in order to learn.
The next year was spent mostly completing her education. By the time she was five years old, Kara had already learned all that was necessary to survive and take care of herself, at least while inside Argo City, but she still met her mother at least once a day and her father once a week.
On her sixth birthday, Zor-El once again managed to get a release from his work on the Science Council to spend time with her. Kara was studying with her AI teacher when he arrived and she quickly turned it off before hushing into the labs and grabbing a hand sized crystal device, the first one she had produced with no help from anyone.
Running through the crystal hallway, Kara actually dodged her mother’s hand as she rushed towards Zor-El, then she tripped on the floor, sending her sunstone device clattering to the floor until it hit her father’s leg and stopped.
Looking down at her, Zor-El unlocked the safety on his armor and took off his helmet, then leaned down to grab the crystalline device, lifting it up and looking it over.
“Get up. No daughter of mine should be this uncoordinated,” he ordered, waiting until Kara had pushed herself up and rubbed her aching nose. “Now, what exactly is this?”
“Greetings, father, I made it!” Kara said, extending her hand towards the device. Her father glanced at it once more, but handed it over. With an eager voice, she explained. “See, it's sunstone! I programmed it so the crystals wouldn’t stop growing inward once activated, look!”
Pressing a spot on the device, Kara saw it light up and start absorbing sunlight to fuel its growth, and then she threw it away as hard as she could with a grunt. Unfortunately, she was still only 6, so the device didn’t fly as far as she expected.
Seeing the little device falling not even ten meters away from her, Kara’s eyes widened in fear. “Uh-Oh.”
Zor-El’s own eyes widened in realization and, acting fast, he embraced her, turning his back to the device and huddling down around her while ordering their personal drones to form a shield behind him. It was the first time Kara had ever been hugged by her father, so she actually giggled in delight.
Behind them, the device absorbed sunlight for 6 seconds, rapidly growing inward and increasing the pressure inside. Sunstone was incredibly strong but, exposed to sunlight, it just wouldn’t stop expanding, building up pressure until the crystalline shell couldn’t hold the pressure anymore. With a crack, it exploded, sending crystals flying everywhere.
A hail of small crystals pinged against Zor-El’s shield, but it was strong enough to block any damage with no problem. Releasing her, Zor-El dusted himself and looked towards the destroyed device with a conflicted face before turning to his wife and seeing that she too was fine.
Looking at the damage it had caused, Kara couldn’t help the smile growing in her face. “...Cool!”
Turning to her father, Kara saw the disappointed look on his face and deflated. Shaking his head, Zor-El turned around and started walking towards the house. “That was a waste of resources. Come.”
Lowering her head, Kara followed after her father, her face flushed with shame. Zor-El led her further inside her home until they reached a door Kara had never been to before.
Stepping in front of the door, Zor-El waited until it scanned him, and then had Kara stand in place so she too was registered. Walking inside, Kara saw a far better equipped laboratory.
“Daughter, until your uncle decides to have a child, you’re the current heir of House El,” her father explained without turning towards her, his voice calm once again. “That was a very poor showing.”
“I apologize, father,” Kara bowed her head, her face flushed with shame.
“First, you’re going to retake a class on experimentation safety,” He said while opening a holographic display and changing her current schedule. “After that, you’ll be improving that device until it’s no longer such a disappointment. Not only did you not use any flammable glasses, you didn’t calculate the best way for the device to explode, introducing a point of failure in the device can allow you to guide the direction of its explosion, you also didn't make it as damaging as possible, resulting in most sunstone shards being either too small to cause maximum damage, or not sharp enough. A waste of resources.”
With access to the advanced laboratory and a new teaching program, Kara progressed extremely fast. Only a month later, she had her father watch her new device explode.
With sharp spikes all over one of its sides, she had introduced a small failure on the device, causing it to direct the explosion away from her and send entire spikes of crystals towards her targets. Introducing the best possible incendiary gasses into the hollow of the bomb also made it far more powerful.
Zor-El watched the new test from a balcony, his hands behind his back. Seeing the destruction, he didn’t smile, but he also didn’t frown again, or show any other signs of displeasure, he just turned around and walked away, allowing Kara to take it as a win.
After the scare on her birthday, her mother decided to spend more time with her. Despite being from the science guild, it was important for all Kryptonians to keep fit and healthy, so Kara started jogging with her mother.
They ran for an hour every day, with Alura running laps around Kara. Still, Kara loved how much time she had with her mother, enjoying their runs as much as she could.
Eventually, she grew up, her body developing quickly until she could almost keep up with the older woman. The devices she produced also grew more complex, going from simple bombs into all kinds of devices.
When she was nine, Kara got interested in some of the Military guild’s martial arts. While it wasn’t the focus of the El house, there was no Kryptonian law preventing her from entering another guild, much less just learning some martial arts.
So, after her run with her mother, Kara spent another two hours learning Klurkor from one of their training robots. The martial art focused on kicking, striking and defensive blocking using her limbs. Kara enjoyed the competition, and the physical exhaustion from the training was very relaxing.
Really, the first time she defeated the training robot was so satisfying. The robot was even programmed to die dramatically when defeated, causing her to giggle a little as she remembered it.
Kara spent nearly six months training before her father noticed it.
Kara felt the grass under her feet, the wind picking up speed and causing her hair to fly into her face. In that instant, her enemy attacked, a simple straight punch aimed at her head.
Stepping into the blow, she deflected the attack and countered with a punch towards the robot’s chest, causing it to stumble back. Taking advantage of that, she followed up with a kick then tried to swipe its legs from under it.
The robot simply lifted his leg and retreated before delivering a front kick to her chest that almost hit her, but the ground under him shook, causing the robot to lose his footing. Kara almost fell, but she recovered first and took advantage of the situation to grab the overextended limb and deliver an elbow strike to the joint, causing the spar to stop.
Suddenly, the trees around her disappeared along with the rest of the clearing, revealing a white, empty room. Above her, Kara saw her father standing watch from a balcony, his arms crossed behind his back as always, but a deep frown on his face.
Without a word, he shook his head in displeasure and left, causing Kara’s cheer to drop immediately. With an order to her accompanying drone, she deactivated the robot and tried to run after him, but Zor-El had already left the house, going back to his work.
The next day, she asked Alura about it while they ran. “Mother, why did father disapprove of my training? I thought that I was encouraged to keep my body in peak condition? Does he think I want to enter the Military guild?”
“Kara, your father is a very… efficient man. He just fears that you won’t achieve your peak if you lose your focus,” Her mother told her, giving Kara one of her rare smiles. “You’re our pride, both of us only wish for you to reach all of your potential.”
“I understand,” Kara nodded, refocusing on their run and on improving her time.
From that day on, Kara no longer used the training robot. Instead, she redoubled her studies, starting to specialize in sunstone programming and adapting other materials into sunstone devices to make them better.
Some devices needed more than just sunstone to be viable, sometimes, she needed to use small amounts of Kryptium for its increased resistance and toughness, others, she needed materials with better flexibility or even less solar conductivity.
Studying physics and the properties of the materials she used took most of her free time and, very often, her devices required such precise calculations that she needed to spend weeks on them to achieve results.
Still, when she was twelve, her father ordered her to meet him in his study. Kara walked inside and saw him wearing his formal clothes, as well as his house El official crest.
Knowing that he was not acting as her father, but as the second in command of the El house, Kara bowed deeply to show her respect.
“Daughter, you’re now entering puberty, it's time for you to start learning your place in our house,” Zor-El said. With a command from his neural link, he caused a crystalline chair to rise out of the floor and ordered Kara to sit. “As my daughter, you have been chosen to inherit my position in the house, your job will be to help teach your cousin once he’s born, guide him as he grows into his position and support him once he inherits my brother’s position.”
“My cousin?” Kara couldn’t help but ask.
Zor-El simply nodded, activating a display of another man, one slightly older than him. “This is my brother, Jor-El, the current head of our house. From today on, you’ll be following me to work with him, watch, pay attention and learn.”
“Yes father,” Kara bowed again, accepting her new place, but her heart was beating fast on her chest.
She couldn’t wait to help out, to follow her father and learn from him. Until now, she had only been playing with his tools, but never really seeing his true projects. Yes, she had created many devices, but most of them had been focused on destroying things, and everything she had created could be replicated by the Military guild either more effectively or cheaper.
The next day, Kara put on her own armor, completely sealed with a helmet that fully protected her from the harsh atmosphere of Krypton itself. The equipment wouldn’t be necessary in Argo City, but she’d be traveling with her father to Kandor.
Following her father, Kara walked with her arms crossed behind her back, her posture straight as she stepped on the teleportation device, appearing on Kandor a second later.
With large steps, she did her best to not fall behind as his subordinates bowed towards him, showing the respect deserved for the second in command of the El house. Kara’s chest swelled with pride until they arrived at the main laboratory.
Jor-El looked just like her father, only slightly older. Her uncle’s face opened into a smile at their presence and he stepped away from the computers. “Brother, so you have finally decided to present my niece?”
“Patriarch, this is my daughter, Kara Zor-El.”
Following her father’s example, Kara took off her helmet and bowed towards her uncle. “Patriarch. It is an honor to meet you.”
Jor-El looked at his brother with an amused smile on his face, but Zor-El's look didn’t change, leaving the older brother feeling awkward for a second before shaking his head. “Well, it’s nice to have you here Kara. I hope you enjoy the work.”
“I will,” Kara nodded, her face impassive.
From that day on Kara started following after her father, learning everything he did and how best to help him. As Jor-El’s second in command, Zor-El spent a good part of his time trouble shooting some of his brother’s more exotic projects while also helping guide the direction of the Science guild as a whole.
When Kara finally reached thirteen, she started getting some projects of her own. While she didn’t have the necessary knowledge to develop new technologies, she had a talent for finding faults on prototypes.
Standing behind a guard railing, Kara increased the parameters for the newest dimensional projector, simulating a last minute addition of a second target to the device. Unable to calculate the destination in time, the device tried to increase the energy to compensate for it, overloading the delicate sunstone structure.
A suction force caused Kara’s feet to slide towards the guard railings, but the magnetic locks on her armor activated, securing her in place, then the security glass snapped shut just before the device exploded, sending a shockwave that would have probably sent her flying had it not been for the glass.
Carefully watching the place where the device had been, Kara made sure that nothing had come through the dimensional breach. Seeing no warnings on her monitor, she left some annotations on the prototype’s page and turned away, a huge smile on her face.
Kara knew that she shouldn’t be so happy to find yet more faults on some of the Science guild’s projects, but it was always so satisfying when she managed to cause a catastrophic failure.
And really, if the scientists didn’t want their devices exploding, they shouldn’t propose faulty prototypes. With years of study over her, they really should have known better.
“Ah, was that really necessary Kara?” Jor-El said from behind her, almost causing Kara to jump out of her skin.
Turning around, Kara looked at her uncle without knowing what to say for a full five seconds. “Ah, I-I… no, Patriarch,” she finally said, her face flushing with shame. “I-I only wanted to demonstrate how dangerous a faulty project could be.”
“I see. Well, at least there was no damage, this time,” Jor-El commented, a mental command caused the testing chamber to be isolated and her own terminal to be locked as her uncle motioned for her to follow him. “Come Kara, I wish to speak with you.”
Still feeling embarrassed, Kara followed behind her uncle without another word until they teleported back to his own house. Finally, Kara managed to lift her eyes towards her uncle, just as she was about to ask him what this was about, a giant beast ran out from inside the house.
It was large, white and walked on all fours, rushing at them with intimidating speed and making a lot of noise. Kara almost screamed, but she managed to resist the urge using the discipline taught to her by her father.
Instead, she only cursed the fact that she didn’t have her own neural interface while pulling out her personal computer, commanding her private drone to activate a protection shield. With dread, she realized too late that her uncle hadn’t done the same. “Watch out!”
In disbelief, Kara watched the beast release a mighty noise and pounce on her uncle, aiming straight for his unprotected face in a show of canny, predatory guile.
“Hello, Krypto.” Her uncle said while, under Kara’s disbelieving eyes, the beast started to… lick him?
Jor-El didn't tolerate the licking for long, quickly showing displeasure at the creature's actions and causing its ears to drop.
Somehow, the scene caused her to feel a bout of nostalgia. Slowly getting back to her feet, Kara deactivated her shield and, pretending that nothing had happened, asked. “Patriarch, what IS that?”
“This is called a dog,” using a hand, Jor-El pushed the dog away from his chest, the creature fell back on all fours and finally noticed Kara, sniffing at her and slowly circling her. “I decided to recreate one after I saw the way our family interacted.”
“I see,” Kara said, her hand slowly touching the creature’s head with an odd feeling of longing on her chest. “Can I ask, why?”
“Kara, do you know what the house El crest stands for?”
“Hope, Patriarch,” Kara answered immediately, the meaning having been cemented on her mind long ago.
“Yes, hope, an optimistic view or state of mind based on an expectation of a positive outcome,” Jor-El explained, leading her inside his home. “We used to have hope in our fellow Kryptonians. Hope in the future of our planet. Hope that things will be better, brighter. Yet our family has been losing that ability for generations now, we grow distant, we grow… aloof. We have let confidence substitute for hope, never attempting anything greater or new so that we may never fail, and that confidence has grown into arrogance, blind arrogance.”
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“And the dog helps… how?” Kara asked while doing her best to avoid getting a tongue bath from the dog, the creature was actually larger than her, and about just as strong.
“Krypto, you, Lara, I’m choosing to hope Kara, to hope in our future,” Standing in a balcony on his house overlooking the city of Kandor, her uncle snapped his fingers, causing the dog to finally leave her alone. With a serious look on his face, he shook his head, his hands squeezed into fists, but he had a confident glint on his eye. “We need hope, now more than ever…”
At his side, Kara watched as her uncle trailed off, his eyes looking over Kandor. She would have liked to say his eyes were filled with hope, but she couldn’t help thinking it looked exactly like the arrogance he so disliked. As if he still had everything under his control.
"No matter. Come, Lara is very eager to finally meet you."
That day, Kara spent quite a few hours meeting her uncle's family, and even learned to play fetch with Krypto, laughing out loud for the first time as the dog chased the ball.
From then on Kara had a new routine, spending time with her uncle at least once a month, and even wasting hours playing and socializing with Krypto.
Unfortunately, her father didn't seem to approve of it, although he never says anything about it.
It was when she was a little over fourteen that her family had its first fight, her classes had been canceled that day, and Zor-El had even kept her from following him to Kandor for a week.
Kara was trying to find a weakness on a new drone model when she heard them.
"Zor-El, stop!" Alura actually shouted, but Kara's father didn't hear her, actually causing an explosion inside their home, and destroying the outer wall. "What are you doing!?"
"What am I doing? What's he doing?! Dru-Zod is our friend; our houses have been allied for generations!" Zor-El screamed, his voice filled with frustration and anger like Kara had never heard before.
"Zor-El!" Alura shouted, trying to calm her husband down, only for Zor-El to release another blast from his weapon, destroying another piece of the courtyard.
"All our preparations, all our research and all our history… thrown away like dirt!" Finally managing to calm down, Zor-El took a few deep breaths and turned off the weapon on his personal drone. Gritting his teeth, Kara's father almost spit out with disgust. "Jor-El threw away our best chance and all he can tell me is to have hope!"
"What are you going to do?" Alura asked, finally approaching her husband and holding on to his arm in an almost gentle manner. "You have to stop him. It's our only chance."
Watching from a hidden camera on the ceiling, Kara held her breath as her father stared at the hand holding his arm, then towards her mother with a mixture of disbelief and disgust.
Yanking his arm away from her, he threw his own communicator into the wall and shouted again, releasing his frustration before calming down.
Combing his hair back in place with a hand, Zor-El righted himself. "I will do nothing. Irrational as he may be, Jor-El is our Patriarch and I. Am. Not. A. Traitor."
"So you'll just… watch?" Her mother asked, her voice filled with disbelief.
"Yes! What do you-" Suddenly, Zor-El's neural transmitter gave him a warning, causing him to look up and directly at Kara's hidden drone.
With a startle, Kara disconnected with it immediately and ordered it to self-destruct. Too late, she gasped as she realized how that gave her presence away.
Most Kryptonians didn't even see the need for a self-destruction in a drone, those who did -mostly members of the Science guild- did so quietly, just frying the drone's circuitry.
Unfortunately, Kara enjoyed causing things to explode in new and interesting ways.
Running to her bedroom, she pretended to be sleeping. Kara didn’t think her father believed it, but he didn’t say anything when he came to check up on her.
The next day, Zor-El was waiting for her in the living room, sitting on a crystalline chair; he wasn’t wearing his usual armor, but just his black robes. Feeling anxious, Kara stopped in front of him and the silence stretched between them for a minute or two.
Finally, her father spoke, his voice not betraying a hint of his own feelings. “Daughter, I believe it’s time to modify your training.”
“Father, did I do anything wrong?” Kara asked, afraid of being punished for peeking at their discussion earlier.
“No, instead, you’re quite advanced in your studies, and your help identifying points of failure has been… surprisingly useful for your level of education,” Zor-El recognized, tapping a finger against the arm of his chair. “However, destroying things is far easier than building them, and far less useful. It’s time you start learning how to do the latter.”
“I understand.”
“I doubt that you do,” Zor-El said, sending an information package to her personal computer. “Tomorrow, you’ll start studying the information inside; I want a working prototype in a year.”
Over the next months, Kara worked tirelessly to understand all the principles behind her father’s data. It was a blueprint for an imperial age Hyper-drive as well as all the necessary information to update it with modern day Kryptonian tech… or at least Kara thought it was.
With the Religious guild mandate not to leave the system, it wasn’t like there was a lot of information about such things, or that any other scientist had interest in developing such an area of study.
It meant that Kara didn't have a point of reference and, even if she made mistakes, it was not like the device would ever be used anyway.
Still, Kara believed it was a test, one that she was determined to pass no matter what. Without any information to be found on the network, Kara had to develop everything herself, and even program the crystals from scratch.
Over the months, Kara didn’t build one prototype, but three, each one a drastic improvement over the other. Working on the devices, she learned far more than she thought possible.
She also discovered how to accelerate a piece of a piece of crystal to ludicrous speeds towards a target, but she had only done it once -even if it had been incredibly cool- and she hadn’t hit anything important in Argo City… she hoped.
When she was finally satisfied with her creation, Kara presented the already built hyper-drive to her father.
Zor-El spent an hour reading all her notes, testing the device and then spent another three hours telling her everything she had done wrong.
From using far too much Kryptium, causing the device to have no flexibility, to messing up its programming, causing a catastrophic failure that could have altered relative time experienced by the device in any number of ways.
Standing there, his arms behind his back, her father scraped most of her project, but he wasn't frowning.
Kara wanted to laugh out loud, he wasn't actually frowning!
When she was fifteen, she managed to present a prototype that her father accepted and he allowed her back into Kandor.
Still, with her device built, Kara couldn't help but want to see it in action, and even her uncle actually encouraged her, finding her passion for the project amusing.
She nearly had a heart attack when a member of the religious guild started asking about it but, after an afternoon explaining that she was the one responsible, and that she had no interest in actually using the device herself. The priest seemed content that it was just a training exercise.
Any Kryptonian actually building a ship capable of inter-system travel would violate Rao's edict, but she was simply using an abandoned field of study for training, and never really had any intention of creating a final product.
Well, Kara guessed that one of her prototypes could be mounted on a tiny, individual vessel, but escalating it to work on even the smallest ships of the Military guild would still take years of troubleshooting, and she had no intention of doing that.
In fact, since she had passed her father's test and managed to create it to his satisfaction, she planned on mounting the prototypes into flying cars and aiming them at asteroids on the Rao system.
Small, unimportant ones, so they wouldn't be missed if she actually hit them.
Still, Kara’s home wasn’t any better, her father spent more and more time at work and even her mother stopped having time to run with her. Kara herself started spending more time with her own projects, and helping her aunt.
For some inane reason Kara couldn’t fathom, Lara Lor-Van had decided to carry her new cousin to term without the use of a birthing matrix, and her uncle had agreed to it.
Her aunt’s situation was such that both she and Jor-El had to take a break from their duties last month, causing Kara’s father to become even more frustrated. Still, when Kara heard that Kal-El was finally born, she couldn’t help becoming excited.
Despite that, it wasn’t until her sixteen birthday that she met him, standing over the small, fragile, helpless body; Kara poked its chubby arms with a finger in confusion. “What… is this?”
“He is your cousin, the new head of house El,” Jor-El answered with pride in his voice.
“But he’s so… helpless. How’s he gonna change clothes or eat?” She whispered. Well, she knew how, in theory, but she just couldn’t understand why they didn’t use the Birthing Matrix, it was so much better and more efficient.
Lifting the baby into her arm, Lara smiled down at him and handed him over into Kara’s arms. Wide eyed, she tried to avoid the small creature, but it was useless.
Stiff as a crystal, Kara stared at her little cousin and was assaulted with a sudden bout of nostalgia, as if she was missing something, but she had no idea what. Poking his cheek with a finger again, she watched him giggle and try to grab her offending digit.
“Isn’t he perfect?” Jor-El asked, looking down at the both of them together.
“I… wouldn’t say that,” Kara answered honestly, thinking about how the baby didn’t even have the strength to support its own head. “More like, fragile.”
“Well, that too,” Her uncle said and caressed his son’s head in a rare show of affection, then took him off her arms. Looking at them, Kara couldn’t help feeling envious of the little thing. “Kara, as his elder, it will be your job to help guide and teach him.”
“I- what? But you…”
“I am a busy man, and I may not always be there for him,” turning towards her, Jor-El stared at her eyes with unexpected seriousness. “I will be counting on you to watch over him and make sure he is ready when the time comes.”
Feeling conflicted; Kara spent the rest of the day in a daze, watching the rest of the El house pay respect to the new heir, even if most of them agreed with her about the use of the birthing matrix.
She did wonder where Krypto had gone but, with how vulnerable Kal-El seemed, her uncle had probably terminated the creature lest it endanger him. Her heart hurt at the notion, and she really wished he had offered the dog to her, even if she knew her father wouldn’t approve of it.
Going back to Argo City, she was preparing to go to sleep, but she still heard Zor-El’ frustrated yelling as he lost his temper again, not wanting to attract his attention, Kara increased her speed towards her home, Zor-El’s anger was such that Kara swore she could feel the entire house shaking at his anger.
The next days were hard, her father seemed to be spending more and more time away from his work at the Science guild, but he wouldn’t leave his own laboratory, to the point that Kara actually saw him even less than before.
On her travels to Kandor, Kara started to notice she was getting strange looks from the scientists there, and she was no longer allowed to work on some of their simple projects, even when she was perfectly qualified to do it.
Worst, Kara started to notice small earthquakes happening in both cities. Earthquakes weren’t unknown in Krypton, but they only happened once every year or two, and only in one city at a time. Now they were almost a monthly occurrence, and Kara couldn’t find any reason for it, be it on the common network or at the Science guild.
Everything together started to create an oppressive atmosphere, as if it was all building up for something, the looks, the shaking, the lack of support from her family… For the first time in her life, Kara had no idea what to do.
Finally, five months later, Kara was called to have lunch with her family. Deep inside, she hoped that it was the start of a change, that her family would get back in order.
Sitting at the table with both her parents, they actually ate in silence. A small quake caused Kara to spill some of her water, but her father didn’t even react to it, continuing to eat as if it was nothing important.
That was probably when Kara realized things wouldn’t be getting better, her father would never have ignored such things. Feeling some dread, Kara finished her lunch and put down the cutlery. “Father, what’s wrong?”
“This is farewell, Kara,” Zor-El said, lowering his own hands and cleaning his face with a napkin. Trading a short look with Alura, Kara’s father squeezed his wife’s hand in a show of affection.
“What do you mean?”
“Twelve years ago, your uncle noticed an anomaly on Krypton’s core, further study indicated that our planet’s core was critically unstable and in danger of imminent failure. Unfortunately, when he brought the information to the High Council, no other scientist was able to independently verify it,” releasing Alura’s hand, Zor-El put both elbows against the table and steepled his fingers as he explained. “Jor-El had long spoken against some of our customs, and he was a known advocate of re-starting diplomatic relationships with other systems. His warning was taken as a power play and greatly suppressed.”
Barely able to understand her father’s words, Kara felt another quake shaking her chair, distracted, she took the time to push her cutlery back into place and just continued to listen.
“As the second in command of the El house, I supported my brother, but others saw the chance to diminish our influence at the Science guild. Once the High Council had made up its mind, they continued to refuse to see reason no matter what kind of proof was presented, confident in their own reasoning no matter what was said,” Taking a second to drink some more water, Kara’s father pushed his chair back and looked out at Argo City. “Despite how dire the situation was, the question became a political and religious discussion, and Dru-Zod’s attempted coup did not help our cause.
“For some reason, my brother still hoped to change the Council’s mind, so he did not support Dru-Zod, letting him get sentenced to the phantom zone, but also eliminating any chance of solving the issue,” Shaking his head, Zor-El actually took off his neural control, laying it on the table and taking a deep breath. “My brother’s insistence on hoping for a better outcome was almost as ridiculous as the Council’s refusal to see the truth but, at that point, attempting to depose him as the head of our house would only destroy us faster.”
“Were…” Kara swallowed hard, looking at her parent’s resigned faces with despair. “Were you able to find a solution?”
“No, not for Krypton.” Zor-El answered with a cold voice. “For you and Kal-El, yes.”
“The hyper-drives,” Kara whispered, realizing what her father seemed to be implying. “But… Why leave it to me?”
“Succeeding was never the goal, your prototypes were surprisingly effective, but both I and Jor-El still had to improve their designs before they were actually usable,” Her father didn’t explain further, allowing Kara to think things through.
“You only wanted the materials… and maybe the blueprints too.” She said, feeling her hands close into fists at the realization.
“Indeed,” Zor-El nodded, a rare glint of approval on his eye. “While the High Council and the Religious guild were keeping a very close watch on any of my or your uncle’s projects, our family still had enough influence to muddle your own actions, especially when they did their best to keep any information from spreading, such that even their own informants didn’t know exactly why our house was under watch. You have not even completed your education, how important could a simple learning exercise be?
“Jor-El managed to send that beast of his as a test pilot for a first ship, the hyper-drive caused a temporal distortion that we had to make adjustments for, but we used the information gathered to finish two ships in time.”
Another small quake interrupted their talks, and Kara let the silence stretch between them, her mind completely unable to process everything she had just heard. Finally, Zor-El put the neural transmitter back into his forehead and announced. “Kal-El’s ship has just departed, it’s time.”
Together, her parents got up and started walking towards the courtyard. Unable to help herself, Kara walked at her mother’s side, holding on to her hand for support. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why lie and manipulate me like that?”
Without stopping, Zor-El glanced towards her briefly before answering. “Would it have changed anything? There was nothing you could do. I simply chose to spare you the worry, and I never lied, building the hyper-drive prototype was an incredibly valuable exercise. That is why it never gathered any suspicion from the guild.”
Stepping out of the house, Kara saw the crystals on the courtyard folding up, revealing a platform with a single person ship as it was lifted into open air. “What now?”
“Now you’ll leave, I have installed a suspended animation chamber and, once you arrive at sector 2814, both it and the hyper-drive will deactivate, allowing you to pilot the ship and giving you enough time to study the system. The ship’s computer should have all the information you need,” Zor-El said. Looking out at the city, he actually had to brace himself as another earthquake hit them, one far more powerful than before.
Kara actually saw one of the crystal towers on Argo cracking under stress, staring at the falling in both fascination and horror.
“Hmm, the core was predicted to remain stable for another three days,” Her father wondered out loud. “Quickly, you were supposed to leave two months ago, but the Council vastly increased the surveillance after Jor-El’s test and I had to make way for a better stealth system on the ship.”
Kara felt her mother embracing her, squeezing her body against her chest as hard as she could. For the first time in her life, she felt tears running down her cheeks and soaking into her mother’s robes. “Kara, I want you to know I love you, you make me proud to be your mother, don’t let your cousin dictate your life.”
Cleaning her face with her sleeves, Kara hugged her father, squeezing her face against his chest with all her strength. Awkwardly Zor-El squeezed back, before lifting her inside the chamber on the ship.
“Kara Zor-El, you and your cousin are now the last hope of our house, and maybe of our entire race, the crest on you have on your chest is now more important than ever in our history,” Zor-El stepped away from the ship, standing beside his wife and holding her hand on his own. Slowly, the glass covered her face, but she could still hear his voice. “But don’t make the same mistake as your uncle. Remember, hope without substance, without the will, the power and the wisdom to see it through is less than nothing. Don’t let an empty hope blind you to reality and guide your cousin well. I know you’ll make me proud.”
Kara Zor-El’s last sight on Krypton was the same as the first one, her parents standing behind a glass wall, their backs straight as they faced the future, or lack thereof, with perfect composure. Closing her eyes, she felt the ship’s engines igniting, taking her away from the planet and gaining speed.
Still, the ship had to gain enough distance from the Rao’s gravity well before activating the hyper-drive without suffering too much disturbance from the large star and that took time.
Kara felt her eyelids growing heavier and heavier as the chamber started putting her into suspended animation, she closed her eyes and trusted her father’s programming to bring her away.