Our ancestral home was quickly filling the viewport as it got closer. But I paid it no attention, my mind far too busy going over what I was planning on saying. ‘How exactly does one go about telling someone about the apocalypse?’

My first thought had been to call my family with my findings the moment I confirmed the results myself. But upon further deliberation, I decided to wait until morning. I wanted everyone to be at one hundred percent when I told them. Telling them the world was ending right before bed wouldn't have done anybody any good.

And on the off chance that I was somehow wrong, I wanted them to be in the best shape to be able to spot it. Nothing would be worse than us going to the Council with a provable false alarm. It needed to be plasma proof.

I had considered inviting Zod over to the house as well, but decided to wait until my family peer reviewed my work.

I nervously toyed with the data crystal in my hand, spinning it end over end, familiarizing myself with its many facets. Considering the nature of the information, I didn't feel it safe to transmit the data from my lab. Instead, I opted to go old school and use this world's equivalent of a thumb drive. This way I could ensure it wasn't intercepted by any third parties. The Council no doubt had me under some sort of surveillance, just looking for a reason to have me arrested.

Even though I had hardly so much as stepped foot outside my lab since the invasion. The Council seemed adamant that I would try and use my newfound notoriety for something they wouldn't like. My public computer had logged multiple access requests by someone with a clearance level so high that the name had been redacted, leaving only the timestamp of the access on record. And my security systems had detected more than one attempt to hack into my personal computers over the last few months. What they thought I was doing in my lab that warranted this kind of scrutiny was beyond me. The fact that technically speaking I had broken several laws, and committed treason more than once in those same labs wasn't lost on me. But I had never really given them reason to suspect me of anything, so the fact that they did showed their levels of paranoia.

‘What, did they think I was working on some new superweapon so I could wipe them out and declare myself Empress?’ I scoffed at the thought. ‘As if.’

Until I exhausted every avenue for stopping the planet from blowing up, I had long since decided to refrain from doing anything that could even remotely start some sort of insurrection. War was messy, and until it looked like the only option, I would do everything I could to avoid it. It could help sure, but it could also just as easily seal Krypton's fate. And it wasn't like I could put the plasma back in the metaphorical blaster.

I had taken every measure to stay out of the public eye, trying to allow my fame to die as quiet of a death as possible, though it wasn't exactly like I had to go out of my way to do it, considering how much time I had spent in my lab. I had only made a singular comment to the press, and it was that I was working diligently in my lab to help better Krypton. The jackals had been displeased with me for refusing their requests for proper interviews, but after a few weeks, they had grudgingly accepted my stonewalling and stopped messaging me… for the most part anyways.

As I entered the house, I was greeted by Kelex. "Greetings, Mistress Kara. Master Jor and Master Zor are waiting for you in Lab Seven."

"What about Lara? Her communicator tag says she's here."

"She went to go take care of something, but she said she would meet you in the lab in a few minutes."

I nodded my understanding as I walked past the floating bot and into the lift. Lab Seven was the only subterranean lab in the estate. It was actually so deep underground that it was under even the Sword Vault. Kelex must have taken control of the lift as I didn’t even get to vocalize a destination before the lift doors closed, and before I knew it, they opened back up again, revealing a completely different environment.

The lift managed to go down the nearly seven hundred foot drop in the span of a single heartbeat, the inertial dampeners making the trip practically unnoticeable to its passengers. Even on Krypton such fast lifts were not the norm, but it was a necessary safety feature for labs like this. When one was dealing with experiments that could, and more often than not would explode, it paid dividends to be able to get in and out of a lab fast. Whether it be to escape the pending fireball, or to get into the lab in time to stabilize a particularly unstable experiment.

Stepping out of the lift I passed through the sound suppression field, I flinched as my ears immediately came under assault by the screaming match going on at the far end of the lab. Dad and Uncle Jor were practically nose to nose, both holding aggressive stances, and if I didn't know any better I would have thought they would be coming to blows at any moment. But I did know better, so instead of being worried I just sighed in exasperation and leaned against one of the nearby tables. While my Dad and Uncle held unquestionable love for each other, that love did not help ease the friction between them that formed in lab settings. For whatever reason the two brilliant men could never work together on anything science related, their thought processes seemed to clash in every conceivable manner. There was a reason they never worked together on anything, it always ended in frayed tempers and wasted time.

I didn’t even bother listening to what they were arguing about now, no doubt in my mind that it was something incredibly stupid. Instead, I spent the time glancing around the Lab, trying to suss out Jor's current projects. Scattered all around the room were various pieces of tech in differing stages of development, chunks of metal, holo screens with seemingly random information on them, and matter forges in the corners hummed away. My head spun at all the different things, nothing in this room seemed to be related to the other. If he had an organization system, it was certainly one I had never seen the like of. It was so unlike my Father's labs, or my Mother's, or Aunt Lara's. All of them were practically surgical with how everything was arranged in their workspace. How Jor ended up like this when surrounded by such neat freaks was beyond me.

Although it was said that the line between genius and madness is a fine one. . . and Jor was considered to be the smartest person on the planet. As I looked around the lab again, I couldn't help but snort. 'A very fine line indeed.'

"Kara?"

I was broken out of my musings, by my name being called, it seemed the noise I made caught their attention. Taking my eyes away from a particularly interesting proton condenser schematic, I looked towards them. "Nice of you to finally notice me." I said dryly, as I stood with my arms crossed, a small smile playing on my lips.

"How much did you hear?" My Uncle looked almost panicked as he asked.

I blinked at his apparent nervousness and shrugged it off. He was probably just embarrassed to be caught in a screaming match by his nine year old niece. "I wasn't really listening to you guys." I told him honestly, watching curiously as his shoulders dropped in relief. "I was more interested in the proton condenser. If it's successful it could revolutionize power distribution systems!" I spoke excitedly, my mind already racing with potential applications. In these moments I could never quite tell if my excitement was due to me spending so long entrenched in science, or because of the genetic augmentations forced upon me as a member of the Science Caste. It bothered me slightly that my thoughts might not be entirely my own in origin, but at the end of the day I could only shrug and move on. Second guessing my every thought and emotion was a road that would only lead to madness.

Me and Jor spent the next couple minutes talking about the various stuff in his lab. Dad just sat back and watched with a fond smile as I shot question after question, at my equally animated Uncle. For those few minutes, I allowed myself to relax, to just enjoy myself without the fate of a few billion souls hanging over my head. For a moment I could even pretend that the tiny crystal wasn't burning a hole through my palm.

Unfortunately, those minutes of joy came to an abrupt end when I suddenly found myself yanked to the side and being crushed. "Kara! Just because you became a Thinker doesn't mean you can't visit us at least once!" Lara scolded me as she hugged me tightly.

I belatedly wrapped my arms around her waist, returning the hug. "I'm sorry Auntie Lara. I was just really busy." I mumbled up at her from my place pressed into her abdomen. My muscles relaxing as I took in her scent. ‘Oh, how I had missed getting hugged like this.’ With how busy I had been I hadn't realized just how starved for physical attention I had become, it only becoming apparent now, as I practically melted into her embrace.

Dad wasn't really the touchy-feely type at the best of times, the role had usually been filled by Mom. But with her in a coma, I had found myself suddenly lacking that vital source of Kryptonian contact. It was made even worse by the fact that Dad was even busier than he had ever been and I was constantly busy in my own lab. Sure Penny tried her best to help alleviate the issue, but she wasn't quite capable of filling in for the role.

I hadn’t stepped foot on Kryptonian soil ever since receiving the Sword of Rao award, spending all my time locked in my lab on Argo, only sparing the time to visit my parents as our home was also on Argo. Even those few times I visited them were rather lackluster, with my Mom in a coma, and my Dad hardly able to spare a few moments to distractedly greet me as he was busy in his own lab. Jor and Lara were in the same boat, the post-invasion workload for everyone was dramatically increased compared to the relaxed environment Krypton had been enjoying for centuries. Every Caste was hard at work trying to repair the damage Brainiac had wrought, and to ensure it never happened again. I was exempt from the increased responsibilities only because of the one year grace period new Caste members are given so they could find their feet in their field.

Lara just huffed, not showing any signs of letting me go, instead, her fingers ran through my hair. The gentle touch had me almost purring in contentment. "Busy? What in the world could have kept you busy for eight months straight?"

The reminder of what I had come here for caused my loosening muscles to once more tense back up. Slowly I pushed against her, extracting myself from her grip. The data crystal felt so much heavier in my hand. Everyone was looking at me, concerned at my very visible and sudden shift.

"What's wrong Kara?" Dad was the first to speak.

"I-" My throat suddenly felt like it had a baseball lodged in it. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to center myself. I had spent the past nine years preparing for this exact moment, yet now when I was mere moments away from it, I freeze?

Steeling myself, I released the breath I had been holding. "Instead of talking, I think it would be best if I just showed you." Walking over to a nearby terminal, I moved to insert the data crystal, the grav beam yanked it from my fingers the moment I got it close enough. I gestured to the holo screens that appeared above the station. "Look at this and tell me what you think." I wanted them to come to the conclusion on their own, without my opinions coloring their thoughts. I backed away as the three scientists crowded around the console.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

After only a minute they all turned to me, each of their faces holding the same grim, haunted qualities to them. Something about the way they were all looking at me, made me freeze. Something was wrong.

As I studied them further, I noticed a particular detail about Lara. Something I hadn't noticed earlier with how close I had been to her. But now, looking at her from farther away, it was unmistakable. It was something that I hadn't seen in over nine years. It was in the way she held herself, her back slightly arched, pushing her stomach out ever so slightly, making the very slight bulge all the more noticeable.

She was pregnant.

‘She was pregnant?’ I felt like a clock with a seizing gear. ‘Why was she pregnant?’ The sight was so shocking and so utterly unexpected that I couldn't think of anything else. It felt like I was overheating, like a crappy off the shelf VI stuck in some sort of logic loop. Kryptonian women didn't get pregnant. That was the whole point of the Genesis Pods!

There were zero benefits to a natural birth. In fact, it was actually extremely detrimental to the child as the augmentations we received in the Genesis Pods occurred after the fertilization process, meaning they were not inheritable traits. But they must have known that, it was basic biology after all, which meant that for some reason they didn't want their child to have them. Which could only mean that there was some aspect of the mods that I wasn’t aware of-

Everything clicked into place so suddenly it felt like an almost audible thing. I froze, my widening eyes slowly tracking down until they rested upon my hand, even then with all that was going through my head, I could still feel the burn my damaged receptors caused. ‘Of course! One of the augmentations must have changed our original receptors so that they could only process red solar radiation.’

Before I could even finish internalizing the startling revelation, another, far more important one overshadowed it. ‘Why would they suddenly need their kid to be able to process other types of solar radiation?’

The room seemed to tilt slightly, air seemingly becoming denser as I suddenly struggled to get enough of it into my lungs. My mind furiously putting it all together, making leaps in logic almost faster than I realized there was something to even jump to, coming to an inescapable conclusion that made it all grind to a halt.

"You knew." I could only whisper the accusation with how hard it was to breathe. Penny spasmed and contorted uncontrollably for a moment around my wrists, her version of a shocked gasp. A spike of anger shot through me, the sense of betrayal only serving to fan the flames even hotter. I had spent eight months trying to figure this out, eight months of apparently wasted time and effort. I wasn't sure how long they had known, but judging by how far along Lara looked she couldn't have been pregnant for more than three, maybe four months. I severely doubted they immediately jumped to getting pregnant upon finding out about Krypton's fate, so they probably knew much longer than four months. The question now was, how long had they sat on this?

"How long." I stated coldly, barely able to contain my anger. It wasn't a question, it was a demand.

"Jor discovered it a year ago." Dad said, trying his best to placate me. He took a slow step forward, I took an immediate step back.

"You had this information for a year? An entire YEAR?!" I shouted the last word. That would mean they knew about it two months before Brainiac's Invasion. How could they do that? Was this how Krypton fell? Were the El's complacency responsible for killing Krypton?

‘You knew for nine times that long.’ A traitorous part of my mind whispered. I ignored it.

Clearly seeing where my mind was going, Jor spoke up. "Kara, we didn't just sit back and do nothing!" He snapped at me. "We went to the council the moment we confirmed it. They internally investigated it and dismissed our findings. They said if we tried to come forward to the public with this, our entire House would be tried for High Treason." His palpable anger while not directed at me served to knock me out of my own anger.

"High Treason?" I mumbled in shock, the emotional roller coaster of the last few moments making me feel almost numb. There was only one punishment for High Treason. A fate worse than death. An Eternity in the Phantom Zone. The Eternity part of the sentence was quite literal in its definition.

Everything in the universe, no, everything in every universe vibrates at its own unique frequency. This universal fact was how people were retrieved from the phantom zone when their sentence was done. Their specific frequency was recorded and saved to the prisoners file as they were sent through the portal. Even without their specific frequency, the person could still eventually be found due to the simple fact that they were vibrating at a different frequency in comparison to everything else in the phantom zone. They shone like beacons if you used the right equipment.

But when one has been sentenced for an Eternity, the process is different. Instead of simply being tossed through the portal, the person in question undergoes a procedure that changes their natural frequency until it matches the one generated by the phantom zone. This makes the person effectively impossible to track in the phantom zone, leaving you to wander the empty universe forever. Even if one day the council ended up changing their ruling on your sentence, or for some reason decided to free all the prisoners, they would never be able to find you.

It truly was a fate worse than death. You had no hope of escape. You couldn’t die. You can't even sleep in the phantom zone. A genuine eternity with just your thoughts for company in a universe-sized pit of nothingness.

While I was still in shock at Jor's revelation, Dad used the opportunity to get closer to me and place a hand on my shoulder. The unexpected touch drew me back to the present. "Why didn't you guys tell me?" It came out as a whisper, I was just too drained for anything more.

"We didn't want to worry you. Kara, for all your smarts, you're still a child."

"But I'm not a-"

My protests were immediately cut off. "You are nine years old, Kara. The title of Thinker does not change that." The hand on my shoulder tightened minutely. I could tell by his pained expression that he desperately wanted me to understand.

The worst part was that I did understand. Deep down, I understood that all of them were only doing what they genuinely thought was best. But at that particular moment, I wasn't thinking calmly, my logical mind was completely overwritten by the writhing emotions boiling under my skin.

On one hand, I got it. Who in their right mind would trust a nine year old to be able to handle the crushing news that the world was ending? On the other hand though, they were all but admitting that they didn't trust me. That they didn't have faith in me. Hadn't I shown myself to be mature, hadn't I proven myself? Even after all my achievements, was that all I was to them, just some kid to be coddled? It cut me far deeper than I would have ever thought it would. Already, I could feel the slight prickling in my eyes.

With clenched fists and harsh breathing, I spun away from them and began to pace. My mouth worked quietly, opening and clicking shut. So many things that I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to shout.

Even putting my hurt feelings aside, I had spent nine years under ever-increasing stress, constantly worrying about the invisible clock constantly ticking down. I had spent eight months locked in a lab working myself past exhaustion every single day. And here they were, telling me that all of it was pointless?

I was furious.

I was bitter.

I was heartbroken.

I was a great many other things at that moment.

But most importantly, I was tired.

Slowly my pacing came to a stop, and my breathing became less ragged. "Alright." My shoulders slumped as the fight left me, leaving behind a sense of bone deep weariness. "I understand." We didn't have the time to deal with my petty grievances. I could scream and shout at them later. But first, there needed to be a later.

They thought me to be some stupid child? Fine. I would just have to be the adult they apparently thought I wasn’t.

Spite was a truly powerful thing.

He squeezed my shoulder appreciatively. "I knew you would." ‘No, you didn't.’ I had to bite my tongue to stop the instinctive response. Now no longer gripping my shoulder he backed away towards one of the consoles. "Now that you know, I don't see a point in not bringing you into our projects."

Now it was my time to hunch over the console, studying and trying to compute the gathered information. It was a lot to take in, in fact, it was too much to take in. After only a few minutes of browsing the various folders I had to stop for a breather. I had thought my work ethic these past few months was insane, but looking through these folders really made me feel like the child I appeared to be.

While the three El's hadn't necessarily been working together. Lara and Jor had collaborated extensively, while Dad worked on his own on Argo. They had still linked their servers together, allowing everyone to see what each other had worked on, even their failures and scrapped ideas were meticulously cataloged just in case one of the others could somehow use something from it. This access to each other's thoughts and viewpoints, combined with their already brilliant minds allowed for them to make astonishing strides in their work.

Dad’s specialty in field emitters had him working on miniaturizing inertial dampeners and cloaking modules. Krypton had plenty of them already, but they were either big and strong or small and weak. Due to the weight constraints and the sheer forces involved in traveling past the speed of light, we needed one that was light enough to make the jump yet powerful enough to keep the ship from tearing itself apart, or worse, keeping the ship in one piece at the cost of turning the passengers into paint. The cloaking field modules were for the same weight to power rationale, but it was in case we needed it to sneak out of Kryptonian space, or past anyone else out in the vast universe. Packing any meaningful weapons was a pipe dream considering all the limitations we had to account for, but being able to go unseen would hopefully be just as good. Apparently, I had even seen his work on it before without thinking twice about it, that stealthed shuttle Mom had used during the Invasion was one of his.

Mom had been the biologist of the family, so it only made sense that all of her work had revolved around trying to figure out a solution for our receptors' inability to process other forms of solar radiation, it had seemed like she had been making steady progress, but then her notes just stopped without any warning. I bit my lip at the wave of guilt that crashed into me when I realized just why her contributions had ended so abruptly. Dad had seemingly made an attempt to pick up where her work had ended, but it just wasn't his field of expertise and it showed.

Mom and Dad’s work was amazing, but it was Uncle Jor and Aunty Lara’s work that truly left me in awe.

Jor’s expertise in dimensional physics and Lara’s mastery of power distribution systems complimented each other in the best of ways for their given objectives. The end result was a working blueprint for an FTL drive that had a max capacity of a quarter ton, and they had only been working on it for the past six months. Whereas it had taken me just shy of two and a half months to design one that could only transport a measly six pounds, and at barely acceptable speeds to boot.

Seeing just how much work they had gotten done in such a short time frame, it only served to make my thoughts darken.

‘Had I been wrong?’

‘Was keeping this all a secret for so long the right path?’

‘If I had just trusted them would we even be in this situation?’

‘After all, with just one year, they had gotten so much work done. What would a decade have done?’

"-think?"

I blinked my spiraling thoughts away, turning to look at Lara. "What?"

"I said. What do you think?"

'What did I think?' Turning back to the console in front of me, feeling something in my chest I hadn't felt in a long time. The ever present weight on my shoulders seemed to lighten.

"I-” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I think we can do this."

I felt hope.

But that burgeoning spark only lived for mere moments, replaced with the old friend that was utter terror. As I made one more realization.

If Lara was already pregnant, that meant we had even less time than I’d thought.