Back To Krypton

Chapter 2

"I have made copies of the map with our route marked out. I couldn't go with my first choice unfortunately so rather than a 3000-mile trek, we're looking at about 4600 miles to the nearest city and then from there, we should be able to get proper transportation over to Kryptonopolis. Any questions?"

Nia raises her hand as she begins to speak. "Is it really called Kryptonopolis? Like Metropolis?"

"Nia, it's another planet with many other sublanguages. Some things get translated and others don't. Kryptonopolis is the capital of Krypton, and the only other English translation comes to City of Krypton, although it is known on Krypton as Kandor. It's for ease of speech and...why are we discussing this? It has literally nothing to do with the plan. You were definitely the student that derailed all of the classes."

"Is that a compliment?"

"No. It most definitely is not."

"I'm going to ignore every weird interaction that was and ask how long we are expecting this mission to last?" Kelly steps forward.

"It will take longer than we would hope. It will take us between six weeks and two months approximately to hike to the city and retrieve what we need, and that is based on our average walking speed if we move for ten hours per day."

"Two months! Kara, I like a hike as much as the next person, but two months is way longer than we want." Alex is the first to complain, just as Kara had anticipated.

"I know and that's why I want you and Kelly to stay with Esme."

"You're benching us? Seriously Kara?"

"I'm not benching you, I still want you on the mission with me, obviously, but I can't justify taking you away from that little girl for that long. The travel alone could be two months but add in a couple of complications and it could be a lot longer." Kara shrugs as she tries to justify her plan, spending that amount of time away from her sister will be awful but she isn't willing to leave Esme without her parents, she knows how that feels and wouldn't wish it upon even Lex.

"Kara."

"I know, Alex."

"And I also think that once we arrive, Brainy should stay with the ship, ready and waiting for us to signal for him to pick us up and get out of there. We have to make a sneaky entrance, but it doesn't matter about our exit. We'll have time-jumped out of there before they can see what colour socks we're wearing."

"Absolutely not, I am a level twelve intellect, I will not be left behind. You'll need me to assist you in your mission." Brainy stands from his chair, puffing out his chest.

"And I need someone who knows the ship to be on hand to make sure it stays in one piece and fully functional or we all die with Krypton." Kara's voice shakes as she reaches the end of her sentence, showing the group just how emotionally invested she is forced to be with this mission and how vulnerable she has been left.

"Are you certain that nobody else can do this job? Lena perhaps?"

Brainy barely gets the words out before Kara is shooting him down. "No! Lena is with me." She pauses for a second re-evaluating. "Unless Lena would feel more comfortable away from the action, if you want to stay on the ship instead of Brainy, you can Lena."

Lena eyes Kara closely, trying to figure out what is going through her head, but her face goes through her emotions quicker than she can keep up with them. "I would appreciate making the journey with you if that's alright with you. I think it's best that we all stay with our assigned tasks, Kara is taking the lead, and this is a very important mission. The last thing we should be doing is undermining her position."