The young dark haired scientist stood alone on the terrace, admiring the beauty of the setting sun. Having spent his life in pursuit of academic and technological accomplishment, it was a tapestry that he’d too often ignored.

“If only there had been more time,” he thought to himself once more as the crimson sun began to fade beneath the horizon. “If only I had been able to make them listen.”

But they’d chosen not to listen, the learned men and women of the ruling Science Council, preferring instead to attribute the recent increase in both groundquakes and atmospheric storms to minor adjustments in the planet’s orbital mechanics. He was being an alarmist, they insisted. Once he had the benefit of years, they intoned; he would learn the value of patience.

That had been a month ago, the day he had finally, reluctantly, turned his attention from saving his world to preserving that part of it which was most precious to him. And even in that task the clock had conspired against him, until even he, who had been often described by others as the greatest mind of his generation, had to admit defeat.

“Jor-El?” the equally dark haired woman said in surprise as she stepped out onto the veranda and found her husband of two years standing there. “I thought you were still down in the laboratory.”

His silence said what words could not and a shudder passed though her slender form.

“How long?” she asked, trying to control the trebling in her voice.

“Days, possibly less,” he replied, his own voice reflecting a sense of failure that she had never heard before.

“Then at least we will be together until the end,” Lara said as she placed her hand on his arm, glancing down at the carefully wrapped bundle in her arms.

“I am sorry,” Jor-El said, looking down at the red and blue blankets that held their only child.

“There is no need for you to be sorry, my love,” Lara said as she brought her hand up to the side of his face. “I fear nothing as long as you are by my side.”

“Lara ... I...” he started to say, only to be interrupted as the ground beneath the city suddenly began to shake with frightening intensity.

The walls of their home trembled, despite their reinforced construction, knocking holographs and keepsakes to the floor. At first, it seemed just another of the groundquakes that now occurred with increasing regularity. But, as the minutes passed, it became obvious that this time it was much more. Quickly they moved down the stairs into the research lab, the most secure part of the house, yet even there the tables had been overturned and the contents atop them smashed.

“Jor, is it... ?” Lara asked, no longer trying to hide the fear in her voice.

“I’m afraid it is,” he replied after a momentary glance at the instrumentation that monitored the sensors he had scattered across the globe. “The quake is world-wide, increasing in size and scope with each passing minute. The stress readings are already off the scale; it’s only a matter of time before the planetary core reaches critical mass. An hour, maybe less.”

The sound of the baby’s cries pierced the chaos around them, causing Lara to wrap the blankets more tightly, whispering lies that all would be well. A sudden panic filled her as she looked up and saw that she and the child were alone in the room.

“Jor-El!” she screamed when she saw he was no longer by the monitors.

“I’m over here,” came his voice from an adjacent chamber on the far side of the lab. “Hurry!”

Lara followed his voice, racing to the outer room to find her husband frantically making entries on the computer system of his prototype starcraft. The one he had hoped to build a full sized version of that would carry them all to safety.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wondering for the first time if the realization of having been proved so horribly right had finally caused him to crack under the strain.

“There’s still a chance,” he said as his hands continued to enter information into the databanks. “The prototype is fully capable of making the trip to that world I told you about, the one much like Krypton was centuries ago.”

“We couldn’t all fit in there,” she stated the obvious as she looked at the small passenger compartment that had previously housed test animals.

“You and our child,” Jor-El replied as he finally finished his hurried task. “It will tax the life support systems, but it’s still more of a chance than either of you have now.”

“No,” Lara said without hesitation, certain that he was now grasping at straws.

“Lara, my love, it’s your only chance,” Jor insisted. “Please, there isn’t any more time. If you’ve ever believed in me, believe in me now. I beg of you.”

“If there is any chance at all, then it belongs to our child,” Lara replied, looking down at the embodiment of their love. “With only one of us aboard, the ship will have a better chance.”

With only a glance into her eyes, Jor knew she was right, making one last adjustment as Lara strapped the baby into the travel pod. A final touch from each of them and together they sealed the hatch.

“Our child, may Rao watch over you on your journey,” Jor-El said as he activated the launch sequence and the stardrive came alive.

They held each other as the small craft lifted into the sky, tears in their eyes as it quickly vanished from sight. Tears not for themselves but for the hope of a new life that waited out there in the distant stars.

A heartbeat later, Krypton was no more.

“Jonathan, do you hear something?” Martha Kent asked her husband as they drove down the dirt road that ran between the cornfields of their farm to the larger county road that connected to the town of Smallville.

The farmer was already looking out the truck’s window. The noise his wife had referred to had also caught his attention. Slightly familiar, it brought back memories of his Army days when he used to hang out by the flight line and watch fighter jets land. The only thing was, there weren’t any military bases in this part of Kansas and the closest civilian airport was fifty miles to the south.

A sudden explosion filled the air, one that he knew was unmistakably a sonic boom, followed seconds later by a blinding streak of flame that cut across the road in front of them. A louder, ground shaking explosion followed as whatever it was impacted in the middle of the cornfield.

“Jumping Jehosophat!” the middle-aged man cried out as he hit the brakes and brought the truck to a screeching stop.

They quickly made their way to the impact site, avoiding the numerous small fires that dotted the field. At first, Jonathan thought it might’ve been a meteorite, having seen one that was pretty large in the natural history museum in the state capitol when he was young. Then, as they got close enough to get a look at it through the smoke, he realized that it was something man-made, possibly a satellite.

“Be careful, Jonathan,” Martha warned as he tried to get closer to the object, knowing full well how easily her husband’s curious nature could overwhelm his sense of caution.

“Listen,” he said as he moved to within a few yards, “I think there’s something in there.”

They both knew they had to be hearing it wrong, the noise sounding for all the world like a baby crying. Ignoring the danger, the farmer tossed enough dirt on the satellite to put out the worst of the flames and, using his work gloves to protect his hands, tried to open what looked like to be a hatch.

As soon as he touched the metal, which was inexplicably cool despite the fire around it, a beam of light unexpectedly shot out from the ship, causing his entire body to tingle. Having read about it enough times in the sci-fi books he had enjoyed as a child, Jonathan had the impression that he’d just been scanned.

A scan that must’ve found him acceptable, it seemed, as the hatch abruptly opened of its own accord. With a quick glance back to his wife, Jonathan cautiously moved closer to get a better look inside.

“Dear God in heaven!” he cried out when he saw the contents of the strange ship.

Ignoring any other possible dangers, he rushed forward and pulled the baby out of the ship, cradling it in his arms. Turning around to protect the child with his body, he carried the colorfully wrapped bundle to his wife a few yards behind him.

Equally shocked, Martha took the baby and carefully looked to see if it had been burned. To her relief, not even the blankets had been scorched.

Quickly putting as much distance between them and the still smoldering craft as they could, they discussed what was happening but were unable to come up with an explanation, at least one that was halfway believable. When Jonathan actually suggested that the child might’ve been from another world, Martha brushed away any such suggestion by saying this wasn’t one of those science fiction magazines that he used to be so fond of.

“This baby is as human as you or I,” she insisted as she looked down at the beautiful face now smiling up at her, “and I don’t care what anyone says, whoever sent up that rocket is not getting it back.”

Glancing back in the direction of the spacecraft, for that was what he now knew it to be, Jonathan Kent allowed his gaze to lift upward into the mid-morning sky. From what he’d seen of the ship, it was decades if not centuries ahead of anything NASA or the Russians could have build. He was as certain that this child had come from another world as he was of the fact that his wife intended to keep it as her own. They’d tried to have a child for years, with no success and after two decades of praying, it was obvious that Martha saw this all as a gift from God.

“Maybe it is a gift,” Jonathan thought as he looked down from the empty sky. Probably the greatest gift they ever could’ve gotten. They’d always wanted a daughter, and now it seemed like they had one.

“Look, up in the sky!” a well dressed, middle aged woman standing at the Swan Street bus stop cried out as she caught a flash of red and blue passing overhead.

“It’s a bird,” a second woman, half her age, exclaimed as she tossed her head back to get a better view.

“No, it’s a plane,” an elderly man standing next to the two of them insisted, joining in on what had become a familiar refrain all over Metropolis these last two weeks.

“It’s Supergirl!” four children, also standing at the bus stop with their mother, chorused as they pointed at the now fading figure that had been just above them only moments before.

Even though she was already more than a half mile away by the time the children had cheerfully called out her name, the last daughter of Krypton still managed a smile. Technically, she thought, it really should be Superwoman now; after all she was closing fast on her twentieth birthday, at least by the Terran calendar. Still, the name she had been known by since going public soon after her sixteenth birthday did roll off the tongue a lot easier than the more adult polysyllable.

Such trivial concerns, however, were quickly brushed aside as she left the city behind her and she focused her full attention on her destination, still some miles in the distance. No longer concerned with speed limits and the window shattering sonic booms that exceeding them might cause, the Girl of Steel doubled her velocity, gliding into a parabolic arc that would cut her travel time in half. As she descended down through the heavy cloud cover, she reviewed the threat briefing she had been given by the FBI only ten minutes before.

Two days ago, a letter had been delivered to the office of the President of National Rail, containing a threat to destroy the Gotham- Metropolis Express unless a million dollars in bearer bonds were delivered to a location on an enclosed map. Lacking in details, the letter hadn’t been taken that seriously but turned over to the FBI just in case.

Then, a little over an hour ago, another package had been delivered to the offices of National Rail, this one containing a repeat of the original threat and demand, along with a highly detailed schematic of an explosive device that the FBI now took seriously. More so since the package was scheduled to have been delivered the previous day, but had been delayed due to some error on the part of the shipping company.

According to the train’s schedule, the Express should be in the middle of its passage through the Shuster Mountain tunnels on the final leg of its journey, but all attempts to communicate with it by radio or cell phone had so far been unsuccessful.

Coming down just over the eastern terminus of the tunnels, Supergirl allowed herself a small sigh of relief as she saw the first car of the ten train Express emerge from out of the darkness. It had been the FBI expert’s concern that the best place to detonate an explosive that would totally destroy the train would be inside the tunnels, burying it under the tons of rock that would’ve been dislodged.

With no more information than when she had left the railroad offices, except that the train was still intact, the Maid of Might set in motion the plan of action she had formulated during her high-speed transit. Circling behind and then coming in low over the last car of the train, Supergirl began to subject every square inch of it to a quick but intensive x-ray scan. For one brief moment, each section of the train became transparent to her eyes, her mind processing and identifying each image faster than any computer on Earth. It took less than a dozen heartbeats to cover the length of the train, and she found nothing out of the ordinary other than the young couple in the bathroom of the third car, doing their best to join whatever the railroad equivalent of the Mile High Club was.

A smile on her lips, Supergirl increased her speed to leave the train behind and subjected the rails below to the same scrutiny. Recalling the route map she had glanced out while in the National Rail office, the dark haired heroine visualized the Simon’s Gorge Crossing, some three miles ahead. A two thousand foot span that joined the two states that Metropolis and Gotham City called home, it seemed to her a much more likely target that the tunnels behind her.

From her experience, madmen like their mystery bomber wanted attention as much as they want the ransom they demand. Bringing down the Shuster tunnels would indeed have caused a disastrous loss of life, in addition to the financial cost to reopen them, but it wouldn’t have been spectacular – at least not visually. As she glanced right and left across the tree topped hills around her, she was sure that if she’d had the time to search them, there would be at least one camera out there focused on the Simon’s Gorge Crossing. The images it might record would undoubtedly be sent to every major news outlet in the country, where they would be endlessly repeated, much to the bomber’s delight.

Flying across the center of the concrete and steel span, Supergirl found the object of her search. Hidden on opposite sides of the single track, covered by metal boxes that had been camouflaged to appear as part of the structure itself, rested two full sized versions of the device that had appeared on the diagram sent with the ransom demand. They were for all purposes indistinguishable from a dozen other similar boxes that lined the route, except of course to someone with x-ray vision.

A few seconds’ analysis of the triggering mechanism told her that while it was possible to deactivate both devices, it might take more time than she had. To simply try and physically remove them without first doing so would initiate the detonation she was trying to prevent. The only remaining solution, then, was to stop the train.

In the days following her public debut, as new stories about the Supergirl from Smallville began to appear on the national news, one well know commentator had coined a description of her abilities that included the phrase “more powerful than a locomotive.” Subsequent events had proven that comparison woefully inadequate, but it came to mind as she reversed direction and considered just how difficult it actually was to stop a speeding train on not much more than a dime. At least not without tearing it to shreds in the process.

While still several hundred feet in front of the train, Supergirl focused a carefully aimed blast of heat vision at the exact spot on the locomotive’s undercarriage that would trip the braking system. Unfortunately, when you took into consideration the multi-thousand ton weight of the assemblage racing at her, coupled with the fact that it had been traveling at top speed to make its way up an incline, it was obvious the behemoth wasn’t going to come to a stop in time on its own.

Landing on the front edge of the diesel engine, the Girl of Steel placed her hands against the heavy superstructure, taking a grip so tight that her slender fingers actually pressed into the metal. Then, lifting the rest of her body back into the air, she began to apply an ever increasing reverse thrust, much in the way an airline pilot would throw his engines in reverse once on the ground. The combination of braking and reverse thrust rapidly reduced the train’s forward motion, until it reached a point where Supergirl felt it safe to apply one hard push and bring it all to an abrupt but still controlled stop. The sudden halt would still be hard enough to cause a few bumps and bruises, but they were much more preferable than the inevitable fatalities that waited just a hundred yards down the line.

Letting out another sigh of relief as she released her hold on the engine, Supergirl realized that it had been less than five minutes since she’d let out her first. The entire incident had taken place in that short a time.

Within another minute, the Chief Engineer and some of his associates were climbing down out of the engine’s cabin, eager to learn what was going on. Softly gliding over to them, Supergirl set down on a small clearing and waited for them. As she explained what had, or rather what had not just happened, the Maid of Might recognized the expression on some of their faces. It was one that she’d become accustomed to over the years, usually after she’d performed some unbelievable demonstration of strength.

Standing five foot nine and only a bit over a hundred and thirty pounds, the black haired, athletically built young woman hardly looked like someone who could’ve done what she just had. Yet, if she really had wanted to, Supergirl could just as easily have lifted the entire ten-car train up and over the threatened span. That course of action, however, would’ve brought with it a whole different set of problems, such as how to prevent one or more of the cars from decoupling under the stress and falling back to Earth with disastrous consequences.

As the Girl of Tomorrow finished explaining the situation to the train crew, she noticed that a large number of passengers had likewise disembarked and were gathering around her. It wasn’t that they didn’t recognize her; actually it was quite the contrary. The long sleeved blue blouse with the stylized red and yellow pentagon, along with the bright red skirt, boots and cape that made up the rest of her uniform had become quite familiar over the last few years, having been exhibited on every imaginable form of mass media there was. Yet people were still taken aback when they actually saw her in person. It was as if they wanted to assure themselves that despite all the evidence to the contrary, she was indeed real and not just some urban legend. Much like the rumored Bat-Man that was said to prowl the nighttime streets of Gotham City.

Still, even with the evidence of their own eyes, there would always be those who refused to believe at least some of the story that had been repeated so often as to have become part of the popular lore. Foremost among those was the claim that she was the last survivor of a lost alien world.

Visitors from other worlds, the general public had been conditioned to believe by almost a half century of science fiction novels and films, were supposed to be equally alien in appearance. Depending on which author or screenwriter you favored, they could range from totally monstrous to almost cute and cuddly. But only in the most unimaginative of those forums would they have been depicted as looking like the all-American girl next door.

When she considered the continued disbelief in her abilities and her origins, Supergirl sometimes wondered if they still would’ve been the same had she been born a man, or at least had some distinguishable difference like pointed ears. Think what they might, however, the young woman in question had no doubt as to who she was and where she had come from. Thanks to the foresight of her natural father, she knew a great deal more about the world of her birth than might have been imagined, especially given the circumstances under which she had left it.

The telepathic scan that had judged Jonathan Kent as a suitable guardian for the last child of Krypton had, at the same time, implanted an incredible storehouse of knowledge in his mind. At first, he was hardly aware of it, but in the days and weeks that followed he began to realize that he possessed memories not his own. One of the first that became clear to him was that the babe in his wife’s arms was the daughter of Jor-El and Lara, who had perished along with their world light years away. It was that first realization that had led them to christen the child Laura Kent.

Also as those transplanted memories came into focus came the awareness that eventually they would fade over time, given certain differences between Kryptonian and human minds. To preserve them as best he could, Jonathan resurrected a long abandoned hobby of science fiction writing, putting down on paper what eventually amounted to a rather concise history. By the time Laura could herself read and understand the stories he’d filled several notebooks with for herself, they formed what could’ve been a manuscript for a national bestseller, had it not been intended for a readership of one.

Finally excusing herself from the crowd, Supergirl returned to the center of the rail bridge and, now that she had the luxury of time, easily deactivated the deadly devices. It was just a matter of her using her super-breath to freeze the sensitive triggers long enough to physically disable them. While doing so, she also spotted a number of quite readable fingerprints on both units that would be of great interest to the FBI. Evidently, their creators hadn’t been as intelligent as they fancied themselves, or they simply assumed there would be little left of the explosives to prove incriminating.

A glance sunward told her the time far more accurately than any timepiece she might have worn. The appointment she had come to Metropolis for some two weeks before was now only a half hour away. Plenty of time for her to stop along the way and deliver the now harmless explosives at the local FBI office.

With a good fifteen minutes to spare before her appointment, Supergirl silently landed in the alley behind the Daily Planet building that led to the loading dock. A few hours from now, when the first evening edition hit the streets, this area would be a beehive of activity, but at the moment it was deserted as a ghost town. Still, it didn’t hurt for her to do a quick three hundred and sixty degree x-ray scan just to be sure.

Satisfied that she was indeed alone, Supergirl opened a small bundle she had retrieved from where she had left it atop one of the taller buildings in the area. In a blur of motion, the familiar blue and red costume vanished, to be replaced by a simple, nondescript tan and white business suit. Laura often wondered what other costumed adventurers did with their civilian clothes when they changed but had been too shy to ask the few that she’d actually met. If she were a man, she also sometimes thought, she could probably get away with wearing practically the same suit every day, copies of which she could leave in different places. Unfortunately, women’s style, even in the business world, called for more variety. Since coming to Metropolis, she had taken to carefully folding up her outfits into a special protective bag and leaving it in places only she could easily retrieve it. What else could she do, hide them in some secret pocket in her cape?

In addition to the change of clothing, her short, pixie hairstyle was now covered by a longer haired wig of similar hue. The change was completed with the donning of a pair of rectangular, gold framed glasses which, along with the wig, changed the shape of her face. Eyeglasses seemed out of place on someone who could read newsprint from a quarter mile away, but it was all necessary to achieve the desired effect.

From the time she’d first appeared in public, at least since she’d first appeared in costume, the Girl of Steel had never given any indication that she was anyone other than Supergirl. Since she made no attempt to hide her face, people seemed more willing to go along with that small piece of fiction.

The truth was, long before that first costumed appearance, a great deal of thought had gone into the decision of what to do about preserving her privacy. Adding a mask or even an all-covering cowl had been considered and then rejected. It had been Martha Kent’s suggestion that the best place to hide would be in plain sight. People see what they want to see, she’d said, and they definitely would see what they weren’t looking for in the first place.

So with a few simple changes, a longer hair style, a pair of glasses, and a small change in her voice so that when she spoke as Laura her mid- western accent was always noticeable, the illusion was complete. If anyone did happen to notice any resemblance, it was superficial enough to be easily dismissed. Especially since, as Laura, she always let her natural exuberance shine through, hardly the act of someone trying not to attract attention to herself, and it was in the Supergirl guise that she presented a much quieter persona. After all, Laura was who she was; Supergirl was just the name of the person wearing the costume.

An elevator ride to the twenty-second floor brought her to the editorial offices of the Daily Planet and her appointment with the managing editor, Perry White. A year before, Mr. White had delivered a lecture at Metropolis University where Laura had been taking journalism classes. Afterwards, he had been gracious enough to read some samples of a few of the top students’ writing, which included the girl who was always careful to make sure she placed in the top percentile of her class, but not too close to the top. White had given her some encouraging words and suggested that she give him a call when she graduated.

Laura was smart enough to realize that he probably said that to a number of students in a year, but confident enough in her writing talents to try and hold him to it. So, two weeks ago, after having completed the requirement for her degree a year early, she gave him a call. The Editor had truthfully told her that he didn’t remember the invitation but had no doubt in his mind that he had made it, confirming Laura’s initial conclusion that he made those offers as a matter of form. Unwilling to go back on a promise, even if he didn’t remember it, he had his secretary set up an appointment with her.

The bulk of the twenty-second floor was a large open bullpen, filled with desks occupied by various reporters, columnists and associate editors. At the forefront of it all sat a receptionist’s desk which Laura approached, to state the nature of her business. She fully expected to be waiting out here in the reception area for some time, until Mr. White was free, which based on the level of activity she could observe wasn’t going to be any time soon.

“Oh yes, Mr. White is expecting you,” the middle aged receptionist said as she consulted a clipboarded notepad on her desk. “If you just follow Jimmy here,” she added, indicating the redheaded teenage boy sitting in one of the chairs against the wall, “he’ll show you the way to his office.”

Thanking the woman, Laura followed the young man, who she concluded was a high school intern, based on his age. Thinking about it as she passed the long rows of computer topped desks; she decided that it made more sense for the managing editor to get her interview out of the way as quickly as possible so he could get on with the business of getting the first edition out. At best, she thought, she had about ten or fifteen minutes to make an impression on him.

True to his reputation, Perry White wasted no time in getting to the point once the interview started, and the substance of his words was pretty much what Laura had expected. While not discouraging her ambitions or what he assumed was obvious talent, since he must’ve seen something in her work to have made the offer in the first place, good reporters, he said, needed more than talent; they needed real life experience, and that just wasn’t something a person just coming out of college had a great deal of.