Karen Starr, Part One

by Shadar

Chapter One

“Jesus, look at that!” Jim Matthews exclaimed as he pressed his face to the plastic window. “She’s coming right up at us as if we were standing still.”

His astronaut partner on the wounded ISS, Sergei Lavarov of Russia was fogging up his own window. “She fly like nothing matter. Not hard vacuum. Not cold.”

“But she’s not bringing any gear with her, Sergei. How’s she supposed to get us down without a re-entry vehicle?”

“Oh, she have gear. Definitely,” Sergei breathed as she drew closer.

Like everyone else on Earth, they’d seen Powergirl on TV and on uncounted websites, always wearing the revealing white costume she wore now. Her oversized yet inhumanly firm boobs were a magnet for every man’s eyes, and a source of derision and jealousy by most females. But seeing her in person, up close, floating in space without any protection, she looked truly otherworldly. Stunning.

She paused to float outside the space station, staring up at the faces pressed against windows. She had a truly beautiful face with big blue eyes that were as superhumanly powerful as the rest of her. Both men watched intently as they sparkled a brighter shade of blue while she scanned the ISS from one end to the other, her vision piercing alloy and plastic to turn the metal walls as transparent as glass.

Her eyes returned to the men, still sparkling, and then she floated up and out of sight to enter the airlock. They heard the thump of the outer door closing and saw the blue PRESSURIZE button illuminate, flashing for attention. Jim stabbed it to release air into the airlock, and the pressure in their small section of the surviving station dropped enough to make his ears pop. A few moments later, the OPEN INNER button turned green. He reached out to push it, noticing as he did that his hand was shaking for the first time since the meteor storm had begun.

He was in uncharted space now.

Forty Eight hours earlier…

The meteor storm had caught everyone by surprise, and by the time it was over, it had punctured the ISS hundreds of times. Jim and Sergei had somehow missed getting hit, but Delores Smith had taken a meteorite through the head, leaving a hole that was both surgically precise and instantly fatal. They didn’t have time to secure her body as they frantically worked inward from opposite ends of the station, finding compartment after compartment punctured. Donning oxygen masks as they tried frantically to patch the holes, they heard the screaming of the alarms rising in pitch before fading away as the life-giving pressure dropped to only a few pounds.

They met at the center, both of them struggling to breathe despite their 100% oxygen pressure masks, only seconds of consciousness left. Thankfully the Quest airlock module still had pressure, so they locked themselves in there as the rest of ISS dropped to zero pressure.

They had no time to relax. Power began failing due to the damaged solar cells, and along with it they lost their heating. Propulsion and attitude thrusters were offline as the station began to slowly spin. They had no access to the controls in any case now that they were trapped in the airlock module.

They had one radio that still worked, a low power unit intended for communication with EVA teams. If not for a Ham radio operator in Brazil who knew about a planned EVA for that morning and liked to listen in, they would have been cut-off entirely. He linked them weakly and intermittently into the NASA comm network.

A quick calculation by the European Space Agency said they had at best three days before they’d be forced into their EMU suits, which thankfully were also in the airlock compartment. Assuming they didn’t freeze first. The suits would give them another eight hours or so.

Eighty hours total — was it enough time to find a way back to Earth?

Chapter Two

Karen Starr was chairing her weekly staff meeting when her assistant, Jody, opened the door to signal her. Her closed fist signal said the emergency had nothing to do with Starr Industries.

“Excuse me folks. Jody, come on in. We have no secrets here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” her new and very nervous assistant replied. She'd been sworn to secrecy about Karen's alter-ego, but she was still trying to figure who was in the know and who wasn't. “Ah, we got this call, you did actually, Ms. Starr, from the Director of NASA. Nathan Sedgwick.” She glanced even more nervously at all the faces staring at her. “He says the Russians can’t launch a rescue for the ISS, nor can Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, least of all NASA. Nobody has the right combination of launcher and re-entry vehicle at the pad. They, ah, they kind of need you to, you know, change.”

Karen rose to stand at the head of the table, her height the equal of any man in the room. She wore a conservative business suit as usual, but the dramatic way she filled it out made it clear she’d been carved from something closer to steel than flesh and blood. She started to undo her blouse.

“Ok, folks. Looks like we’ll have to take a break while I save the collective asses of the world’s various space organizations. When I get back, Nathan, I want a deeper dive into the development schedule with suggestions to accelerate. Bill, I want an updated financial outlook assuming we can’t and have to live with the slower schedule.”

She turned to look at Ed Murphy, her Senior VP of Engineering, who walked over to stand beside her. He’d made a name for himself at Starr Labs after leaving a top development job at Apple. Their first two products had changed the market. But the third was struggling.

“Lets hope I don’t have to piss off the diamond market again just to hold things together here.”

Ed grinned. When Karen was trying to recruit him from Apple, he’d laid out the kinds of labs, equipment and staff he needed. The kind of resources that only an Apple or Microsoft could afford. She said “no problem” and flew off to dig up tons of extremely large diamonds from two miles beneath Antarctica, and then dumped them on the international market to the tune of three billion dollars. She endured massive criticism and threats of lawsuits and criminal indictments for crashing the market, but in the end, her lawyers exploited a loophole in the Antarctic treaties — it only applied to citizens of Earth.

Turning, she headed toward the door as she finished unbuttoning her blouse, making no effort to hide the large cutout in the white costume she wore beneath. Despite her new assistant’s concerns, it was an open secret at Starr Industries that Karen Starr and Powergirl were the same person.

She peeled off the rest of her business attire and tossed the tangled pile of clothing on her assistant’s desk, caring little that a dozen pairs of eyes were on her. She pulled on her boots and was adjusting her cape as she walked toward the elevator, only to run into Darren Johnson in the hallway. She quickly pulled him into the elevator behind her while pushing the ROOF button.

“I want your team working weekends until we catch up, Darren. Ed will give you the details. I’ll make it worth your guys time if they can pull it off.”

“And what about me?” he winked.

“You…“ she said softly as she grabbed his tie to lift him up onto his toes to gently kiss him. “You need to tell your assistant that you won’t be in tomorrow.”

She leaned forward, softly pinning him against the elevator wall with her oversized chest. “After I get back from this space station rescue thingy, I’m cooking dinner for you at my place. Don’t plan on sleeping tonight. Which is why you need to take tomorrow off.”

He grinned as he reached up to cup the sides of her amazingly firm breasts, her white costume feeling silky and warm. His fingertips rested on even warmer skin, inhumanly tight yet even silkier smooth, her breasts far too large to get his hands around. “You like giving orders, don’t you, Ms Starr. And where are you going to be tomorrow?”

“In my office working. Far be it for a man to wear me out.”

The elevator chimed and the door opened on the roof. She turned and walked out onto the helipad. “Make it six thirty if you can. Bring a couple of bottles of good wine and an appetite. The wining and dining is to give you strength.”

“Well, I ain’t whining…” he punned.

Kara rolled her eyes as she bent down and leapt upward. The roof vibrated from her powerful jump as she accelerated straight up, breaking Mach 1 almost instantly before disappearing in the blink of an eye. The explosive boom of her shockwave nearly knocked Darren off his feet.

Dazzled and more than a little intimidated — he’d never seen Karen fly that fast — Darren turned to walk back toward the elevator, discovering as he did that he was very turned on. Karen might be demanding and bossy, not to mention exploitive and infamously promiscuous, but he’d never been with a woman who was half as enthusiastic in bed.

The men who looked on in envy assumed they knew what had drawn him to her, what with that huge cutout in her costume and her exaggerated body.

They were all be wrong.

Chapter Three

Kara felt warm air blowing through her hair as the Quest module airlock began to pressurize, and she exhaled the small amount of air she always held when in vacuum. Collapsed lungs were very uncomfortable. She took a deep breath of low-pressure pure oxygen, and that niggling “I can’t breathe!” reflex faded away, only to be replaced by tickling sensations as the pressure worked its way through every opening in her body. She’d grown up on Krypton, breathing air like a human, and she’d never fully adjusted to flying in space.

Above her, the inner door slowly opened to reveal two very wide-eyed astronauts floating beside their large EMU suits. It looked cramped up there.

“So, I hear you have some kind of glitch or something?” she offered.

Sergei stared at her, unable to speak at first. Given his position, all he could see was her head, shoulders and the huge expanse of her chest. “You… your are most… beautiful, Ms. Zor-L, and most welcome,” he stammered in his best English.

She smiled, cute dimples forming in her cheeks to make her look absolutely adorable. “Ah, a man who knows my birth name. I’m impressed. But then, you are an astronaut like me.”

“Cosmonaut,” he corrected. “And unfortunately nothing like you.”

“Sorry we didn’t have time to pick the place up, but we just heard you were coming,” Jim interrupted with a wink. “Not one of our better days, I’m afraid.”

Kara floated upward into the small space between the men, her body bumping softly against the men’s thanks to the zero-G. There was barely room to turn around. “Your entire space station is trashed and I don’t see your re-entry vehicles anywhere. How am I supposed to get you down safely?”

“They were both destroyed,” Jim said, really worried now. “Didn’t they tell you anything?”

“No, but i don’t know why anyone is surprised. They’re still mad at me for putting that Singaporean space station in orbit without using any of their boosters. Something about my being your last hope or whatever.”

“Shit…” Jim cursed. “Well, we can’t get down without a reentry vehicle. This module will burn up in seconds.”

“Maybe way…” Sergei said, deep in thought. He turned to Kara. “How much you lift? How long and strong you fly?”

Kara shrugged. “I can bench a hell of a lot more than this station weighs. And I can fly about as much weight as I can lift. For as long as I need to.”

Sergei smiled brightly. “Then no problem. You shed other modules, then drop Quest below LEO. No satellites or junk down there because of high decay. Then slow Quest down while station keeping. Once velocity relative to ground is near zero, lower us gently. No heat, no aerodynamic force. Just need overwhelming power.”

“Well, good thing that’s my thing,” Kara said cheerfully, flexing her right arm directly in front of Sergei’s face. “Sounds easy enough. How do I jettison the other modules?”

He stared at the most perfect defined biceps he’d ever seen, jaw hanging open.

“The modules are all bolted together,” Jim added, thankful once again for Sergei’s unconventional thinking, even if he was geeking out on Powergirl. “But given we’re already environmentally isolated, you can free us by tearing apart the adjoining modules and leaving the mating connectors intact. But wait to do that until we get into our EMU suits, just to be safe.”

She nodded. “So basically I trash everything that’s connected to your module.”

“Oh… and please try to hold the deceleration close to 1 G. This module was designed to only operate in micro-gravity once deployed, and even that’s going to be tough on the structure. Plus we don’t have any proper restraints or benches or anything in here. It’s going to be painful.”

“I’ll be gentle boys,” she winked as she dropped back down into the lower airlock. She closed the inner hatch and then punched the DEPRESSURIZE button while holding her breath.

The sudden loss of pressure made her breasts balloon a little, her ears popping as gases escaped from all the usual places, but thankfully the squeaking and farting sounds didn’t carry in vacuum.

She blinked her eyes to keep them moist as she floated out the hatch. The men’s faces were in the windows as she dug her fingernails into the thin alloy of the adjacent modules, and began to tear them apart as if they mere paper.

With any luck she’d be able to slow them and toss them into lower orbit to burn up faster. The space around Earth was getting very crowded.

Chapter Four

Four hours later…

The door to Karen Starr’s penthouse buzzed open just as Darren reached for the door bell. Chuckling, he wondered if Karen kept track of everything that went on in the building or just her top floor suite. He imagined that the whole building looked like a transparent 3D model to her eyes.

“In the kitchen,” she called. “Open some wine, would you please. I’m running a little late.”

He paused at the bar to open the first bottle, a well-regarded Napa cabernet, and poured two large glasses before walking into the kitchen. Karen was standing by the sink peeling carrots for the salad, her hands moving so fast they blurred. She switched to marinading the wild salmon fillets and then stirring some Brussels sprouts that were sautéing on the stove.

As always, she looked stunning, what with a short, brown leather skirt and matching top that looked elegantly Scandinavian, thanks in part to her blonde hair and blue eyes. Her hip-hugging skirt and bared midriff made her look very young.

He walked up behind her to gently kiss the nape of her neck while wrapping his arms around her small waist, enjoying the tight silkiness of her skin. She sighed as she leaned softly into his embrace, enjoying his touch.

“So, I heard the News while coming over here. Apparently Powergirl used her overwhelming power to bring down a section of the ISS with two of the three astronauts alive? Like a half hour ago?”

“That’s why I’m late. Given the module didn’t have a heat shield it took me forever to slow it down while still outside the atmosphere, ducking under all the orbiting space debris, and then carrying it slowly down to drop it at NASA Houston’s front door. None of the ISS modules were designed to be in an atmosphere, so they are really fragile.”

“That’s where they wanted it delivered?”

“They didn’t say. So I amused myself by leaving it in their parking lot — the handicapped zone. NASA didn’t know it was even there until some staffers looked out the windows. They helped the astronauts stagger into the lobby to introduce themselves. After all, they’d been in micro-grav for months.”

“The handicapped zone? And you wonder why they don’t call for your help except as a last resort?”

“When have I ever followed the rules, Darren?”

“Only the ones you create. And even then, not always.”

“Perks of being a goddess and a boss.”

He smirked. “Sure glad to hear that you’re overcoming your lack of self-confidence and that old shyness problem.”

Karen smiled. She never resorted to false modesty, and why should she? There wasn’t a goddess in all of Earth’s mythology who could match her physical powers.

“And as far as the goddess thing goes,” Darren whispered as he breathed gently in her ear, making her shiver pleasantly, “I think that’s mostly in bed. Otherwise, boss fits you better, boss.”

“It’s not my problem that some men have problems dealing with assertive women.”

“Said by the woman who tosses TV mobile vans when the media piss you off. Not to mention plucking the rotors off News helicopters.”

“They’re worse than flies.”

“And then there’s that whole illegal alien thing. How many times has the US tried to deport you, Karen?”

“That’s why I have good lawyers, and the courts agree with them that the laws only apply to humans, and given I’m not human…” She paused. “I suppose it also helps that I have a great deal of money.”

“You suppose?” he said, eyebrow lifting.

Her eyes flashed as a warm reddish light surrounded the salmon on the grate, searing the glaze on top of the fish as the flames worked the bottom. “But I’m trying to work on that modesty thing.”

“Said while cooking dinner with your eyes? I think by now we’re used to you being you.” He kissed her neck again, and she lost her focus long enough to melt several plastic utensils on the countertop.

She turned around to face him, the reddish glow fading back to brilliant blue just before their eyes met. “You like to live dangerously, don’t you, Darren dear. I cut through a meter-thick vault door with nothing but an angry stare last week.”

“To save those suffocating bank employees. Yes, I do watch the News once in a while. Especially when you’re on it.”

She placed the glazed salmon into the oven to finish, and then picked up her wine glass as she turned to face him. “OK, we have a few minutes. Come over here and tell me about how you’re going to handle the weekend work schedules and bonus compensation.”

“I didn’t realize this was a business engagement.”

“Until dinner’s over, I’m still Karen Starr. After that I’m Kara Zor-L. She wants your body, I want your brain.”

Darren smiled. “And here we were talking about Powergirl.”

“Her whites are hung up for the night. Some nasty stuff leaked out of that ISS module once I got it back into the atmosphere. Now, about those schedules?”

Chapter Five

Darren flopped back onto her bed in exhaustion, watching as Kara spun around in air twenty feet above him, lost in the throws of an orgasm that he was responsible for starting. Sometimes she just had to finish things on her own. One hand was holding her right breast, the other buried between her legs as her entire body flexed harder than steel, her mouth opening into a perfect O, blonde hair flying as she squeaked and cried out loud enough to hurt his ears. She continued that way, interspaced by sexy gasping, for several more minutes before she finally collapsing onto the bed beside him, her impact nearly bouncing him out onto the floor.

“Oh baby,” she gasped, skin covered in sweat. “Sorry about that, but sometimes I just have to let it all out.” She rolled over to straddle him, pleasantly surprised to find he was ready for her again. She lowered herself over him to take him as his hands went to her breasts. She began rocking back and forth. “Your turn.”

Darren grinned wildly as his desire rose like a volcano. Making love to Kara Zor-L was not like any other woman. Sometimes they floated on air (tricky and dangerous given she totally lost control of her flight when she came), other times they came together, which could be scary given her strength, but more often they had to take turns, like they were now. But it was all good. Especially with his hands so full of her as she used her remarkable inner muscles to vibrate herself in miraculous ways that no other woman could, all the while holding him so very tightly.

Unlike her very long orgasms, he didn’t last two minutes, his hoarse cry filling the room as he rolled her over and went crazy on her. She was so damn hot.

He rolled off after he finished, gasping for air, both of them exhausted now, laying on their pillows as they looked into each other’s eyes.

“I think I’m done, babe. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” she smiled, kissing him gently. “For a human, you’re amazing.”

“Speaking of amazing, I saw that CNN report the other day. You and that Superman/Luthor clone, Conner Kent.”

She sighed. “Obviously I no longer have any privacy.”

Darren was the only man she’d met who could talk about anything with her with out being intimidated.

“So, the story I heard is that you two tore up this small canyon in Utah. The Navajos are up in arms given they had a burial site in there.”

“That’s the last time I’ll trust Conner to do his homework.”

“So you two have a thing? I mean he’s been trying to bed every beautiful woman on the planet it seems. The media has connected him to nearly every supermodel and Hollywood star, so he must have some skill. Surprised it took you so long to give him a ride.”

“I didn’t intend to, but he does have a certain charm, being half Krypt and all. Let’s just say he caught me at a vulnerable moment.”

“The Man of Steel variety of charm, I presume.”

Kara rolled on her back to stare up at the ceiling. “He’s not that strong, but close enough to be very interesting. Lets just say I wanted to find out what it was like to let it all out.”

“And…?”

“We broke part of Utah.”

“I was talking about you.”

“He’s an arrogant little asshole, to tell you the truth. Thinks he’s Rao’s gift to women. But as I said, he has a certain charm.”

“The kind that’s harder than steel? With muscles to match.”

She nodded, nipples firming as she smiled. “Yeah, that kind.”

“So…?”

“He went friggin’ nuts on me. He claims he’s never actually finished in a woman, I suppose for obvious reasons. His style is to pull out at the last moment and then blow holes in walls to show off. So he was thrilled that he didn’t have to. Obsessed actually. Wanted to keep going and going and going. Not that I was complaining at first, but straight up fucking can get a little boring after eight hours.”

“Impossible. You, complaining about too much sex?” Darren laughed.

“Too much of the same kind. He makes love like a bulldozer moves hills. He just keeps plowing and plowing and plowing.”

“I figured he’d find places no man has ever gone before.”

“He did. Very intense O’s, but also very quick ones given he barely slows down ever. His style of foreplay is strictly Caterpillar. I’m more used to climbing the hill slowly and gently, luxuriating in holding back, almost tantric. I’m certainly not used to being fucked by a pile driver.”

“So you’re saying the feather beats the pile driver? He’d be devastated to hear that.”

She laughed. “You’re the engineer, so think of it as area under the curve. I prefer an hour or two of gentle foreplay, slowly rising until I can’t stand it any more. I think of it as climbing the hill from the backside if you will, as opposed to a frontal assault with armor. After all, it was my back that broke those canyon walls, with all the force delivered from those hips of his. People felt Earth tremors two hundred miles away in Salt Lake City. Kind of embarrassing.”

“And you hated it?”

“No I really liked it, at first anyway. He’s got some amazing muscles and everything. It was all new for me to have a guy go crazy on me that way. Very intense. But after a while, it got to be too much of the same thing. Hell, my pelvis was glowing white hot from friction. I found myself wishing I was here with you.”

Darren lifted his head. “Bullshit. Me and my feather? You’re not just saying this because…”

“Have I ever lied to make someone feel better?” she interrupted.

He collapsed back on his pillow. “No. So who else knows any of this?”

“No one. And no one ever will. Conner has been bragging to everyone about us, how he put stars in my eyes or whatever, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He’s still young.”

“So you’re done with him?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m very sure he’s not done with me. But I’ve decided to save him for those rare moments when I want to seriously break something. When I don’t want to hold back.”

“And he’s unbreakable.”

“Seemingly. But he’s also got a lot of Lex Luthor’s dominating personality, combined with a very dull mind. Not a pretty combination. It’s impossible to have an intelligent conversation with him.”

“So you’re stronger?”

“Oh yeah. A lot. Next time I might hurt him just to deflate that windbag a bit.”

“I’m not saying a thing,” Darren grinned. “But you’ve just pumped up my ego by a few stories.”

She reached over to wrap one sinewy hand around him, finding that he was returning to life. “And like most men, you’ve obviously got a direct connection thing between ego and penis. Maybe I should feed your ego more often.”

He rose to lay over her, guiding himself between her powerful thighs. “OK, so maybe I’m not completely spent. You ready for another go?”

“Always,” she smiled as she wrapped her legs around him to guide him into her, only to be interrupted by a loud chime. Kara cursed as she rolled him off her to float up and away, landing across the room in front of her laptop.

“Gotta go, babe. The rest if ISS is about to come down, and projections place the impact zone from Brussels northeast into Germany. Lots of people there, and they figure the bigger modules won’t burn up. They want me to make sure they land in the ocean.”

“I thought your costume was hung up the night.”

“It is, but apparently I’m not. And since I’m going to be at altitude, mostly in space, who needs clothing?”

“What about spy satellites?”

“If they catch an image, then I guess I’ll have to autograph the print,” she winked.

She floated back over to give him a kiss, and then flew upward toward an overhead window in the tall, wood-beamed ceiling of the penthouse. “There’s food in the fridge and some wine left, so don’t go anywhere. Hopefully I’ll be back in time for a quickie before work.”

She flashed naked through the window and into the night.

Chapter Six

Lex Luthor stood beside the red and blue clad young man as they watched and listened to the recordings made by the cameras in Karen’s bedroom walls. Lead-coated and using stealth frequencies, they had so far proven to be undetectable.

“From the sound of it, she doesn’t seem nearly as impressed with your cockmanship as you described, Conner.”

Conner Kent glared at the balding man who was Earth’s greatest criminal mind. A man whose DNA made up half of his own. He nervously twisted a section of old truck axle in his hands, the springy steel keening softly as it yielded to muscles made out of even harder steel. “That’s bullshit. Lex. She’s just saying that to build up his confidence. Humans are weak in body and mind.”

“Not always in mind, son. I think she was being genuine. I told you from the start that you were going to have to use more than your muscles to win her over. She’s a tough cookie and she’s been around. She knows men.”

“Bullshit!” Conner said angrily. “You didn’t see the way she begged me to keep fucking her, Lex. She couldn’t keep her hands off my dick — I think she worships it. Called it her Man of Steel. I took her to a heaven she’s never known in the arms of those frail weaklings. I’ll take her even further next time. She’ll never want to be with an ordinary man again.”

“Perhaps,” Luthor said carefully, knowing how dangerous it was to directly confront Conner’s grand self-deceptions, “but it never hurts to have a backup plan. You need to find a way inside her head, and not just her pussy.”

“You mean a blow job?”

Luthor carefully avoided reacting to the simple-minded question. Cloning technology had so far presented unexpected limitations when it came to passing on intelligence. He had to speak very simply and directly to Conner, elaborating everything while assuming nothing. “Actually, I was thinking of employing clever lies and profound disappointment combined with anger and loss along with false hopes to confuse her, my son. A combination of emotions that can bring down any prideful person who truly cares about others. You need to convince her that you care too, and that only through our combined strength can we ensure peace among all men.”

“I thought you said Superman had ruined our chances for that?”

Lex shook his head patiently. “Superman has perpetrated the false hope that democracy in its various forms can unite people. But freedom is a failed exercise, even worse than trying to herd cats. It’s not the natural state of mankind. Men are born to either lead or follow, but never to be equals. If we could convince Kara that we shared common goals, then not even Superman could stop us from ending the useless human suffering we see around us.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve said it all before.” Conner made a fist as he flexed a biceps that was insanely large and defined, the envy of any bodybuilder. He raised his arm to flaunt his supreme power. “This is the kind of raw power that will keep people in line. Kryptonian muscle.”

“Then perhaps it truly is time to use some of that,” Lex said, working to channel Conner’s simplemindedness. “We will start by reminding Miss Zor’L how dangerous the world has become, even for her interests. I’m arranging an attack on her company as we speak, but I need to make it look like EarthFirst are the perpetrators. I’ve long ago assembled a team to plan this out in detail, but I need you to convince the authorities that the Martian has joined forces with EarthFirst.”

Conner stood straighter. “Of course. But why would an alien join the people who oppose aliens? Why would they want him?”

“Because he is committed to hunting the remnants of criminals from his own planet, the White Martians. EarthFirst has fought them and lost. They will align with the Manhunter as long as they think he serves their purpose.”

“But they aren’t? EarthFirst I mean. Not really?”

“I have long infiltrated their ranks with my men, Conner. The key to convincing the rest of them will depend on how convincing you are today. Go see Damien. He’ll fill you in on the plan.”

Conner turned and walked out the door, cape swishing. He looked as proud as a barnyard rooster.

Luthor was shaking his head when Alexa entered through the other door. Her unbrushed blonde hair fell across her face as she stood there, wearing a short blue top that didn’t quite come down to her navel. She’d lately taken to wearing a version of Superman’s logo on her chest at her mother’s request, although Alexa had insisted on faded colors. A reflection on how she thought about herself.

She hooked one thumb casually in the pocket of her badly frayed jeans as she used the fingers of her other hand to comb her windblown hair. She’d been happily enjoying an Espresso with her mother in Paris when Lex sent his summons — less than twenty minutes ago.

Alexa shook her head slowly as she watched Conner prance away. “Shame such a physically gifted guy has to have so much wool between his ears, not to mention an ego big enough to squash New Jersey. Cloning has a ways to go.”

 

Lex glared at her. “You were supposed to teach him to please the Kryptonian, Alexa. But it seems like Conner has failed even at that. She called him a pile driver, if you can imagine that. You ever actually seen one of those work? Most boring thing in the universe. Bang, bang, bang, day and night.”

“I encouraged him to use all his strength when we practiced because that’s what I thought you wanted me to teach him. But Kara is as old as my mother, and based on what we see on your cameras, she’s into all the same weird stuff.”

“Your mother is a star acrobat with Cirque du Sail. She gave you your stunning looks and your flexibility and your phenomenal balance and poise. It’s common knowledge that tantric sex is very much the thing among circus acrobats. Everything in their lives is about self control.”

She laughed. “Sometimes you sound like mother. Unfortunately, I’ve got too much of Kal El in me for that. More even than Conner in some ways. I can certainly outfly him.”

“But far more importantly, Alexa, you have my intelligence. Your remarkable body will not solve all our problems any more than Conner’s can. Your mind can.”

She shrugged. “So, what’s my role in all of this, given that he’s apparently doing all the smashing and bashing?”

“I need to demoralize Ms. Starr. Attacking her company will only make her more determined to bring an end to EarthFirst. A false-flag operation that with any luck will do away with the Martian. But even that’s not enough. We need to attack her soft underbelly.”

“Soft?” Alexa smiled. “Have you seen her abs? The woman’s made of steel.”

“I was speaking of her emotions. She has taken an unusual liking to one man, which makes her vulnerable. While she’s reeling from the attack on her headquarters and hunting down the Martian, I want you to visit her boyfriend. The coroner must be convinced that his fatal injuries came during lovemaking with a Kryptonian. A moment of accidental over-enthusiasm. But it has to be convincing and indisputable. The forensic labs can detect Kryptonian DNA, but not isolate it to individuals.”

“Nice. She gets charged with manslaughter, or murder, while her company is devastated. And she loses the man she loves. But do we really want to tip them off that she’s not the last Kryptonian female?”

“No one will believe her, Alexa. Not even her cousin. That will cause even greater confusion given you’ve done well at hiding your true self. If this is done right, the police will make it very difficult for Kara to reorganize her company. The current administration in DC is no friend of hers. They keep trying to deport her.”

“Plus she’ll be hunting the Manhunter, who thanks to his shapeshifting will be hard to find. That will take her some time.”

Alexa considered the possibilities as she idly picked up the truck axle that Conner had mangled, and started to straighten it out. She hated anything that wasn’t neat and orderly. “And if she does find him, she’ll remove one more potential enemy.”

“Exactly.” Lex walked over to stand behind Alexa as she worked the thick steel, sliding one hand beneath her top to fondle her breast, marveling as he always did at the contrast between her soft breasts and steel muscles. Her nipple turned to warm steel as he began to roll it gently between his thumb and forefinger.

Alexa stiffened as she quickly pulled away from him. Turning, she slowly bent the thick axle around his shoulders, pinning his arms painfully to his sides. “You need to keep your hands to yourself. I’m supposed to be your daughter, not your play thing.”

Lex just laughed. “You may be Superman’s daughter, but do not forget that acrobats are prone to devastating accidents. Now get this thing off me.”

Alexa glared at him, wondering for the hundredth time how it would feel to unleash her full heat vision on him. To vaporize his flesh, even the calcium in his bones, turning him into nothingness. The only thing that held her back was the explosive capsule Lex had surgically installed in her mother’s head. A tiny embedded radio receiver required a coded transmission every five minutes or it would detonate the capsule. The corresponding transmitter was implanted in Lex’s brain and bio-linked to him. If his characteristic bio-rhythms disappeared, her mother’s head would explode.

Alexa sighed and and closed her eyes as she gripped the ends of the mangled axle and bent it open, then dropped it to the floor with a heavy clang.

Lex was visible aroused now. The feel of her soft breast, her hard muscles working steel, his dominance over her, all were exiting to him. He reached down to unzip his pants. “Why don’t you put something other than those muscles to work, my dear. You have the most amazing lips.”

Her blue eyes flashed angrily as she imagined a dozen additional ways she could kill him. A single punch would turn his head to pink mist. She could carry him into space and throw his vacuum-bloated body into the sun. She could slam her fingers into his chest right now and rip out his heart and crush it.

Instead, she kneeled in front of him, her blonde hair covering his lap as she went to work. She consoled herself with the thought that one of these days she was going to bite him off and swallow him whole.

Luthor sagged back into a chair after she was done, spent and exhausted. Alexa rose to float barefooted over him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she hid her anger.

“By the way, Alexa dear, I need you to find a suitable woman to teach Conner about tantric sex. Powergirl is going to be a thorn in our sides for a long time. The closer Conner can get to her the better.”

“I’ll find a man instead,” Alexa said as she spun around, blonde hair flying, “and have him teach me. Then I’ll teach Conner.” She knew how much Lex hated the idea of her being with another man. Other than Conner that is.

Luthor glared angrily at her minor disobedience as she flew up and out the specially-designed skylight overhead, leaving a small tornado of paper swirling in her wake. More and more she was trying to challenge him. Perhaps Conner should remind her of her place tonight. She was not strong enough to refuse him, but it would be fun to watch her try.

He went back to work on the day’s business, secure in the knowledge that his young apprentices would do his bidding, despite being very imperfect tools.

Conner with this simple-minded arrogance could never run LexCorp. Left to his own devices, he’d spend the rest of his life thrilling supermodels with his powers.

In contrast, Alexa was brilliant, and she had much of his predatory drive, including his desire to dominate. Like him, she absolutely abhorred the conventional morality of polite society. Even better, she hated him, much as he’d hated his father. Hatred gave her power. He had little doubt she’d someday take his place, the only question was when she’d kill him to do it.

Fortunately his clone was nearly grown. He was already imprinting his mind on it, hoping to avoid the dulling of intellect that Conner suffered. If successful, he’d transfer his consciousness to his Kryptonian-enhanced clone and let Alexa become the visible head of LuthorCorp. The first step towards immortality.

While Alexa could not stand up to Kara or even Kal one-on-one when it came to raw power, as one of his staff scientists had once said, “Half of infinity is still infinity.”

An exaggeration for sure, but once his clone was sexually mature, Alexa’s many children would ensure that LuthorCorp owned the path to eternity. Earth would belong to the Luthors, forever and ever.

End of Part 1