“Fetch”  Rated PG

1======

Kayla marched towards the spaceship as an impatient Jor-El herded her forward.  She tried to push away her memories of seeing her friend Krypto step into the prototype spaceship before it disappeared into space to be lost forever.  She swallowed her fears and shed a tear for the baby brother she was leaving behind.  Her Father lifted her and handed her to Alura who had already stepped into the spaceship.  Kayla jerked in surprise when every alarm in the lab went off.  There was no more time.  They had to leave immediately if they were to have any hope of escaping alive.  Jor-El climbed in and fastened everyone’s harness as the hatch closed over them.

2======

Deep in space, a signal was received by a small space craft.  A voice inside the console said, “Emergency situation.  Must return to point of origin.”  The single passenger was in deep hibernation.  He didn’t wake as the ship veered sharply from its course and headed home at top speed.  It narrowly missed another spaceship heading outwards from its destination.  It landed in Jor-El’s laboratory and the voice said, “Docked for repairs and systems upgrade.”  The hatch opened and the passenger awoke.  He stepped out of the capsule and sniffed the air.  He was home again but alarms were sounding and he knew that something was terribly wrong.  He began searching the rooms of the house and the grounds for his for his dearest friends.  No one was there.  Not even his beloved Kayla.  He didn’t know what to do.  Then he looked at the wall and noticed the gestation matrix built into the wall.  It was still occupied.  Any instinct he had for self-preservation was suddenly overwhelmed by an urgent need to see that this unborn child survive.  His mind raced to think of a way to remove the child from the gestation chamber without having the child die within minutes.  Then the idea hit him.  What he was about to do was forbidden.  It was the only act that still carried a death penalty on Krypton.  But he cared nothing for his own life when the life of a member of his adopted family was on the line.

3======

Long ago, the Kryptonians had been a docile race.  After a series of invasions from aggressive species from off world, they began to develop technology to defend themselves.  They also began vigorous physical training and eugenics programs.  Marriages were arranged with the goal of producing the best physical specimens.  Still, it wasn’t enough.

At the scene of intense fires, scientists discovered serpentine shaped plants that were unharmed.  In the laboratory, they found that the plants actually grew and became stronger when subjected to intense heat and radiation.  Further study showed that the flowers were bonded with an energy symbiote that had no consciousness.  It would lay dormant when it had no energy to feed on, but would store or channel any energy thrown at it.  The energy would protect its host from harm.  A method was developed to make a symbiote flea its host and bond with another.  A few Kryptonians were chosen for bonding.  The first few were from a race of changelings descended from a canine species.  When the tests proved successful, the most successful of Krypton’s eugenics breeding program were chosen to become bonded.  The race of Supermen was born.  At first they did their duty – protecting the population.  In time, ultimate power led to a corruption of purpose.  The Supermen became more of a threat than the species that they were designed to protect against.  Soon they ruled Krypton with fists of steel.  No ordinary man stood a chance against them.

A scientist of the house of El was part of this race but he believed in the rights of even the weakest sentient being.  Plans to conquer the universe made Yin-El infuriated that the Great Purpose had made them the aggressors.  He proposed a great weapon to the ruling counsel telling them that it would make them invincible in war.  He was given the authority to proceed.  A large cone shaped indentation was carved into one of Krypton’s moon.  The indentation was pointed at Rao – Krypton’s yellow sun.  Yin-El claimed that the funnel would concentrate the solar energy and raise the Supermen to the next evolutionary level.  Their power would be permanent and unstoppable.  The day came and Yin-El gave the order.  A burst went out from the funnel and the moon exploded.  The result wasn’t immediate, but Rao slowly turned from yellow to orange to red.  Many of the Supermen were left unprotected in life threatening situations and died.  Yin-El died in space among the rubble that had been the moon.  His family was taken to an internment camp.  Most of the Supermen were rounded up.  A few escaped.

Twenty years later, the Supermen returned.  In secret, they had built fusion reactors.  In profile, they were the shape of a pentagon – a diamond with its point in the air.  The Supermen would enter the fusion reactor and get enough power to protect them and give them enhanced strength for one day despite exposure to the red solar rays that drained their power.  Again they took control of the planet.  Their enforcers wore uniforms with their symbol on their chest – the upside down diamond.  Again, the house of El came forward.  Brothers Chi-El and Mon-El started an underground movement and sabotaged the fusion reactors until the last of them was destroyed.  The house of El adopted a family chest that was the symbol of the Supermen inverted so that the point was down.  Inside this shape was a stylized drawing of the serpentine plant that had been the source of the symbiote that lived within them.

Centuries had passed, but no Kryptonian with a symbiote was fully trusted.  They were never allowed to hold public office or serve in planetary defense positions.  Even the house of El was viewed with suspicion despite their role in bringing the plans of “the master race” to an end.  When Jor-El and Zor-El tried to convince Planetary Counsel that Krypton would explode, it was viewed as a ploy to return the Supermen to power.  They were forbidden use of the portal system for travel off-planet.

4======

There was a small, heavily shielded fusion reactor in a building near the main house.  The man from the returned ship ran to the lab and began over riding all the safety protocols.  Warning alarms were sent to the planetary brain.  Under normal circumstances, forces would be dispatched to destroy the reactor … but everyone was otherwise occupied and the planetary brain was strangely silent.  The man propped open the door.  The reactor should have shut down but it didn’t.  The yellow radiation pulsed into the room.  He felt himself growing stronger.  Instinctually he became aware of all that he was now capable of doing.  He looked through the walls and across the face of the planet.  The world was dying.  It would all be over very soon.

He ran into the house and grabbed some red, blue and yellow blankets from Kayla’s room.  Instantly he was at the gestation matrix.  He broke through the glass and gently removed the feeding tube from the baby’s navel.  He wrapped the child in the blankets as the house started falling down around him.  He deflected the falling debris as he made his way back to the reactor building.  He took the baby from the blankets outside the building because he knew that the blankets would be dissolved by the radiation.  He went inside and waited a while for the baby to grow strong before putting the baby inside the reactor.  He could feel the fluctuations in the planet’s energy field and knew he had to leave immediately.  He took the baby out of the reactor and left the building.  He grabbed the blankets and wrapped the child as he ran for the laboratory.  He quickly dug the spaceship out of the rubble and climbed inside of it with the baby.  It had been less than 10 minutes since the ship had landed.  He closed the hatch then reached out and touched the walls of the spaceship.  He felt the world shutter.  He extended his aura out and over the ship as Krypton’s core exploded.

The ship was blown out into space with huge planetary fragments and other debris.  Some fragments reached escape velocity and continued into space.  Others fell back into the center of gravity of what had moments before been a solid planet.  The debris cloud spread out as it moved further into space.  The man passed out from exertion and from kryptonite radiation poisoning and his aura shrunk.  The baby learned how to cry.  The ship maneuvered through the debris and, in a burst of speed, flew into open space and maintained a safe distance beyond the spreading debris field as it awaited instructions.

5======

The man woke up and checked on the baby.  It was weak and in need of food and nurturing.  He asked the ship if it had linked to the house brain in the short time while it was home.  The ship answered that it had.  The man asked if the ship knew where the El family had gone.  The answer was “Sol-Three … Planet Earth.”  The man asked the ship to seek out the El family as quickly as possible.  The ship opened a worm hole and entered it.

6======

A Kiwatche woman named Kyla was in the woods near the wildlife refuge.  She was 45 years old and had never had a lasting relationship.  She had wanted a husband and a family but somehow that had never happened.  She prayed for an end to her loneliness.  Suddenly, in the sky above her, a silver spaceship passed over her.  She shouted for joy for the sign that her loneliness would soon be over.  One of the old ones had returned.

7======

The ship landed on the Kent farm near the bank barn.  The hatch opened and the man stepped out.  He looked through the ground and began to dig.  Soon he stood in front of the ship that had brought Kayla to Earth.  He put his hand on the ship and the hatch opened.  He yelped and howled when he saw the bodies off Jor-El and Alura inside.  He looked at the bodies and saw that there was no decay.  Although the bodies were dead, the symbiotes inside of them were merely dormant.  Perhaps if the symbiotes were fed, the bodies could eventually heal and return to life.  It was worth a chance.  The man dug a bigger hole then pushed the ship containing his friends to the surface.  He went to his own ship and removed the navigational brain.  He held the hexagonal brain to his forehead for a moment then placed in on the larger spaceship.  The ship promptly lifted floated off the ground then headed for the sun and disappeared from sight.

The man turned and saw a red-haired woman holding a basket of eggs staring at him.  He walked up to her and began sniffing her.  The woman dropped the eggs.  The man bent down and ate a couple broken eggs before beginning to sniff the woman again.  The woman stuttered, “Suh … Suh … Suhm … Sam … Samantha.  SAMANTHA!”

A young woman appeared and said, “Get away from my Mother, you pervert!”

The man stood, walked up to Samantha and began sniffing her.  She grabbed his shoulders and tried to push him back but she couldn’t budge him.  She pushed harder but had now effect.  She tried siphoning energy from him but he pulled his energy back into himself.  He seemed unsatisfied with her smell so he walked away from her and sniffed the air.  He looked across the field and a broad smile appeared on his face.  Samantha followed as he walked back to the spaceship.  He lifted the bundle of blankets from inside the ship and began walking across the field.  Samantha began to follow but he disappeared.

Samantha walked back to her Martha and said, “Mom, did you recognize him?  I’m sure there aren’t many young, white-haired, albino, Native Americans walking around Smallville these days.”

Martha said, “I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at his face.”

Samantha said, “Yeah, it is a little cold out here for a nudist to be walking around.  I must say that he didn’t seem to have much shrinkage despite the cold.  He must be a meteor freak.  Maybe that explains his coloration, his resistance to the cold and his strength.  He was at least as strong as I am.  He pulled the spaceship out of the bank barn.  I’d better put it back.  Clara will be upset.  That freak did something with her parents.  They aren’t in the ship anymore.”

Martha said, “That’s not Clara’s ship.  I saw Clara’s ship fly away.  I think that thing came in the ship.  He’s not a freak – he’s an alien.”

Samantha said, “Well, it is the same style as Clara’s ship.  Do you think he came from Krypton?”

Martha said, “I don’t know what to think.  The way he was headed … do you think he is headed for Clara?”

Samantha said, “If he is, he has no clue what he is up against.  He’d never get close to her with her boys around.  As fast as he was moving, if he was headed towards the mansion, he would be there already.  I’ll call and see if a naked albino showed up at the gate.”

Martha said, “He might not be naked anymore.  Didn’t he get some clothes out of his ship before he left?”

Samantha said, “Those were blankets, Mom.  And there was a baby in them.”

8======

Three of Clara’s sons fought to hold back the naked man who tried to enter the gate to Luthor mansion.  He might have gotten past them if he hadn’t been protecting the child in his arms.  Clara’s sons tried to grab the man but he turned and disappeared.

Over the next hill, the man re-wrapped the child in the blankets and tied a knot to hold the blankets together.  Then he stepped back.  A moment later, a white dog stepped up and took the knot in his mouth.  He lifted the blankets then ran towards the mansion.  When he got to within 100 feet of the wall, the dog jumped and easily cleared it.  He ran to the back of the mansion and saw a boy playing there.  He put the bundle of blankets down gently at the boy’s feet.  The boy petted the dog’s head then looked inside the blankets.  The boy squealed in delight then picked up the bundle.  He ran to the back door and let the dog come in with him.  He ran up the back stairs with the baby in his arms.

The boy ran into his parents’ bedroom.  His Mother was nursing his youngest brother Adam.  Clara said, “Simon, Honey.  You know you are supposed to knock on the door first.”

Simon said, “Sorry, Mommy.  But look, LOOK what I have!  Can I keep it?”  He placed the blankets on the bed next to Clara.

With her free hand, Clara un-wrapped the blankets.  Her jaw dropped open in shock.  Clara said, “Oh Simon, what did you do?  This baby is premature … he can’t be much more than second trimester.  Oh dear God!  He’ll die if he doesn’t get taken care of soon.”  Clara quickly pulled the baby to her free breast.  After a few seconds it latched onto her.

Simon said, “NO!  It’s mine.  I wanted to play with it!  You already have TWO babies to do that with!  It’s not fair … not fair at all!”

Clara said, “He’s not a toy, Simon.  He’s a living human being.  He must have parents somewhere.”

In her head, Clara heard someone talking to her in Kryptonese.  The voice said, “His parents are long dead.  I hope they will get better soon, but they are dead now.”  Clara shook her head.  She wondered why she had thought something that strange.

Simon said, “Could I at least keep the doggie?”

Clara asked, “What doggie?”

Simon said, “The one that gave me the baby!”  He pointed towards the foot of the bed.

Clara lifted herself a little and saw the white dog looking up at her.  She almost fell back in shock.  She said, “Oh my …!  He looks just like my friend Krypto.”

Simon said, “No, Krypto was Larry’s dog … and he’s in doggie heaven now.”

A voice in Clara’s head said, “Friend Kayla, you look well.  My heart leaps with joy to see you again.  You seem to have gotten here a few years sooner than me.  You must have caught a wormhole with a smaller time distortion ratio.”

Clara said, “You can’t be my Krypto!”

Krypto answered, “I don’t know who else I could be.  I sure smell like me.”

Clara said, “Where did you find this baby?”

Krypto said, “In the living room.”

Clara said, “The living room?”

Krypto said, “In his gestation matrix.  Don’t you recognize your brother?  That’s Kal-El.”

Simon said, “Mommy, why are you crying?”

THE END