Chapter Text
Cat’s eyes opened and she stared at the steel gray ceiling with a furrowed brow. It took her several moments to recall why she was in unfamiliar surroundings, but the dull sound of an electrical hum gave it away rather quickly.
She sighed and stretched her arms above her head, trying to rid herself of an unpleasant ache in her lower back that had refused to go away ever since her departure.
The muscles in her shoulders moved smoothly across tendon and bone and Cat sat up with a small groan. She was getting too old for this. But she would be doing it until she was a hundred years old if it meant snatching the scoop right form under Lois Lane’s nose.
Leaning over to the small bedside table, she found the control panel and pressed a tiny green button. The lights were switched on and bathed the entire room in a pale glow while the panels in front of the only window slowly slid away, revealing what probably was one of the most redeeming features of this trip: a view of endless and open space, splattered with stars near and far streaking by.
She sat for several minutes, simply staring, the sheet pooled around her waist, until a beeping sound alerted her to the fact that it was time to get up.
Cat slid out of bed and wandered over into the small adjoining bathroom to take a quick shower. It certainly had its advantages to be traveling as the President’s entourage, including private quarters on an alien ship that had transported true royalty once upon a time.
Despite its size, the water pressure in the small shower cubicle was amazing and Cat allowed herself a healthy amount of time to be pelted with the hot stream. Her muscles were tense and she hadn’t been sleeping well. Most likely a byproduct of being literal light years away from her home planet, and from Carter, for the first time in… ever.
“You’re going to another planet? That’s so cool mom, can you bring me back something awesome from there?” Carter’s voice echoed through her head. He’d been so excited about her going on such an adventure, even though it had taken him a day or so of sulking to get over the fact that he hadn’t been allowed to come.
After her shower, Cat got dressed in one of her pantsuits, which was perhaps a bit overkill for a space ship, but she was going to be in the presence of the President after all.
Her body was already craving a cup of black-black coffee by the time she made it to the dining hall – even the President didn’t get the luxury of a private dining room – and she ambled over to the one and only alien contraption on the ship able to produce the brown liquid that kept her going throughout the day.
She punched a few buttons and waited for the mug to fill up to the brim. What wouldn’t she give for a cup from Noonan’s right now, even if it was only lukewarm.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that this is where I’d find you,” a familiar voice drawled from behind her and Cat turned to find the President smiling at her.
“I need this cup of coffee inside my body before I can engage in friendly banter, sorry Liv.”
Olivia chuckled quietly and stepped forward to hand Cat her full mug before placing her own into the machine. “It’s quite unfortunate that our alien hosts have mastered the most advanced technology, including space travel, but it’s impossible to find a good cup of coffee, isn’t it?”
Cat made a small noise in agreement and took a sip from her mug. The taste was slightly off, most likely because the synthetic formula of coffee didn’t stand a chance against actual ground beans, but it would have to do.
Once Olivia had snatched her own full mug from the machine, they walked over to a booth and settled down. Several heads turned in their direction and Olivia returned friendly smiles and nods with a small wave.
Cat wasn’t quite up to socializing just yet and simply left the crowd-pleasing to the professional.
“We have a meeting later today,” Olivia told her once she was finished exchanging pleasantries with a crewmember who’d stopped by to inquire about their well-being. The people on this ship were nothing if not gracious and considerate. It was almost uncanny.
“Again? I’m pretty sure they know everything but the size of my underwear already,” Cat replied with a scowl.
Olivia chuckled and took a sip of coffee. “Our journey is almost complete, twelve hours from now we’ll be reaching Krypton and the Captain wants to brief us one last time on protocol before we land.”
“Fine,” Cat replied and hid a yawn behind her hand.
It had been rather fortunate, depending on who was asked, that Earth was the only planet on this side of the solar system with the particular kind of yellow sun that turned regular Kryptonians into super-powered soldiers, thus enabling them to defeat a conquering alien race that had threatened to overwhelm them.
Now that an alliance between Krypton and Earth had been established, travel between the planets was the next big step and of course the President of the United States was one of the first leaders to be granted the privilege to meet with the royal families of Krypton.
Due to her history with Olivia, and their shared interest in alien issues, Cat had managed to snag a spot on the ship and with it a world-exclusive on all things Krypton. Take that, Lois Lane.
A few Secret Service agents filtered into the room and Olivia rose to her feet, taking one last gulp of coffee before inclining her head toward Cat. “Duty calls, I will see you later at the meeting.”
“Of course,” Cat replied with a small sigh. She watched Olivia depart und glanced down at her empty mug, tracing the rim with the tips of her fingers.
Twelve more hours and she would be setting foot onto a foreign planet as one of the first people – humans – to ever do so.
An uncomfortable churning began in the pit of her stomach but she chose to ignore it. Now wasn’t the time to let her nerves get in the way. Not that she’d felt anything like this since starting up CatCo and working her way to the very top. This was something different, an entirely new adventure and that was probably why she hadn’t been able to resist going on this journey.
The dining hall was slowly filling up and she was getting increasingly curious looks, so Cat decided that it was time return to her quarters to get ready for that meeting. The Captain was a very serious-looking man with an even more serious face and she doubted that he’d appreciate her nodding off during the debriefing.
S-S-S
As technologically advanced as Krypton was, their social structures were almost archaic and Cat found herself listening to the Captain’s speech with a furrowed brow. Arranged marriages, royal families, and most disturbingly the so-called Codex, used to predetermine any newborn’s social standing and position in life.
She shared a long meaningful look with Olivia once the Captain had essentially lectured them on Kryptonian societal norms and sat back with a sigh. This was certainly putting a damper on her exposé, considering that she’d championed feminism and equality for a long time and would be reporting on a world that was decades if not centuries ahead of them in terms of technological development but seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere in the 1800s when it came to society as a whole.
Perhaps there were certain things Krypton could still learn from them and Cat surely wasn’t known for simply accepting and going along with the status quo.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Olivia told her as they left the conference room. A holographic image of Krypton was still gravitating above the centre of the round table and Cat studied the image for a moment before following Olivia through the sliding doors.
“And what, pray tell, might that be?” Cat asked with an arched eyebrow.
Olivia smirked and inclined her head. “We’re on a mission to establish a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship between our cultures. Which means we cannot simply blast the door off its hinges before we’ve even stepped inside.”
Cat pursed her lips for a moment. “I’ll try to contain myself.”
Olivia smirked at her and Cat rolled her eyes with a smile. It was quite amazing what one could learn about a person while living with them. Not only what they looked like naked, of course, but having shared her dorm room with Olivia during her first years in college had given Cat a pretty good idea of what made the other woman tick.
It wasn’t surprising, really, that she’d become the first female President of the United States. Liv had always been driven, passionate about the topics close to her heart, and she had a way of drawing people in, making them really listen to what she had to say.
Unfortunately that also meant Olivia had the uncanny knack for reading Cat and making fairly accurate guesses about what she was thinking, even after all these years.
“You know that there are certain parties on Krypton that would have rather seen a more colonial approach toward our planet. As far as I know these voices have been silenced by several royal families, for now, which means we need to make nice and be as amicable as we can.”
“I understand,” Cat replied.
She hadn’t become the CEO of a major company without encountering her fair share of misogyny and elitism, so she knew her way around people who thought of themselves as some sort of royalty well enough. It could hardly be any more difficult to charm the real deal than it had been on Earth.
“I’m glad you’ve decided to join me on this journey,” Olivia said and touched her fingers to Cat’s arm with a smile, “your presence makes this whole political circus a lot less stressful since I know I can trust your opinion on these issues.”
That was high praise indeed and Cat smirked. “It’s my pleasure, of course. Someone has to make sure that we leave a lasting impression on Krypton after all.”
Olivia laughed and nodded. “Of course.”
A nearby Secret Service agent walked over to sweep Olivia away into yet another meeting and Cat was left to her own devices for the time being.
Although she had already spent considerable amounts of time exploring this ship, there were still corners she hadn’t seen yet. There was always something else to discover and the friendly young man from the tech crew had been more than happy to answer any and all questions about Krypton she may have had. It would be pure gold to find someone else just like him, only a few steps up in the command chain.
That is how Cat found herself, a few hours later, surrounded by a small group of Kryptonians in one of the crew’s common rooms as they were trying to teach her some much more complicated version of chess.
As if the game wasn’t difficult enough, Kryptonians had somehow managed to give it an even more mathematical perspective and the small figures, of certain prominent heroes of old tales, could only be moved after solving some sort of numeric puzzle. Cat knew she was way in over her head, but the Kryptonians seemed to enjoy explaining the game to her, along with some more peculiarities about life on Krypton.
This was how she first heard of the House of El, apparently one of the most influential houses with many ties to other prominent families on Krypton.
Cat was immediately intrigued by the reverence with which some of the Kryptonians spoke about these people, as if there was more to them than merely their bloodlines affording them comfortable lives.
So by the time she threw in the towel and decided to leave the Kryptonians to their complicated game, Cat was beyond curious to finally meet the royal families. She was going to stick very close to Olivia’s side so that no one decided press wouldn’t be welcomed at official meetings.
Cat wandered the ship for a little while longer until she decided to retire to her small quarters for a bit of rest and to prepare for their arrival on Krypton.
S-S-S
Cat’s hands dug into the sides of the hard metal seat as they neared Krypton and a few of the other Secret Service agents weren’t in much better shape as they sat with their teeth clenched and sweat beading on their brows. Only Olivia appeared unfazed as she watched the descent through the giant glass panels.
The Captain had kindly invited them onto the bridge so they could be in front row seats as they landed on Krypton but Cat was slowly regretting her decision to join Olivia.
There was an invisible weight pushing her into the seat and despite the artificial gravity inside of the ship, she just couldn’t shake the feeling of being completely untethered as they hurled toward Krypton’s atmosphere.
She clenched her eyes shut as they shot through the clouds and already in the next moment their rapid descent came to an abrupt halt. The sudden change in movement and speed almost sent her sprawling out of her chair and one of the Secret Service agents to her left jumped to his feet and rushed from the bridge with a hand clamped over his mouth.
Cat’s stomach churned in sympathy but she stayed put and forced herself to look toward the glass panels at the front of the ship. Krypton eventually came into sight and she leaned forward slightly to take in all of the colors of the foreign planet.
While there were some patches that might be mistaken for blue seas and green forests, similar to Earth, the most remarkable thing about the view was the red hue that surrounded the planet. Meanwhile deep red and orange lines ran across the planet’s surface in many places.
Cat knew that Krypton had barely escaped a natural catastrophe, or rather the utter and complete destruction of the entire planet, several decades back. According to their information, a group of scientists had managed to stall the decomposition of the core and only a radical change in how Kryptonians had treated their home had saved them.
Cat had an inkling that Krypton was a cautionary tale to Earth and its inhabitants, but people had yet to understand the consequences of carelessness and indifference toward what sustained them.
Thankfully they had slowed down enough so that Cat realized that most green patches far down below were encased in giant glass spheres. Entire forests were kept alive artificially and she marveled quietly at the technology she was about to witness from up-close in just a little while.
“Welcome to Krypton,” the Captain told them without taking his eyes off of the panels in front of him, “we will be arriving in Kandor soon.”
Cat glanced at Olivia and found her smiling slightly. She turned her head and shot a smirk in Cat’s direction before nodding toward the front glass panels again. Cat raised her brows and returned her attention to their destination that had grown much closer in the moments she had taken her eyes off of the planet’s surface.
Buildings that resembled spires stretched as far as the eye could see. Glass and shiny metal were the primary elements and colors of the city that stretched across the landscape in almost symmetrical shapes.
It took every last bit of her ingrained manners to not let her mouth fall open gracelessly. The sight was truly astonishing and Cat slowly rose to her feet to step closer to the glass panels as they neared Kandor.
Too soon the ship had descended so far that she couldn’t see the entirety of the city anymore but the details of the buildings below were just as fascinating. Her earlier impression of sleek and polished buildings became even clearer as she found roads winding through them like rivers, flooded with vehicles that mostly resembled trains and buses.
Eventually the ship stopped mid-air and began a vertical plunge until there was a soft thud and they entered a large metal dome that closed upon them as soon as they were inside. It was unlike any landing a plane on Earth was capable of and Cat felt an uneasy feeling rising in her chest again.
She’d been on unfamiliar terrain before, many times actually, but nothing compared to this.
“Follow me please.” A crewmember had approached them and gestured toward the doors at the opposite side of the bridge.
The Captain was still seated in his chair and speaking quietly into a device attached to his ear, seemingly not interested in seeing his passengers off.
Cat turned away from the glass panels with a sigh and fell into step with Olivia as they followed the crewmember toward the doors. The Secret Service agent who had previously vacated his seat joined them again as they stepped out into the corridor and they were trailed by all five of them as they walked down the long hallway.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” Olivia asked with a twinkle in her eye.
She was seemingly enjoying this trip immensely and Cat couldn’t fathom how the woman remained so calm and relaxed on the outside. Because she had to be feeling some tension somewhere deep inside, right?
“Quite,” Cat replied, trying to keep her nonchalance intact.
Olivia smirked as if she knew exactly that Cat was anything but indifferent but they fell silent as they kept following the crewmember through yet another set of doors. Cat expected another corridor to follow, as she’d gotten used to seeing them behind each and every door on this ship, but instead a blast of warm air greeted them.
The doors opened with a hissing sound to reveal the inside of the grey dome they had previously landed in, a hangar of some sort Cat assumed. A metallic gangway unfurled right in front of them toward the ground and Cat waited for Olivia to take the lead.
Apparently their luggage was going to be taken care of, since no one had mentioned it yet and she was willing to go along with whatever was in store for them, not at all concerned about her one-of-a-kind pair of Louboutins in her suitcase.
Olivia walked across the gangway like she’d done it a million times and Cat was actually quite glad that the Secret Service agents were following them this closely, simply because they were emanating the same nervous energy Cat was feeling in her gut. At least she wasn’t alone in being completely out of her element.
A row of people was waiting at the bottom of the gangway and they rested their right hands lightly against the left side of their chests while bowing their heads in greeting. “Welcome to Krypton,” one of them intoned, “my name is Sil-En and I will be accompanying you to your residence. A meeting with the Houses has been arranged for later today.”
“Wonderful, and thank you,” Olivia replied with a broad smile.
Cat shot one last glance over her shoulder at the spacecraft before turning and following Olivia and the Kryptonians into what was promising to be a very interesting day.