TALES of SUPERGIRL: CORNUCOPIA.

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tallyho
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Hi all, this is another in my TOSG series of short stories, where there are elements of the content that will ultimately feature in a larger story arc that I am writing. There is no sexual element to the peril featured here.(thats in my Bg stories)
They are all stand alone stories though and you don't have to have read the previous offerings to follow this one. The stories are deliberately more about conventional perils that she must face and are a means to explore aspects of her character as well as contribute background to the bigger story I am working on. I want to show Sg as a person which is why I write these. Everything I've written I've written for a reason, so some parts may seem inane or pointless but they will become important either in this story or later on in context of the larger story.

The previous short stories, should you wish to read them in order, are :-

The previous short stories, should you wish to read them in order, are :-
TOSG: Faking It.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=23625
TOSG: Goodbye Mr A.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=21880
TOSG : Of Gods and Monsters
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=23369
TOSG : Cornucopia
This story!
TOSG : Aftermath
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25155


This one is in 3 parts, the first is just setting the scene really. If you enjoy it, please post a comment. If you don't, even more reason to post a comment :yes:





PART 1
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Kara stared at the face of the man before her with grim determination.

“You’re goin’ down!” she declared defiantly.

He met her gaze evenly, then narrowed his eyes “Oh yeah? You gonna take me?”

“If I have to. And I have to.”

“What, here? You come here, into my own place of business, callin’ the shots like you own the joint, and callin‘ me out, right here, in front of my customers, in my own backyard? You got some balls kiddo…”

“Bring it on fat boy…”

“Fatboy? FATBOY is it? Jesus…you are so, soooo dead baby.”

“Baby? Oh yeah? Well do your worst, big guy…’cos I’ll be doin’ my best.”

“You can’t mean…? What after the last time? Are you crazy? You want your ass handed to you, huh? Well, bitch, you come to the right place!”

Bitch?! Rob!” Kara chastised her friend with a frown of mock anger and a slap on his forearm.

“Well, you called me fat. I ain’t fat….Well ok, I’m Jack Black-fat but not John Candy –fat…” he said in a hurt tone.

“That’s what I meant.” She said, placatingly.

“Well, I was just like…trash talkin’, ya know, biggin’ it up like” he said hesitantly.

“What the hell was that thing you were doing with your mouth?”

“That was my game face…” he said awkwardly.

THAT was your game face?!!!” she asked incredulously. “Rob, it looked like you were tryin’ to crap a hand grenade!” she didn’t use curse words very often and even something as mild as ‘crap’ seemed naughty and risqué to her, dangerous and secretly exciting to hear it come from her own mouth.

He blushed furiously and struggled to meet her gaze. “Well, anyway…you want another Bond Off?”

“Nah, we exhausted James Bond quotes the last time…”she smiled.

“You’re just saying that cos you lost…” he taunted her.

“OH! I LOST! Only ‘cos you cheated -‘Bond, <click> James Bond’ that was dirty pool”

“Hey, the click was Connery doing the lighter in the Casino, gotta be Dr No. It’s different from every other film where he just says ‘Bond, James Bond’. Not my fault you weren’t up to it.”

She smiled. He was right, but it did niggle her that she had fallen into his trap and said it could be any of the Bond films, without pausing a second to think about the significance of his click noise. Rats.

“How about something new?” she suggested.

“Like what?" He thought for a second "Maybe…dunno. Names? Names in quotes that only could come from the one film? Like ‘McLovin ain’t even a real name’ can only be from-“

“’Superbad’. Cool. We can count franchises as one if it comes to it, so like ‘Use the Force, Luke’ could be from a coupla films but Star Wars would cover it. Yeah Ok, that works. So any general quote but has to have a distinct name in it, or be memorable from a distinct film, ok? Or a general name in a distinct quote, yeah?” she said, getting into the swing of things.

“Yep . Good. Hit me” the café owner Rob Thomas said as he leaned on the counter and their eyes locked again in a deadly bout of film quote combat. He beckoned her with his fingers together. It was after 6 and the café was almost deserted apart from two customers. Rob had sent the bevy of beautiful waitresses home because it was quiet. Kara had been about to head home too, but she sensed his loneliness and as they liked each other’s company she stayed for a chat. He was one of her few real friends and actually knew her secret. They both enjoyed the movies and they often played the film quote game, in some form or another. Once in a while, she let him win.

’Cut me, Mickey!’” Kara cried in a slurred voice with a smile. It was a pretty good impression.

“Sly Stallone, 'Rocky'! 1-0 to Thomas, yaaaaaayyyyy , the crowd goes wild!” he spun on the spot hands in the air in triumph.

“Oh, c’mon.” She said, laughing. ”That was deliberately easy for you.”

“It’s Elias…its Elias…” he said staring at her intently.

“Oh, …er…. That would be….let me see…I know it….'PLATOON'! Charlie Sheen in the helicopter at the end, when he looks down at Willem Dafoe”

“Awwww, you cow!”

“ROB!”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean it.” He said, sheepishly. ”Go on then.”

Winstone Wolf…I fix problems.

’Pulp Fiction’! Errrr….Ooooo…strugglin’ now…let’s see…er…’Broadsword calling Danny Boy!’

“You say that one all the time! Its ‘Where Eagles’ Dare’” she laughed as he nodded reluctantly. “A present from Mathilda…’” she said in a heavy French accent.

He smiled in triumph ”My second favourite film of all time girl, Luc Besson’s ‘Leon’! Crackin’ movie that .”

“Hmmmn. Bit bloody for my tastes. Your turn” she said as she took a sip from her tea.

’What-are-you doing, Dave?’” he said with a bad American accent in a flat, dull voice and slammed his palm down on the shop counter in expected victory.

Kara winced. “Jeez, Rob, that was awful! “ she chastised her friend. “I’m guessing you were tryin’ to do Hal from ‘2001’? Since when did the computer have a Welsh accent?” she teased him.

“It was a good impersonation, that!” he said indignantly. She looked at him dubiously from narrowed eyes. He looked away guiltily, tacitly conceding the point. They both grinned.

“Ok, bit of a toughie for ya now, then…’Mr Stone? We have your wife…’”she smiled at him as she took another sip.

“OOOOoooo…’We have your wife’… gotta be some kidnap caper then….’Mr Stone’…OH , I KNOW! ‘Ruthless People!’ Loved Helen Slater in that , she was just soooo gorgeously cute. Not unlike a certain someone I know…” he smiled at her pointedly and winked, and she blushed at the complement. ”Danny Devito was Sam Stone and they took oh, what was her name? Played his wife, ya know…” he pondered.

“Bette Midler” she put him out of his misery.

THAT was it, Bette Midler. Good laugh. I liked that film, mostly ‘cos Slater was a fox.”

“Batter up.” She said looking at him expectantly as she awaited his offering.

“’HEL-LO? MCFLY?!’” he mimed knocking in the air with his fist at her forehead.

“Aw, please! ‘Back to the Future’”. She smiled. “Easy-peasy. OK, since we are in kindergarten, an equally easy one for you: ‘Sarah Connor?’ “ she said in a heavy Austrian accent.

“Aww c’mon your takin’ the piss! ‘Terminator!’ Alright, let’s get this one out of the way- ‘GORDON’S ALIVE?!!!!’” He said in a big, booming voice.

“Vultan in ‘Flash Gordon’.” She laughed. “Jeez Rob you gave me half the title in the quote! Ok, lets up the ante – a toughie for ya now then, ‘Carson Dyle HAD NO BROTHER!’.” She declared with a wicked smile and twinkling eyes as she bellowed out the last part of the sentence.

“Cock. I know this one too. War film? “ she shook her head. “Oh, BALLS! I can hear ‘im sayin’ it too…its not a cowboy picture…not sci fi…not horror…a thriller? Crime caper?”

“Maybe a bit of both” she smiled mischievously as she watched him suffer. “Think way back….”

“70’s?” he asked as she shook her head.

“Think older…”

“Go on, gissa clue. Who was in it?”

“Cary Grant, Hepburn, er… George Kennedy… er…I think Coburn was as well…oh, and Walther Matthau…”

“Oh, bollocks! Its bloody ‘Charade’ innit?” she nodded as he winced. “Knew I knew it! Shoulda ‘ad that one without a clue, mind you, it aint on much. Ain't seen it in years. Great film though. OH! I got one! ‘Right turn, Clyde!’ ”

’Every Which Way…’. Didn’t need to think about that one. Erm…oooo…Oh! Here’s one ‘So nobody has a clue, what happened to Mr Blue?’” she said perkily. She knew he’d get it quickly but she liked to see his delight when he solved one. It made her happy.

’Reservoir Dogs’, love, innit? Gotta be. Rrrrrrright then, let’s see now…” Then he smiled an evil grin. “Ok, if it’s tough ones you want, cop this. ‘Jones?’ ” he said. She waited but he didn’t continue.

“’Jones’ what?” she prompted.

“Just ‘Jones?’” he smiled. Then the phone rang. He left her pondering as he answered.

“ ’Raiders?” she called after him but he shook his head with a smile as he picked up the phone.

“ Coulda been, but it ain’t. Different inflection. ‘Ang on. Allo? Hiya Mam… What d’ya mean who’s that, it’s me Rob. YOU rang ME…Who else over here is gonna call you ‘Mam’?” he rolled his eyes. “Ok. Yeah, I’m great. Business is tidy. You alright Mam, you sound a bit upset?.... Well anyway, wassa matter? ….No, I aint got the tv on… Mrs Williams’ little boy? Mrs Williams at number 23? That Mrs Williams. Fat Bobby or Mick with the Lump?...Or Dave O’blivion? Mam he’s 48, you can’t call him a little boy. He’s on an oil tanker or somethin’ ain’t he? Yeah, well anyway, him?... What about him?... Well of course he’s at sea, he works on bloody oil tankers…What storm? Well no, its tea time here… Yes, Mam , I’ve had food…a bacon sandwich. Look you ‘aven’t rung in a panic to find out if I had tea…Hang on …Mam ‘ang on. OK, OK, alright I’ll put the telly on. Yeah…ok, yes I got it, BBC. I’ll ring you back.” He hung up. ”Bloody woman.”

“What’s up?” Kara, in her guise of ‘Linda’, asked him.

“Some big fuss…somethin’ about a ship in trouble back by where I live. ‘Ang on, I’ll put it up now. Mrs Williams from opposite, her little boy is in it somehow… Dave O’blivion, … not Fat Bobby… Nor Mick with the Lump”.

“Mick with the Lump? Why’s he called that?”

“His name is Mick and he’s got a big lump on his forehead by here-“ he tapped his own forehead. “We all used to joke it was his brains escaping.”

“Wait a sec!” she frowned and held up a hand “What about ‘Dave Oblivion’?” she asked, as he sounded more like a super villain.

“Oh, it’s a bit of a story there. He worked on a tug boat out of Cork, in the engine room, for 5 years and when he came back ‘ome he’d picked up an Irish accent. He used to drink himself silly when he was back, so someone said ‘he drinks himself into oblivion’, so he became Dave O’Blivion, with the apostrophe after the ‘O’ , ya know like the Irish names. O’Malley, O’Callaghan, that sort of thing.“

“Oh. Right. O’ Blivion. Got it,” There wasn’t a lot she could say to that, and she didn’t really have anything to say either, except in her limited experience, all of Rob’s countrymen seemed insane, Rob included. She shook her head slightly in dismissive bewilderment.

“Well ‘e just used to drink until he passed out all the time when he was younger, so he used to drink to-“ Rob continued.

“Oblivion. I get it. You guys are … what is it you say? Bonkers?”

“Gee, ta for that love.” He pulled a face as he switched the tv on and then cycled through the channels, searching for a particular broadcast. “Anyway Dave’s the one, not Bob. Fat Bobby we calls him.”

“I can work that nickname out all by myself” she smiled.

“Gotta find the Beeb world news… the bloody yank world news stuff is all still about the States…” he continued to skip programs until he hit the BBC 24 World Service. A dark swirling stormy image filled the screen, mostly black but with a few faint lights moving crazily up and down in the field of view. As he turned up the sound, a roaring wind drowned out the shouted words of the journalist standing on the cliff top illuminated by a swinging spotlight beam, desperately blinking off the rain and clinging on to his hood as he tried to make himself heard. But the ticker tape scrolling across the bottom of the screen gave a fuller picture.

‘-ARGEST LIQUID NATURAL GAS TANKER IN THE WORLD ADRIFT IN BRISTOL CHANNEL AFTER ENGINE ROOM FIRE… OCEAN GOING TUGS BATTLE TO STOP SHIP HITTING ROCKS IN GALE FORCE CONDITIONS AFTER LOSING POWER… MARITIME SAFETY AGENCY SAY 37 CREW STILL ON BOARD …“UK FACING CATASTROPHIC ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER” – ENVIRONMENT SECRETARY… RAF SEA KING HELICOPTERS BATTLING WITH COASTGUARD AND LOCAL LIFEBOATS TO SAVE STRANDED MEN IN CONDITIONS DESCRIBED AS ‘UNBELIEVABLE’ BY MET OFFICE SPOKESMAN… VESSEL BELIEVED BOUND FOR THE NEW LNG PROCESSING TERMINAL AT MILFORD HAVEN WHEN FIRE BROKE OUT…TRIED TO REACH SAFETY OF PORT OF BRISTOL BUT LOST ALL STEERING… BREAKING NEWS… GLOBAL GAS CORP VESSEL ‘CORNUCOPIA’, THE LARGEST LIQUID NATURAL GAS TANKER IN THE WORLD ADRI-’

“Shit.” Said Rob. “ ’elluva storm, poor buggers” he said almost to himself as he stared up at the screen. “That’s just by where I’m from. Dave is on that, Mam said…”

“Rob, I’ll need to use your office a sec…” Kara said rising from the stool. Rob knew who she really was, but pretended he didn’t. He knew she knew all the film quotes too and so would always win, but they played the game anyway as they liked each other’s company, and he had convinced himself that if he didn’t know for certain that Linda (as he knew her) was Supergirl then he could still legitimately cling to the belief that , well, maybe she wasn’t. It wasn’t really working, but they kept up the pretence.

“What? Oh, yeah. Sure. Wait a sec though, see what they say a minute.” He said as a panel appeared at the side of the picture.

OCEAN TUGS TRYING TO PUSH STRICKEN VESSEL FROM ROCKS…PENBRIDGE LIFEBOAT LAUNCHED IN ‘TITANIC SEAS’…FEARS GROWING AS WEATHER WORSENS…”

“Rob, I really better go…”

“NO, yes, I mean- I was just waitin’ to see if they said what boat had gone out. THAT'S where y-our friend needs to be, get on that Lifeboat, they’ll have radio to the helicopters and the Coastguard. Thems your boys. I mean her boys – she needs to get on that boat, nobody will know the situation better than the lifeboat coxswain, he’ll be able to tell y- her what he needs doin’. The coastguard will be relaying all the SAR stuff but the Cox is on the spot, he’ll have a better idea of the conditions and what’s practical.”

“Thanks I’ll pass that on. SAR stuff?” though as soon as she said it she guessed what he meant

“Search And Rescue.”

“OK, got it.” She strode briskly to his office.

“HEY!” He called after her and she paused as he said “Tell her to be careful, eh?”

She smiled “Sure.” As she moved into the back of his shop she thought of her approaching the Earth just a few hours or so earlier. Deep down, something had seemed off but she was just so glad she had been heading ‘home’ she hadn’t been paying attention. Now she remembered. As she had returned to earth from the planet ‘Gonzalez’**** as she called it, there was some sort of anomaly…a cloud formation… that was it! A cloud formation that had been rotating in the wrong direction! Against the wind. Dammit why hadn’t she noticed? She was furious with herself that now people were in danger because of her lax behaviour. No ordinary storm this.

A short while later, after Kara had flown from the back of the shop, the café owner was on the phone once again to his mother.

“Yep…yep, Mam…I seen it…look it’s gonna be alright…I’ve had a word with …” he dropped his voice to a whisper so the few customers couldn’t hear “-my girlfriend,” he resumed more normally then “ and she’s on her way. No, she hasn't got a coat...Mam I can see its raining on the telly...well she's got this...sort of capey-thing...What? No. No, Mam, listen….Mam, will you listen? No, she hasn’t got one of them either….Because, Mam, she doesn’t need an umbrella…”.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**** see TOSG Of Gods and Monsters (but I warn you its an odd one! ;) and just a bit of whimsy)
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Last edited by tallyho 5 years ago, edited 6 times in total.
How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.

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SGWriter
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Nice intro Tallyho!

Looking forward to another Supergirl story. Wonder what trouble Kara is going to run into this time. Nice that you had Linda/Kara staying to keep Rob company.
Yes Supergirl, that's right its a necklace for you....What's the matter you don't like Kryptonite?
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Hah. I hope you got all your movie trivia out of your system now, TH. :starwars: Use the force, Luke. I did get about 75% of the answers. Also enjoyed the ironic use of Helen Slater, too, being she's tied to SG and all.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the SG peril part of this story. Meanwhile I'll go read up on my Guide to Movies for your next installment.
Follow this link to descriptions of my stories and easy links to them:

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tallyho
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Ye-ah....probably over did it a bit, but I wanted to show her with a personality, and as I say, I've written what I have for a reason. (And I just started to enjoy myself a bit and got carried away! :yes: )

I'll be impressed if anyone got Charade, and most of the others were easy.
:hmmm: But the question is, did you get the last one ? 'Jones?'.... :hmmm:

(Its not dramatically significant to the story in the slightest, I'm just curious! :smile: )
If anyone wants to pm me for the answer I am happy to give it , or wait a month until its revealed, its up to you <Edit : 'Jones 'will be revealed in a later story

Anyway thanks for the comments guys I am glad you are enjoying it so far.
Last edited by tallyho 8 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.

I am here to help one and all enjoy this site, so if you have any questions or feel you are being trolled please contact me (Hit the 'CONTACT' little speech bubble below my Avatar).
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Fun Supergirl series.
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tallyho
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Hi gents, thanks for the comments, please keep them coming, good or bad
Part 2

“Jacko! Jacko?! HIGGS!!! Where’s me bloody tea?” the Coxswain of the William Joseph Morgan bellowed from the bridge of the little lifeboat. The crew knew the boat affectionately as the ‘Billy Morgs’.

“Comin’ Cox’! (Ya miserable ol’ bastard…)” said the bosun of the lifeboat under his breath from down below. His life had been made hell in the last few years - all because of some unfathomable scientific discovery. Bosun Jack Thorpe now had a new nickname – ‘Higgs’. He’d tried telling them it was a ‘Boson’ but they didn’t give a damn.

The Tamar class vessel ploughed through the monstrous waves as it fought its way through towards the lights in the distance. She was the newest class of Lifeboat- fast and rugged, sturdy and shaped like a squat arrowhead to cut through the seas. The huge tanker was around 9 miles distant, just under three quarters of a mile off Widow’s Point, but in these conditions all you could see were her running lights, her main power being off due to the engine room fire.

Coxswain Harold Martin squinted past the wipers that were fighting a losing battle with the storm to keep the rain off the window, whilst sitting beside him, his brother James, the radioman, manned the radar screen and hailed the coastguard control headquarters on the radio. They could manage 25 knots at top speed but these seas were horrendous and he felt the boat buck and fight through his shock absorbing chair. Against the wind they’d be lucky to make 20. The crew were West Countrymen, from the English side of the Bristol Channel and most of the seven men on board had been volunteers for at least ten years.

“Some odd chatter from the tugs about some bloody girl or somethin’. Really excited they are. Don’t think she’s been washed over nor nothin’” Jimmy said as he held a single earpiece to his ear. “Somethin’ about her flyin’ by….?” He frowned. “’Copter’s on about it too…Don’t make no sense.”

“Well, we’re too far away to do anythin’ if she is washed overboard… Get on to control Jim, tell ‘em we are coming on station and find out what the ‘ell is goin’ on. Put it on speaker.”

“Coastguard Control, Coastguard Control from Penbridge lifeboat, over.” He didn’t use the boats name as the call sign – ‘Penbridge’ was easier and quicker to say than ‘William Joseph Morgan’ in a crisis.

“Coastguard Control, we read you Penbridge, over.”

“Be advised Coastguard we have tanker in sight, approximately 8-9 miles out, over.”

“ETA Penbridge, over?”

“In this bloody weather about fifteen, to twenty, more likely half hour, over. She’s about half a mile to three quarters, maybe a bit more off the Point. Christ, she’s a big bugger, over.”

“Roger, Penbridge, be advised we have now lost radio contact with Cornucopia, over.”

“Coastguard, coastguard, what is status of tugs, as ahhhh…. I only have two on the radar plot, over?”

“Tow ropes parted, Penbridge. One turned back for Penarth with rudder damage after the tow snapped, two still in attendance. Two heading out from Swansea got forced back, another three called out from Bristol, still two hours away. RAF say they have trouble making the crew deck in these winds due to ships aerials, but we think something is happening right now, Penbridge. Ahhh….seems to be some confused radio traffic, we are tryin’ to sort it out now, standby, over.”

“Mad Mike one of ‘em two tugs on site, Coastguard, over?”

“What do you think, Penbridge, over.”

James Martin smiled a grin at his brother. ‘Mad’ Mike Watts was notorious for braving any conditions to make a tow. His boat, the Lady Leanne, was older than he was (and he was sixty eight), and both had seen better days.

“Roger, Coastguard, over and out.”

“Penbridge lifeboat from Coastguard, be advised Denmouth Bay boat is also inbound but well over an hour away from your position, over.”

“Roger, Coastguard, over and out.”

“Crazy bastard, stickin’ around in that wreck o’ his in this mess” said Harry.

“Well, he’s called Mad Mike for a reason” his brother chipped in.

“Aye, I know, but that was ‘cos he ran naked twice around Grosvenor Square in London on Tommy Naylor’s stag do. Yeah, ‘spose the writing was on the wall really. If any crazy old coot is gonna be out in this, it’s gonna be ‘im. That tub o’ his is held together with will power. ‘Spect Jonny Handley’s Chieftain is the other tug, he’d ‘ave been on the radio moaning if he’d got damaged - he looks after that boat better ’n his missus, but check in and find out who’s out there and what condition they are in.” he said to the radioman.

“You still with us, Tony?” the Cox called into the mike that broadcast on speakers outside, as well as through the crews personal comms, pressing the transmit button with one hand as his voice boomed out to the deckhand, clinging on for dear life at the bow, fixed on two safety lines. Tony Dennis turned and waved back briefly, then grabbed the taff rail again as the ship pitched.

“Poor bugger. Get him in, Jim, for a cuppa and a warm, he’s been out there ‘alf hour. Put young Danny out there, do ‘im good. We’ll be on station soon enough, we’ll all be busy then.” They had reports of at least three containers washed overboard from the deck stacks of a cargo vessel. Radar was radar, but eyes were eyes, and they could see half submerged containers swept from the big ship cargo stacks, whereas radar could not. Two powerful search lights mounted above the bridge were synched to fall before the bow and illuminate such threats, but you still needed keen eyes to spot them, especially in such rough weather. All they kept picking out was the rise and fall of the black, foam-flecked sea as it climbed above them in a monstrous dark wall to smash onto the deck.

“That little fellas still there, thirty, forty miles off to South West, slap bang in the eye, been following the storm the whole way up from the Bay o’ Biscay, Control said. ‘Elluva thing that. Must be some seaman, or else the luckiest sod alive.” Jim said tapping a dot on the radar to indicate the private boat that was riding its luck.

Harry pulled an impressed face but didn’t say anything. There had been a motor cruiser caught in the storm that had miraculously managed to avoid the worst of it. At the back of his mind was the thought that if that guys luck ran out, as it surely would, then they’d have to go and rescue him as well.

He looked back to the bow to see Tony Dennis pointing furiously to starboard. The coxswain followed the gaze, squinting into the dark but could see nothing before a second later Tony used his throat mike to the bridge.

“COX!!!COX!!! THERE’S A BLOODY GIRL OUT THERE!!!” he screamed in disbelief.

“Where-away Tony? I can’t see owt in the water…” he said anxiously into the mike as he scrutinized the rising black mass to his right.

“NO! SHE’S …SHE’S NOT IN THE WATER…SHE’S LIKE… HOVERING! SHIT, SHE’S GOING TO THE-“

There was a polite but loud knock on the wheelhouse door. Directly behind him.

“-WHEELHOUSE! She can only bloody FLY!!!!!” Tony was screaming through the speakers. ”I ain’t drunk, honest! HONEST, I AIN’T!”

Harry Martin turned to see a beautiful but rain bedraggled face at the tiny window of the wheelhouse door. She was smiling through the rain as she waved, pointing into the room.

“SHIT! JIM! JIM! LET ‘ER IN, FOR GOD’s SAKE!” he shouted at his stupefied younger brother as he nodded at her vigourously, but she had already given him a friendly thumbs up and opened the door from outside before Jim reached the air-lock sealing handles.

She stepped inside, her bright blue and red costume now dark and dull, her hair in stringy limp strands covering her face.

“Phew! Thanks guys! Permission to come aboard?! Filthy night!” she said blowing her hair away from her face with a ‘pfffuwupp’ noise.

“Christ! She’s one of them super’eroes from America” said Jim picking up on the soft accent and the obvious costume.

“HIGGS! BLANKETS AND HOT SOUP! ON THE BRIDGE, ON THE DOUBLE!” Harry Martin called as his eyes were glued on the beautiful young girl before him. The professional seaman in him took over from his libido and he dragged his eyes to the sea once more.

“SOUP?!!“ said the bosun as he started to emerge onto the bridge, “BUT I just got your tea, ya bloody bastard… WA-HEY!!!!JESUS! COMPANY!” cried the bosun in surprise.

“ ’ You are, love, have that.” Jim said, handing her the cup of tea as he took it from the swaying bosun. It had a child’s sipper top to it, to prevent spills. ”Who…? How…?”

“Oh, thanks!” She took a welcome sip. “Hmmn, sorry Captain, I’m Supergirl, I’ve come to assist with the rescue. Whatever they pay you guys to be out in this, it aint enough! Boy!” she took another slurp, this time decidedly un-ladylike.

“WHATS GOING ON?” Tony asked over the radio.

“EYES FRONT, Tone…we just got a special passenger is all.” Harry answered into the mike.

“I’ve ‘eard of you!” Jim said. “Wow! You’re bloody lovely!” he looked her up and down appreciatively, rising from his seat by gripping one of the overhead hanging hand holds. The rain had soaked her clothes and they were stuck to her skin, clinging to every curve of her body. And she had a lot of curves. The boat was pitching wildly in the violent seas, but she was as steady as a rock.

“BLANKETS AND TOWELS, HIGGS, DAMMIT!” the Cox barked, still looking to front. “Don’t pay us at all miss, we’re volunteers. An’ while I am her skipper, I’m the Cox’ of the boat not the Captain”

“Jeez. You volunteer? You guys are something. Right-ho Skipper,” she said in a faux British accent as she saluted him playfully and he smiled, “Oh, if the towels and blankets are for me, please don’t bother”.

“But you’re soaked! You’ll catch your death!”

“Bare with me… Oh, do you mind?” she gave her mug of tea to Jim and then spun ferociously on the spot. In a second or two she stood, bone dry before them, her costume once more as radiant as her golden hair. “Ooops! Sorry fellas!” she apologized as the reason they were all blinking at her was that she had showered them with droplets as she spun herself dry like a family dog. She took a deep breath and blew over all of them, thereby drying them off in an instant. She took back her tea and had another sip, smiling mischievously. They were all just staring at her in surprise.

“I’m Harold Martin, Coxswain and master of this vessel, that there is me brother Jimmy,” Jimmy nodded, “on the radio; Jacko there is the bosun, we call ‘im ‘Higgs’”, Jack Thorpe blushed furiously “That’s Tony Dennis on deck, Mark Denholm is in the engine room, an’ we got two other hands down below, Danny Lewis and Old Norm Wyatt, they’re getting the winches and harnesses ready somewhere back there. Pleased to meet you…er…miss…Supergirl?” he said awkwardly from his shock absorbing seat.

She nodded and smiled back at the gawping crewmen around her, those standing were swaying wildly from the hand holds.

“Now, how can I help? I’ve already stopped by the Cornucopia, no one is seriously hurt yet, but they have no radio. I can ferry them off two at a time to the headland in a couple of seconds each trip, but they won’t leave until the ship is safe, plus at the moment they’d be totally exposed up there. You need to get medical aid to the clifftop to be ready for when I bring them off. I tried to speak to one of the tug captains but he…er…well swore at me and kinda told me to leave his ship…in a very rude way…I can get those guys off but the boat is too big - I’m strong but that’s like a coupla hundred thousand tonnes, it’s way too much for me. I reattached the tow lines, but the skippers all said I need to co-ordinate with you guys aswell. So how we gonna handle this? If you got a hand held radio I can take that to them on the tanker when I head over there.”

“Sure, we can do you a radio. That sweary guy was Mad Mike, he thinks women on board is bad luck. Mike is old school sailor, is Mike. You can lift ‘em off? One sec.” Harry picked up the radio mike, looking at her as she nodded.

“Coastguard, Coastguard, from Penbridge lifeboat, over.”

“Go ahead Penbridge, this is Coastguard, over.”

“ER… be advised Coastguard we have S-“ he looked at her for reassurance as he said the unusual name “er …Miss Supergirl with us, over.”

“Say again Penbridge, over.”

“Repeat, we have Supergirl here to assist with the rescue, over.”

“When you say ‘Supergirl’ Penbridge, do you mean Supergirl ‘Supergirl’, over?”

“Affirmative Coastguard. The one and only. Can’t imagine there being two women who look like her, over.”

Kara blushed coyly.

“You lucky bastards, Penbridge, over.”

“ERRR,….Be advised Coastguard, she is on the bridge with us!” Harry said hurriedly. “And I can confirm she is bloody gorgeous, over.”

“Sorry Penbridge, sorry miss…Supergirl. But I repeat, you are lucky bastards, over.”

Kara smiled as all the men on the bridge looked awkwardly at her, embarrassed but grinning like lusty schoolboys.

“Suggest you have the flyboys stand off, coastguard. We got a fly girl who is gonna handle things, over.” Harry winked at Kara, who blushed back then added “They can’t do much in this wind, just getting themselves blown about for sod all, over.” He added.

“Roger, Penbridge, will get them to stand off, but see if they want to hang around, their lights might help with getting the crew off, over.”

“Copy coastguard, over and out.”

“Right, miss. Here’s the thing. We lost the tow on the bloody ship over there, and one of the tugs has had to put back. Theres a few replacement boats headin’ out from Bris'ol –‘ as a West Countryman he never pronounced the ‘t’ in Bristol – ‘but they are hours off. There’s another lIfeboat inbound but again be an hour at least. It’s a biiiiig tanker. She’s trapped against a lee shore and we can’t –well the tugs couldn’t- reattach a line til you showed up. She’s lost steerage after the engine fire- it took out all the wiring as I understand it, so they lost the back up generator too. We gotta get a tow across to ‘em and get the poor sods off before it gets too close to them rocks. And she’s a bloody whopper of a ship. Biggest I’ve seen. When they get that big they have a life of their own near other objects, it’s weird. She got beam on to the storm and them ruddy high sides of hers just acted like a big metal sail, blew clean past the channel for Swansea, skipper then decided to turn with the wind and try and make Bris'ol as he couldn’t negotiate the shoals before Cardiff. The tugs rocked up and tried to make Cardiff Bay but once she went beam on again, they lost her. And its way too windy for the chopper winch. Oh, and one of the tug boat captains is a fucking lunatic, as you know, beggin’ your pardon miss. In a word, we’re up shit creek, beggin’ your pardon miss.” He apologized again for his language.

“That’s four words Cox. Well, five really.” Bosun Jack ‘Higgs’ Thorpe said.

“Well at least now we got lines back on ‘er, thanks to you. We can help a little bit with the towin’ ourselves when we get on station, but this wind is a bastard. If we can turn her from beam on to the storm we got a chance to save her, but first duty is to get the crew off. It’s gonna be a tough night even for you.”

Kara smiled. “Guys, I’ve saved people, I’ve saved cities, and I’ve saved the Earth, quite a few times. She drank from her cup, looking over the rim with her big blue eyes twinkling, her nose hidden from them by it as she looked from man to man. She finally tilted it back and drained the last dregs through the sipping top with a satisfied ‘Ahhh’, before standing up promptly and handing the cup back to Jim. “So what’s one little ol’ boat, huh?” she smiled.

“Wind’s getting’ worse. Think the Sea King’s gonna have to pull out…” Bosun ‘Higgs’ said as he stared through the window, glancing at the windspeed indicator on the control panel for confirmation. There were gusts of 86 miles per hour registering on the instruments. For a helicopter hovering before cliffs, the unpredictability of such gust were not good news.

“That’s a pity…I hoped I might have to ‘Get to da choppa’!” she said in a perfect impersonation of Arnie, only to be greeted by a sea of blank faces and an awkward silence. ”Oh, erm, never mind a private joke…”

“R-ight…” said Harry uncertainly. “Not really the time for jokes, miss.”

“No, no it isn’t. I’m sorry you are absolutely right.” She said contritely. “OK, let’s get this show on the road fellas…” she took the radio offered from the bosun. He turned to secure the locker then he lunged suddenly into her as the boat pitched and rolled. He collided with her as if he had hit a wall but she caught him gently as she remained static, preventing the impact that would have knocked him over. “Whoa! Easy fella!” she said as she steadied him.

‘Higgs’ blushed furiously with embarrassment as his cheek came to rest against the ‘S’ on her breast. ”S-so sorry Miss!” he stammered as he straightened himself up.

“First things first, let’s get you guys on the plate, shall we?” she said primly.

“Eh? Plate?”

“Oh, sorry. Maybe I should have said ‘wicket’.” She smiled. “I mean we need to get you guys to the tanker. I’ll give you a helping hand. You’d best get your look out inside.”

“Oh, Miss, there’s a danger of cargo containers in the water, a ship lost at least a couple a few hours back…”

“It’s ok, I can scan ahead for them but to be honest I was going to carry the boat not push it…”

“FUCK OFF!” Jimmy said flabbergasted. She looked at him with surprise and mild amusement as he realized she was being serious. Everyone else just stared at him in shock at the suddenness of the outburst. “S-sorry…You can …like,… swim and carry us? Or … shit! You’re gonna fly and lift us! ‘KIN’ ‘ELL!” he said with disbelief. “Oh,..er…sorry. But I mean, FLY!!!.....’KIN’ ELL!” he said again with a shake of his head. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s kinda what I do, chaps” she added the last as a concession to her British audience. “Ok, I’ll whip across to the tanker with the radio. Get everyone inside and strapped down, I’ll fly by the wheelhouse on the way back, you give me a thumbs up and we are good to go, ok? Is the radio already on a frequency?” Jack Thorpe nodded. “ Great.” She pressed the button to test that it worked “Testing, testing, this is Supergirl. Anyone who wants a date, please answer…please respond if you got that test message, over….”

There was a flurry of answering calls from the chopper, Coastguard and the tug Captains, though ‘Mad’ Mike’s was distinctly surly.

“Right guys, I’m outta here. Thanks for the tea, and please don’t sink until I get back, ok?” she smiled.

“Right-oh, miss. Off ya go” The crew of the ‘Billy Morgs’ watched her step through the hatch and shoot off into the night.

“She shouldn’t joke about us sinking like that…Its bad luck…” Jimmy said.

“Give over. You’re soundin’ like Mike. She’s just a kid…Pretty girl though. Bloody ‘ell. She’s gonna carry us?!!!” Harry Martin said disbelievingly, shaking his head in wonder.

They all three stood in silence for a moment, before Jimmy broke it. “ ’Kin’ ‘ell” he said, shaking his head.

Tony had barely made it back inside a few moments later when the red and blue streak sped passed the bridge window and hovered. Once everyone was secured, Coxswain Martin gave her a thumbs up as she smiled and waved back before speeding back to grip the stern railings. She had scanned for the partially sunken containers and spotted one around three quarters of a mile away off to port. It probably wouldn’t have been an issue, but better safe than sorry. She had hit it with her laser vision and pierced its metal doors so it would slowly sink harmlessly to the bottom. She decided against carrying the ship – it wasn’t too heavy for her, but just impractical- the weight was angling away from her if she held it by the stern which might stress the hull. She could have lifted it from below but in this wind it would be a pretty uncomfortable ride for the men on board and take longer than if she pushed it. So she would push it instead. She swiftly moved inside and told the crew of the change of plans and then assumed a braced position, hovering, at the vastly pitching stern. She gripped it where the backboard joined the deck, above the two powerful engines, already flat out as it fought its way into the teeth of the gale. Taking a deep breath, she first bent her arms and then straightened them, head down facing the black water, then she accelerated as she flew through the night.
She hurtled forwards with the boat riding the waves before her, constantly raising her body position to keep it (mostly) on the surface rather than ploughing through the dark rising masses of water before them.

In just thirty to forty seconds she had hurtled the boat the seven miles or so to the tanker, pulling up around half a mile off its starboard bow, thrusting the boat through the monstrous waves like a missile. She returned to the bridge.

“All ok?” she asked, just sticking her head through the hatch door.

“That was SPECTACULAR!” Tony answered beaming as some of the other crew just seemed stunned.

She turned to face Jimmy with a smile as he looked at her open mouthed, trying to form the words to express himself. She decided to help out. ‘Let me guess – ‘ ’Kin’ ‘ell’? She said with a gentle grin.

Jimmy smiled back. “Proper job!” he said.

“See you later boys!” she said as she sped off toward the massive tanker.

“Wow. I would.” Said Tony Dennis, blowing out his cheeks after she had left.

“I bet you would, you dirty old sod.” Jimmy Martin said with a laugh.

“Right boys, back to it, ya know what to do. She’s gonna fix us up with another line to help out the tugs and we try and keep the tanker off the rocks till she has all the crew off. Usual drill, anyone overboard, and we drop the tow and go get ‘em. Go! All Hands on deck!” Harold Martin barked.



Kara secured a bow line to the little orange-red lifeboat, watching it with concern from above as it took the strain. ‘Chieftain’, the newer of the two ocean-going tugs had a similar tow at the stern, whilst the Lady Leanne had moved between the bow and the shore, physically trying to push the massive ship away. She was not in a position to aid them directly yet, her first responsibility was to the crew of the tanker. She had to get them ashore – only then could she worry about saving the ship.

She landed on the flying bridge of the Cornucopia to find the Captain assembling some ten crew men ready for evacuation. Emergency services were pulling up on the headland around a half a mile away alongside the BBC outside broadcasting unit that was transmitting to the world service.

Captain Van der Saal was Dutch and he looked worried. His English was flawless as he addressed her.
“These are the first group to go ashore, non-essential personnel. We have another two groups after this. The chief engineer is still trying to get the engines restarted, he has a crew helping him, they will be the last up, we have 5 men relaying messages from here to the Engine room as we lost electrics. The Chief thinks he can save her. He has said he will be staying to the end. I am staying too.” He said grimly.

Kara wasn’t going to argue with him – yet. She would get the men off and then deal with the Captain’s stubborn streak. Just then the chief engineer appeared on the bridge. He was soot smeared and bloody, with one ear badly burned and his cheek blistered, but he was a big robustly built man and was not moving as if he was injured. He had a ragged patch of burnt hair and skin around the shrivelled ear, his cap riding high to avoid the sore skin. He stiffened in surprise as he saw Kara.

“Cap’ – oh- er….Miss” he pulled at his battered officers cap. Most shipping lines didn’t use them anymore except for formal occasions, but it was clear this had sentimental value for the wearer. The names of five ships were hand stitched around its brim. “All fires are out now Cap’n but it ain’t over. Got more grief. Think the number two propeller shaft portside has had a knock. I’ve had her running extremely slow and she just sounds way off; I might get her and number 4 port side up in about twenty minutes but can’t risk her if she’s bent badly. The prop could shear and rip our bottom open. Don’t know how bad the dink is. That must’ve been the prang we heard when we caught that sandbar half hour back. Still got no idea how the bloody thing started.” He shook his head in thought as he spoke of the original fire.

“I see. Well good work Chief, my thanks to you and the men below. Keep at it , if we can get number 4 going that’s something. Dave this is Supergirl. Supergirl, this is Dave Williams my Chief engineer.” The Captain said.

“Dave O’blivion ?” Kara smiled picking up on his accent as she offered her hand. It was a strange mix of mostly Irish with Welsh undertones.

“Jesus! Ain’t been called that in years! But…yeah! How…? Oh Christ! Rob’s Mam told my mam you were his girlfriend, but we all thought it was bollocks.” Said Dave with obvious surprise. And maybe a tinge of envy.

“WHOA! That is bollo- er, I mean not true, we are just friends.” Kara said hurriedly.

“Friends with benefits?” said Dave with a smile though he winced as the burnt skin on his cheek crinkled.

“More like friends with black eyes when I’ve finished with him. No, we REALLY are just pals.” She said sternly.

“Fair enough. Tell him he still owes me a tenner from Edinburgh when you see him. I’d better get back to it, just needed some air, so came to report, Skip.” Dave said, nodding a goodbye.

“I was gonna help the tugs push but I can come down and help you if you’d like, maybe get things started sooner?” she offered.

Dave thought for a moment. “Well,…its like this, see. I can work on the engines WHILE you push. But if you are helping me, then no one else can help the tugs, lord knows we ain’t got much sea room at the mo’ as it is… Getting her started is just the beginning.”

“Fair point. I’ll start getting the guys off. One under each arm, around fifteen seconds round trip, couple of seconds each end to set and pick up, I should be back in… call it 4 minutes or so, 5 minutes tops. Guys.” She nodded a farewell as she carefully scooped up two seamen who clung to her neck as she put a slender blue arm around their waists.

“HOLD ON!” The Captain shouted “I mean WAIT!” he said as she thought he was just shouting to the men to cling on and she went to take off. “Birkenhead Drill here. We have a woman aboard. Sally! Front and centre!” he called referring to the Women-and-Children-First unwritten rule of the sea. It had first been used on the troopship Birkenhead off South Afrika in the Boer War. Ever since then it was known as The Birkenhead Drill.

The Chief turned back. “She’s a Sparks, sir, and a good one. We need her down below. She knows the risks, they all do down there, but it’s her job. She’s an electrical engineer on a boat that’s lost its electrics. She’s earning her pay. I asked her and she wants to stay, so she does.” The Chief said tersely.

Van der Saal nodded. “ As you were then gentlemen, and good luck.” He saluted Kara and clapped the two men on the shoulders.

She looked at the nervous faces around her and then gave a wink and a smile as she sped off from the flying bridge towards the shore.


The tv crew were filming excitedly as she touched down and the first emergency crews hurried to escort the crewmen the short distance to the ambulances to be checked out. An instant later she took off to pick up the next two as the reporter desperately tried to interview the rescued men. But it wasn’t that live news feed that was causing excitement in the outside broadcasting comms van.

“CHRIST! I DON’T BELIEVE IT! BLOODY HELL TIM, LOOK AT THIS!” cried the senior technician looking excitedly at the screens.

“What is it?” asked his colleague as he turned from his own bank of dials, screens and switches.

He looked at the screen that the senior engineer pointed at.

“Well, it’s just the sea, is it? Why the fuck have we got shots of that? What the hell is Phelps doing, he’s supposed to be filming WonderBoy…” he said referring to John Phelps the cameraman on the cliff top and Matt Lawrenson, the rather wet and bedraggled reporter.

“He fucking IS!” said Peter Thomms, his colleague who tapped furiously at the screen showing the feed from the cliff top, above and to the right of the dark grainy image of the sea that had got him so excited. “That’s what’s going back to Kate at the studio. Only you and I can see this. I just found it by accident as it was close to the frequency we had on the tennis coverage yesterday. I started getting static on the monitor, re-tuned it and fucking BINGO!”

“Well,...if he’s shooting Matt...where the fuck is that feed coming from?”

“NOT US!!!!” Thomms shouted. “Get the studio, try and trace that feed source, it looks like its coming from the BLOODY SHIP!!!! THIS IS A FUCKING BAFTA FOR US!” he cried referring to the British TV awards. “It’s the fucking bow of the ship, I’m telling you! And LOOK!” he hit a switch and the image changed to the stern, he hit it again and there was a shot of the bridge, then again to the other side of the bow, then to the other side of the stern, then finally back to the first bow shot.He then flicked it back to the bridge. "That's the fucking BRIDGE!" he said incredulously. Looking at the Captain and the assembled crew getting ready to be transferred ashore. “THERE’S FUCKING FIVE TRANSMITTER CAMS ON THE BLOODY BOAT! FUCKING HELL, THIS IS GOLD! SHIT! GET THE OK TO GO LIVE WITH THIS, AND START RECORDING FOR FUCKS SAKE! I…don’t believe it...this is...shit! “ he said leaning back on his chair and grabbing two handfuls of hair in his fists. “JESUS….” He said, wide eyed. “They are like state of the art low light cameras...look at the res on them...Gotta be military....We got an inside scoop on a friggin’ national disaster... Fuck.”

“They are short range transmission jobs...gotta be no more than 30, 40 miles range. Maybe 50 tops. But if it ain’t us, who’s doing it? There’s no other crews here?” Tim said still confused.

“ITS FROM THE BOAT, YOU MORON! FROM THE FUCKING BOAT! Don’t you get it? SOMEONE PUT CAMERAS ON THE FUCKING BOAT TO WATCH IT SINK!” Thomms screamed, almost hysterical with excitement.

“But how could they know it would get into trouble?” Tim said.

“Because, dickhead, they MADE the trouble...”
Last edited by tallyho 8 years ago, edited 6 times in total.
How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.

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Bloody 'ell but this is a 'elluva yarn. I'll be watchin' with right careful eyes for both nefarious types and puns of a dubious nature, I assure you that me boy!

Til next time, keep yer nets untangled and your kettle water hot for any other flyin' visitors of such shapely form--hopefully equally wet in tight-fiitin' gear as that!
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JessSupergirrl

Hi tallyho you are such a good writer of this wow you should do this for a job!!!!
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Nice part Tallyho. I liked the revelation at the end, wonder who is stirring trouble and if they planned on Supergirl arriving.

Great stuff!
Yes Supergirl, that's right its a necklace for you....What's the matter you don't like Kryptonite?
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Thanks for the comments ladies and gents, here is the last part, I hope you like it.
(One thing though, I've decided to use the answer to 'Jones?' in a later story. If anyone wants to know or thinks they know and wants to find out then please pm me)

I have used a Welsh word 'cwtsh' - its not a typo and I explain what it means in the story.

I hope no one is disappointed by this last installment but there are two important points to note
1) we as the reader actually know more than Kara does at this point about what is going on
2) this is an important episode in the larger story arc that needs to be this way in order for things to work in the main story

Whatever your thoughts, I hope you will leave a comment.
Enjoy! (I hope!)
T.




PART 3

“You can’t ‘make’ the storm!” Tim said, slightly angrily at his disparaging boss.

“NOT THE STORM, YOU KNOB! They ‘MADE’ the engine room fire, the whole reason that ship can’t handle herself. Sabotage! They, whoever the hell ‘they’ actually are, screwed up the engines so the ship would get wrecked. They maybe had it planned for ages and just waited for the storm forecast before they struck. SHIT….this is BIG….” Pete Thomms said in awe, glassy eyed as he saw his future glories.

“I’ll go get the police.” Tim said and made for the door of the trailer. “They got some Superintendent co-ordinating the guys on the cliff top, I’ll get him in here. Could be terrorists or some shit. Oh, Sky crews have just rocked up too.”

“WHOA-WHOA-WHOA! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN’? The cops could come in here and cut the feed and we got nothing! Yeah, ok we gotta bring them in on it, but we’ll do it once we got the ok to go-live. And at the very least we got some taped footage we can cut to. Look , Supergirl is back on the bridge, we’ll tape her getting the crew off then go to live for the next batch she rescues and then we get the plod in. ”

“I dunno Pete…” said Tim uncertainly.

“NO, YOU DON’T. But I do, and that’s why I’m in charge. Not you, not Phelps and not that prick of a frontman we got out there. Get on to Kate in the studio and tell her what I found and how we are gonna play it. I wanna set up some of the other monitors with the same feed so we can get multiple images from the different cameras. We’re gonna piss all over Sky with this footage.”

“But who has done all this Pete? Its mad…”

“Not our problem, Timmy-boy, not our problem. But I tell you this- it’ll make GREAT TV. Now for fucks sake, get the ok from the studio to run with this.”

“I’ve tried, the satellite phone’s cutting out because of the storm. We might be losing audio on the live cast too but there’s nothing we can do about that. My mobile phone is the same.”

“Well, try again! And don’t tell Lawrenson we got this yet, leave the fucker out there getting soaked.” Thomms said.

“You’re fucking evil.” Tim said, smiling.


As quickly as she could, Kara ferried off the first group of ten crew men to the shore without incident, though the rising wind and the lashing rain had some degree of nuisance value. Thunder rumbled and there were lightning flashes from just a few miles to the south. As she was about to make a start on the second group now assembled in the bridge house, Captain Van Der Saal beckoned her to him. Speaking in a low voice he looked at her sternly.

“It’s not good down below. After this group can you try and straighten the propeller shaft? I know you have strength but I don’t know really if I am asking too much…?” he said awkwardly. “Then we try and start the portside slowly, see how we go…”

“I can try now-“ she began but he interrupted her.

“No, no, they are not ready yet to try, please get the crew off then we have a go once Chief says they are good, if you can do the straightening?”

“Sure. While I‘ve never actually done it before, it shouldn’t be a problem. How are the tows holding out?” she asked.

“So far, so are they good. You’d better get on…” the Dutchman said, for the first time his English sounding slightly stilted as he began to feel the pressure of the situation.

She nodded her agreement, then beckoned to the next two men, who were both in their mid- twenties and looked at her lecherously.

As she gathered them up and they moved outside she felt one of them move his arm slightly down her back. She didn’t look at him but carried on, focused on her task, looking to the cliff as she prepared to launch.

“Pinch my ass and I might just drop you on the rocks.” she said in a low voice with a quiet certainty that had the young man’s smile frozen stiffly in place as it left no doubt in his mind whatsoever that she would indeed drop him. She felt the hand slide slowly back up into position and she looked him in the eye as he remained stiffly frozen. “Better.” She said tersely as she shot off for the cliff top. She kept up that process for the next three minutes but then she could feel the storm worsen. More news crews were arriving on the cliff top and trying to get interviews from those rescued. None of the ships’ crew were injured as such – the engineering watch that had some minor injuries from fighting the fire like the chief, were still aboard trying to repair the damage- and so to a man they had elected to stay until all the crew were off.

The last non-essential group of 8 men were gathered, leaving only the Captain, 5 messengers and three working on the engines down below. It was originally going to be ten in the party, but two were needed to make up the communication chain to shout commands from bridge to engine room, assuming they could get the engines restarted. But she sensed the change in the weather and the need to try and stabilize the ship. Even left on board there was no immediate danger if they did run aground- certainly a ship this size would take time to break up and a few more minutes was all she needed.

The Chief engineer, Dave ‘O’Blivion’ Williams, was waiting on the bridge for her with a schematic of the ships propeller shafts spread out on the chart table when she returned from dropping off the first two groups. He looked exhausted.

“A word.” he said simply.

She strode purposefully over to him and the Captain. “I don’t know much about what you can do…” he began awkwardly, ”so if I’m asking for the impossible, please just say so, and we don’t want to expose you to any undue danger so again, it’s your call when you are out there as to whether this is do-able or not, ok?” he looked at her with raised eyebrows, wincing as his injured face crinkled.

She nodded tersely and then leaned forward to see the schematic. He ran through exactly what was required, what they thought the issue was and what they needed her to do- check and straighten the propeller if needed, check the exposed part of the shaft for a bend, straighten it if she could, and finally to scan along the stern section of the hull to see if hitting the sandbank had caused any other damage. She was to knock on the hull when she was finished. Two long spaced out bangs for more damage found and so they could not restart the engine, (she realized in Morse code this was an ‘M’ , presumably for the ‘m-ore damage’) and if all was well then three short sharp knocks, an ‘S’ in Morse.
As Dave finished she asked him “So a Morse ‘M’ for more damage and an ‘S’ if its all ok. Whats the ‘S’ stand for, or is it just that its quick to knock out?”

Dave pointed to the large ‘S’ on her chest and smiled. She smiled back. “We’ll wait 5 seconds after the knock -oh,…er can you swim clear of the props in 5 seconds? I just kinda assumed you could? There’ll be a lot of wash and drag from them, even starting them slow. “ she nodded.

“Great. Skip.” he nodded to his Captain. “Miss. Good luck. I’d best get back, when you see Blubberguts, don’t forget, tell him, he owes me ten quid…” he called over his shoulder.

“Blubberguts?” she said confused for an instant before she realized he meant her friend Rob.

“That good-for-nothing-sod Thomas” the Chief called without looking back. “TEN QUID, MIND!”

She laughed. She turned back to the crew waiting to leave. “Brief hold up guys. As you heard they are trying to restart one of the propeller shafts so I’m gonna help out with that. Hopefully if it works you may not need to get wet after all, hmmn?” she smiled reassuringly at the nervous faces. Some of them were soot-streaked where they had been fighting the fire.

“Anything we can do to help while we wait Cap?” One of them asked.

“Cross your fingers” said Van Der Saal.


Moments later, Kara was in the freezing dark water, forced to use her Kryptonian vision to see in the near total darkness. Beneath the waves was strangely silent compared to the cacophony noise above. The monstrous ship’s hull loomed above her like a black wall as she worked her way beneath the stern. She was alarmed by the ship’s proximity to the shore, less than a third of a mile distant. She paused on her way down and pushed with all her strength for a few moments, aiding the effort of the tugs and the lifeboat and gaining around fifty-sixty feet more space, but it had taken a titanic effort on her part and the weight had shocked her. The loaded tanker was heavy enough, but of course she was pushing against the wind and the weight of the ocean piling up pressure on the starboard side of the hull. She was actually alarmed by just how much effort it had taken for so little result. She reached the propeller shafts and quickly began her task.


“Penbridge to ‘Leanne, how much searoom ya got there Mike, things looking tight from ‘ere, over.”

“Enough Penbridge, out” Mike answered gruffly. The Lady Leanne was still pushing at the bow but was on the port, landward side of Cornucopia, whereas the Chieftain and the William Joseph Morgan were both pulling on the starboard side. The truth was that she was rapidly losing steerage room with each second the tanker edged closer to shore.

“Crazy wanker.” Jimmy said under his breath as the boat rocked violently in the storm. “He’s gotta get out of there, bloody quick.” He said looking grimly at his elder brother.

Harold Martin sighed and nodded. “ Trouble is, his boat is in the best place. Once we bring him round to starboard we are gonna lose his power for a coupla minutes, whole thing could get a bit dicey…”

“Where’s that cheerleader anyway?” Jim said squinting into the night. “’eard of her like, but Christ she’s something else up close.”

“Get onto Control, see if they can give us an update on the rescue, see if she’s got them all off. But before you do, tell Mike he’s gotta come about, let Chieftain know he’s gonna be stopping his push in a minute or two so they can have some slack ready on the stern tow. Tell ‘em first, mind, but….ahhhh….tell Mike we need to ‘ave him this side, make it out like he’s helping us out that’s the only way you’ll get ‘im to shift. Can’t believe that bloody chopper is still about in this, those lads must be nuttier than Mike… ” Harold Martin said, turning and dipping his head to catch a glimpse of the scene behind him. The helicopter searchlight was swinging between the scene on the clifftop and the tanker superstructure.

“Think they’ve only stayed to catch a glimpse up her skirt…” Jimmy said with a grin as he waited for the answer from Coastguard Control.

“Jim…”his brother said sternly and the younger seaman blushed, embarrassed at the poor joke. That crew were risking their lives the same as they were and didn’t deserve to be mocked for it. That was as close as Harold Martin ever got to telling anyone off. He wasn’t a man to make angry.

“Sorry.” Jim said. He turned back to making the radio contact his Coxswain had requested.

Kara was pushing against the hull all the while she made her inspection but the storm was worsening and she was conscious that her efforts were just buying a few yards at a time. She found the damage on the propeller shaft was right where the actual propeller cap holding the blades met the shaft. One of the massive blades had taken a huge blow, skewing it off by around 10-12 degrees from its true position, and the force of the impact had put a kink in the shaft. She wasn’t so much swimming as hovering in the water, subconsciously fighting to hold her position against the surging currents swirling about her in the dark water. She could feel the pressure against the hull building and worse she could sense the liquid natural gas inside the tanker start to shift. It was kept under pressure to avoid it oscillating but hitting the sandbank must’ve loosened some of the interior bulkheads. Whatever air or liquid gas had escaped so far had left enough room for the remainder to start to shift. But alarmingly, it was moving out of sync with the wave impacts, giving the load a life of its own. Yet another thing for her to contend with then, but for now, one problem at a time. She used her heat vision to soften up the propeller blade and then using her immense strength she gripped the blade on either side of the bend, holding it firmly with one hand as inch by inch she straightened it back into its former position. But it was tough and took almost two minutes. All the while she was conscious of the weight of the tanker moving inexorably towards the cliffs. Time was becoming her enemy now, and straightening out the shaft itself would take even longer. Though she didn’t need the air she broke surface to check on the situation. Insanely, the helicopter was still circling though being constantly buffeted. It was flying above the cliffs but was using its light to illuminate the efforts of The Lady Leanne at the bow of the ship, still desperately pushing away with all her might, but there was barely a quarter of a mile before the cliffs and shore now. She could see the white water breakers of foam around some of the out-lying rocks in the surf several feet before the cliffs began. As she broke surface the light swung across the water to her position and she suddenly realized that they we actually looking for her. She waved, then shot up to their altitude, gave a thumbs up and waved them off. The pilot nodded and swung away. She watched it go as she took a breath. It was around 90 feet away when it banked. As the aircraft turned a sudden gust caught its underside and it hurtled downward towards the cliff top. Almost unthinking she sucked violently at the underside of the helicopter. She was too far away and it was too heavy for her to draw it towards herself but the effect was to slow the descent and to stabilize it against the sudden wind allowing the rotors to again take control, and it steadied before swooping off and heading for home. One less problem to worry about, but now, back to the crooked shaft.

She threw a look to her left where The Lady Leanne was still gamely pushing away at the massive bulk of the bow that towered above her. The sea-space behind her churning engines was becoming desperately short. She would have to reverse and turn to disengage from her position. Even her Captain must have realized she couldn’t stay much longer as he had two deck hands ready at the stern, standing by to set up the tow on the tanker bow once she had turned and pulled clear. They had two heavy hawsers coiled and ready. The lines were already snaking up to the bow of the Cornucopia, courtesy of Kara, and firmly fixed to the battered little boats stern. The hands’ job would be to pay out the line and ensure it didn’t snag, no easy feat in this sea. She could see their bright yellow waterproofs bobbing insanely about on the deck, getting flung around as they waited to perform their task, they, like the lifeboat crew, secured on two lines. She pitied them, but for now there was nothing she could do for them. But it was clear the shaft would have to wait. Instead she turned and pushed with all her strength against the gargantuan hull.



“You getting all this, right?” said Pete Thomms in the outside broadcasting truck. He was looking at the pictures from bow and stern cameras showing Kara pushing. Phelps’ camera had caught her saving the chopper (he couldn’t quite see what the hell she had done but he was sure she had stopped it crashing somehow) and now they had those secret cameras showing her pushing against the wall of metal that made up its hull.

“Yeah!” said Tim. “All on tape but we can’t get the go live from the studio. My mobile is dead and the Sat – line. When I got through first off I only got as far as saying you had a great angle on the story and we need to splice the live feed and she just said ‘retards’ and put the phone down. Didn’t even get chance to say what we had and I ain’t been able to get through since. They are losing the sound from Laughing-boy on the clifftop too, its only intermittent. And the fuckers from Sky finally got an interview with some of the crew she pulled off.”

Thomms beamed “Told you. Them stupid sods went chasin’ off to the other headland. Told you it would beach here. The crew interviewed. Big deal. Shit for brains outside can get us that sooner or later. And now we got this fucking goldmine…” he swept a hand to encompass the video screens. “Shame we can’t zoom in though, she’s little more than a speck in a lot of the shots, but beggars can’t be choosers. Wish we could cut into the live feed though. Fucking producer should be here with us, not 40 miles away in a bloody studio. Lazy cow. I hate that bloody stuck up bitch.”

“It’s your sister!”

“Yeah, so? Just means I got family reasons to hate her as well as professional ones…”

“You’re just pissed ‘cos she got the job and you didn’t…”

“No, I’m pissed because we have the greatest live drama since the fucking Hindenburg playing out before us and she won’t let us switch the feed.”

“You think it’s gonna sink then?” Tim asked.

“Nah, don’t be stupid, she’s on the case.” He pointed to Supergirl. “But its gonna be cool seeing how she pulls it off…”

“Pete, we ought to get the cops…who ever put them cameras on there…I mean its big…”

“You worry too much Tim. Just sit back and watch her save the world. And make our careers.
‘ Course, be better if it was going out live now but it will soon enough.”

“Why don’t ya just run with it? Cut it in yourself?”

“She could kill it in the studio…she’ll bloody kill me, but we have tried to get her. Yeah….yeah fuck it and fuck her, get ready we’re go-”

There was a sudden massive bang as all the lights went out and the screens died. The van shook violently in the aftermath as the lights blinked back on and the screens once more fired up.

“What the fuck?” said Thomms as he looked about, mystified. He spotted Tim sitting dazed on the floor. “What the hell was that? What ya doin’ over there….?”

“Bloody hell…musta been lightning…hit the van…fuck…knocked me clean off me feet. Good job we got the conductor rod outside…”

“SHIT! PLEASE TELL ME WE STILL GOT THE FEED! PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE!!!”

“Er….yeah…yeah look its back up…” Tim said pointing, still dazed. “BUT….FUCK ! WE LOST THE BROADCAST! We’re not transmitting anymore! Got no link to outside either.”

“BOLLOCKS! WELL, GET IT BACK PRONTO! WE NEED TO GO LIVE WITH THIS!”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking.” Tim said sarcastically. “We’d best see how Phelpsy and Matt are, they were outside when it hit…”

The rain was drumming against the side of the van and a sudden gust set it rocking on its wheels.

“Don’t think it is gonna ease, ya know…” said Tim as he grabbed a hooded coat to venture outside.


The crashing thunder filled the night and the intermittent lightning flashes illuminated the scene before the cliffs at Widows Point, picking out the participants in electric blue-white detail, all washed out in the torrential rain. Kara pushed with all her strength, feeling the resistance of the massive weight of water pushing back at her from the opposite side of the ship. This was the true essence of the problem she faced - the ship was constantly beam on to the storm, giving a huge area of her hull, side on, for the wind and waves to push against. Once the shaft was straightened she would concentrate her efforts on the bow, with her pushing and the tug and lifeboat pulling, then they should, between them, be able to turn the bow and so the boat, around. For the moment the remaining crew would have to wait. They would be safe enough where they were and if the ship was saved anyway they wouldn’t need to be evacuated. Again, her enormous effort for long moments only seemed to yield a few yards grace. If they could get the prop going even just for one or two knots that would probably be enough with her efforts and the other three ships towing her. She took a last quick look from the Leanne at the bow to where the stern disappeared into the dark swirling night, a distance of some 460 yards, then plunged down into the dark once more. With her ability to regulate her breathing, one breath could last her at least 40 mins and her body was immune to the chill of the freezing water, so her fears were not for herself but the others being lashed on the open decks of the three tiny little boats trying to save their much bigger sister. She worked feverishly to straighten the massive steel shaft, very mindful that she daren’t create stress fractures in the metal. As before she was heating and pulling the now-malleable steel, slowly drawing it straighter, millimetre by millimetre. It was exhaustive work and after a few minutes she realized she would need to get more sea room for the tug. She hadn’t quite finished but it would be another two or three minutes and she wasn’t certain they had that long, as she felt the ship moving towards the shore with every second. She broke surface and things were indeed getting critical for the little ship. She cleared the water and hovered, pushing with both hands and actually blowing against it with all her might for added force. It was barely enough. But then she realized there was another aid to her activities that she could call upon – the force of a current. She would make one. She used her heat vision on a patch of sea, making it seethe and boil, creating the cycle of rising warm water drawing up more cold as it expanded in all directions. It was a small help but together with her breath and her physically pushing back the tanker it had an impact, stopping its lateral movement and slowly moving it back towards open water. She started to spin then push then spin on the spot again, whipping up the heated water into a whirlpool that started to build its own momentum. It was sufficiently far away not to affect the tug and as she kept up the process so the whirlpool started to grow. When it had attained a degree of stability and was helping to buffer the progress of the big hull towards the shore, she plunged back down to the stern, finally finishing off the tough task of straightening the shaft. She had just one more function to perform, namely checking that flat bottomed keel for any other damage that may have been caused when it clipped the sandbank.

The water was as black as oil about her, made darker by the bulk of the tanker looming above her. She moved without swimming, carefully scanning the rest of the shaft, the other propellers, their blades their shafts and the whole bottom half of the massive ship for the slightest sign of stress or damage. Finally satisfied all was well, she had begun to move to the landward side of the ship when she suddenly felt a slight tug in the water currents behind her. She turned but could feel nothing more and see no sign of what may have caused it below the surface. She turned and moved to the port side of the ship proper, clearing the flat keel and still moving slowly as she checked the side plates of the hull in case any of them had been damaged by the minor collision earlier. It was then that an unfortunate series of events coincided. The first was that The Lady Leanne finally disengaged, her crew paying out the tow as she moved back and around the point of the bow, aiming to take up her station. The other tug and lifeboat were ready and anticipating the manoeuvre, knowing that they alone would have to take up the tow whilst The ‘ Leanne got into position. But unfortunately, though they had been able to co-ordinate amongst themselves via the radios, Kara was oblivious to the event. It happened at the worst possible time as the whirlpool vortex she had created was losing power and the storm intensity rose. She hadn’t been able to see them but the reason she felt the strange pull in the water was that a series of water spouts, tornadoes that form over water, had sprung into being on the far side of the hull. There were three of them and their effect was to both increase the force of the wind hitting the ship and to draw water out from beneath it, causing it to rock, first to port then to starboard. That combination sent 568,000 deadweight tonnes of tanker slamming into her back, catching Kara totally by surprise and stunning her. The oscillating hull set the cargo moving, the liquid natural gas exacerbating the rocking motion. It was too much for one of the hawsers on Chieftain and it snapped with a vicious twang that mercifully sent it hurtling back towards the Cornucopia, slamming ineffectually into her starboard hull. Once one had gone the strain on the other two was simply too much and one by one they followed, the vicious crack splitting the night even over the howling of the storm.


“CHRIST, JIM! HANDLEY’S LOST HIS TOW! WATCH OURS! WATCH OURS!” Harry Martin cried as his worst fears were realized as he slammed the engines into reverse to give extra slack and ease the strain.

“WATCH HER BOYS!” Jimmy bellowed into the comms but it was needless - all had seen it go. The bosun was standing by with an axe to cut their own tow if it needed to be dropped.

“Where the fuck did those waterspouts come from? Ain’t seen Sea Devils spring up like that in 40 years afloat ! “ Harry asked incredulously.

“Oh Christ, where’s that girl?!” Jim said, suddenly mindful of the implications.


A sudden, massive wave came from nowhere, twice the height of the thirty to forty footers that had been hitting them all night. The lifeboat rose and rose and rose, all sight of Cornucopia and the land lost as the little lifeboat rode the behemoth of water. It passed her and sped on, ramming with unbelievable force into the side of the huge tanker, shunting it suddenly sideways into Kara. Stunned by the impact, Kara found herself swept on before the boat, swirling and caught in the maelstrom of water that was so large it had actually snuffed out the waterspouts.

The mighty tanker rose with the wave and rocked back and forth as it suddenly sped towards the shore, dragging the lifeboat backwards with it until Bosun Thorpe, held up by the other crewmen, wielded his axe and in two mistimed blows managed to weaken the towline enough so that it snapped. The ancient tug that was the Lady Leanne smacked her stern portside into the rocky outcrop just offshore and then bounced off, in almost a jaunty fashion, as she bobbed from side to side, seemingly unaffected.

Kara was dazed, gasping in lungfuls of choking, black Atlantic water and suddenly she hit the off-shore rocks some forty or so feet from the main cliffs, only to find the tanker hitting her again as it too had been propelled towards the shore. It pinned her face down with crushing force against the rock, her stomach slamming into the sharp limestone, knocking all breath from her body and the full weight of the monstrous vessel grinding into her back. The sea surged around her, breaking over her, alternately submerging and then exposing her to the night. The force of the impact had winded her completely - she had no breath and no strength to push back. She needed a second or two to gather her wits and take a breath, but it was time that she simply didn’t have. Not since she had battled the dark evil that was the Power of Shadows had she known such a devastating, crushing force. What troubled her was that this was much, much worse.

“GGGNNAAAAAAA!!!!!” she screamed in agony as her body was ground into the rock, her face a mask of terrible pain. But, because of her body position, she was unable to lay hands on the hull and push back. All she could do was grip the rock but pushing against that for leverage simply forced the weight further on to her back, crunching her stomach and ribs on the jagged pinnacle that was digging into her. Because of the intense compression on her stomach she was barely able to breathe and the waves washing over her made things even worse. She was genuinely afraid as she realized she was inextricably pinned , unable to move with the last vestiges of air being ground out from her tortured lungs. But then, through her tears of pain and agony, blurred and indistinct came the bobbing, swinging vision of an impossibly battered little boat. Her jibs and booms had broken loose and were swinging left and right erratically, black smoke belching from her dented funnel.


On the bridge of The Lady Leanne, Mike Watts had reacted in an instant when he saw her predicament and had spun his wheel hard over, turning the aged ship back in to move between the coast and the mammoth tanker. As soon as the deed was done, he knew what it meant for them all. There was the furious sound of footsteps on the metal stairs from below as Sid his engineer appeared breathless on the bridge.

“SHE’S HOLED, MIKE, PORTSIDE! ITS BAD, LOST PORT RUDDER…HAVE….HAVE TO BEACH HER…”

Mike turned to him and smiled. “You seen my best pipe, Sid? Had it a minute ago…”

“What? EH? It’s…it’s in yer cap band, same as always. But you give up smokin’ it ten year ago when the doc said you had that shadow on the lung…But look, didn’t you hear me, we gonna have to beach her…?”

“Ta.” Mike said putting his pipe in his mouth with satisfaction. “I ‘eard Sid. But you gonna have to go over the side with Tommy…”

“O-over the side? Are you mad? In this? I can’t fucking swim!”

“Well ya picked a hell of a night to have to learn…” Mike said with a sad smile.

“FUCK THAT , I AIN’T GOIN IN THE WATER!” Sid screamed desperately.

“Sid, Tommy will be with you, you got the survival suit, you got the float, you’re a couple of yards off shore and the lifeboat is a minute away, pick you up in no time. Be for the best. You can’t stay aboard as I’m not staying either. She’s goin down but we gonna help that girl out there get the crew off. It’s a good end for ‘er Sid. I’m gonna tie her off pointing at the bow, so she’ll go down pushing and then I’ll be with you.”

“But she’ll … be gone…”

“We’ll get a new rust bucket. Won’t be as good as The Lady, but be good to have a ship that works! You won’t need to be fixin’ it all the time, be like a big long ‘oliday for you…Go on tell Tommy we’ve lost ‘er…gonna abandon…I’ll be out in a tick. Go with Tommy now Sid, do what he does, don’t jump for the shore mind, make for open water with the float, Lifeboat will grab ya in no time.”

“But….Alright skip.You are coming? Well ok then. Don’t be long now…”

“I won’t”. Mike watched him leave the wheel house then turned back to the task at hand. With one hand he took off his cap and stared with a well-practiced smile at the dog eared photo taped into the lining. It was from half a century earlier, a creased and faded image of a once-young girl who now was just as creased and faded as her photograph. He set the cap back on his head happily and started to whistle tunelessly to himself as he picked up the radio mike.



“BLOODY HELL! MIKE’S GOIN’ IN!” Jimmy cried to his brother on the bridge of the William Joseph Morgan.

“AIN’T GONNA LOSE HER NOW!” Mad Mike bellowed into the radio.

Jimmy grabbed the transmitter. From where they were positioned they couldn’t see Kara’s dire predicament. “ ' Leanne , ' Leanne from Penbridge, the TOW’S GONE MIKE, WE’VE ALREADY LOST HER, FOR FUCKS SAKE GET OUT OF IT!”

“MY BOYS ARE GOIN’ IN THE WATER, YOU COME GET ‘EM. I’M GETTING’ ‘ER! YOU BLOODY COME GET ‘EM , HAROLD MARTIN, OR I’LL COME BACK AND BLOODY HAUNT YOU!” Mike called as at the stern of the lifeboat Tony Dennis and Danny Lewis raised a shout.

“MEN IN THE WATER, COX! TWO OVERBOARD FROM THE LADY LEANNE WITH A CARLEY FLOAT IN ‘ SUITS! ON OUR STARBOARD SIDE, 2 POINTS OFF OUR STERN” called Danny from the lifeboat’s stern. Tiny lights on their survival suits blinked out the position of the two crewmen in the water, who periodically were shown in stark detail when the lightning flashed. They disappeared intermittently in the rising waves.

“POSITIONS LADS, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!” Cox Martin called as he looked at his brother as he brought the ship around. As he again stared from the main bridge window at the scene he was just in time to see the battered little tug slip between the shore and the bow of the boat and disappear from sight, her lights blinking out behind the silhouette of the bow of the tanker. “Ohhhhh Mike, Mike, Mikey boy. What have ya gone and done?” he said quietly to himself.

“He’s fucking MAD! HE CAN’T SAVE THAT SHIP ON HIS OWN!, SHE’S DONE FOR!” Jimmy said disbelievingly. ”He’s just killing himself!”

“He ain’t saving the ship, Jim.” his brother said with shining eyes.


Kara watched as the tiny boat slipped between the jagged rocks with but a few feet to its starboard side as it headed towards her. Periodically she bounced into them and then back into the channel. It was around a hundred yards off and she knew it had no hope of reaching her. Her skipper knew that too and he turned suddenly, grinding out maximum revs, his powerful engines screaming as he hit the boat as close as he could to where she was being crushed. For an instant, nothing happened but then she felt the huge boat give slightly. It was an impossible mismatch of David and Goliath, but this David had no chance of victory. He had no hope of pushing it back completely, but he could buy her time to act. And he did. The half a centimetre breathing room (literally) that he won for her allowed her to brace herself and smash her fists down on the rock beneath her. As it crumbled she could finally move free and turn to push with her palms against the hull. But for The Lady Leanne it had been a last waltz. The Cornucopia rose as if angered on the swell and as she did so the ‘ Leanne fell into the trough, her engines swamped as the waves washed over her stern. Her rudder hit the rocks and the full weight of the tanker smashed back into her bow, the array of buffers and tyres providing little protection as she was crushed, her deck buckling as it concertinaed and crumpled. Kara wasn’t certain but she thought through the howling of the gale she could hear two short sharp blasts on the little ships whistle, like a tiny warcry. A glow pierced the night as her engine exploded. It was not a massive fireball but a muted 'FFFWUMMMMPPP' that was quickly subdued by the waves. As the ship was crushed to matchwood there was nothing Kara could do but watch as secondary explosions ripped through what was left of the hull and the deck housing with little noise in the howling wail of the storm. It all happened in an instant. And she watched it all with a sense of hopeless inevitability. Its funnel was still belching black smoke into the night as it hit the water and was finally extinguished with a huff of whiter steam and a last lick of flame that hissed as it was snuffed out by the waves.


On the lifeboat, there was a last, faint transmission from Mike Watts that they received - “Its alright….I’m alri-krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” that was cut off as it descended into static. A moment later, as they sat out of sight, shielded by the huge tanker, the lifeboat crew saw the flash of the explosion just rise briefly above the far side of the deck of the ship they had tried to save, illuminating the water at the bow of the Cornucopia where one of the crew who had jumped was visible in the water. The Carley float had been washed beyond him and he was thrashing around ineffectually. Of the other crewman there was no sign.

“GOT A SURVIVAL SUIT, STARBOARD 300 YARDS!” shouted Danny Lewis on the lifeboat pointing out the sighting. “I think The ‘Leanne’s gone up!” he said into his throat mike.

“Any sign of the other boy? That’s Sid or Tommy from Mike’s crew…” Harry asked.

“Sid can’t swim….” Jim said tersely.

Harry Martin sighed. “Ain’t drowning he’s got to worry about this close in. Its them rocks.”

“CAN’T SEE ‘EM….NOPE, ITS JUST THE ONE CAME BACK UP….”


Kara watched the end of the aged little ship with abject despair, yet there was nothing she could do to stop it. She swallowed hard, a lump in her throat. She would not be beaten and whilst only yards from shore, the Cornucopia hadn’t been wrecked yet. And while it was still afloat, there was still hope. She hammered on the side of the hull, three short sharp slaps – the Morse code ‘S’ - and pushed with all her aching heart. She felt the vibrations through the hull plate as the Cornucopia finally started her port engines, the dual vibrations telling her that both number 2 and number 4 prop shafts were firing up. She cast a glance to her right, seeing the water start to churn as they kicked into reverse. She pushed and she blew, her sole aim to keep the propellers away from the jagged shore. Long moments passed as she fought the wind and waves for the fate of the boat, oblivious to the men in the water beyond the bow, but in truth she was not in a position to help them yet.
The gap in the water opened wider between the ship and the shore and with each passing moment she felt the engines bite harder into ‘full astern’, the revolutions increasing the hull vibrations but more importantly making a tangible movement out to sea. The Chieftain had come in again to re-establish the tow at the stern, reconnecting two hawsers with commendable skill in the appalling weather. Fifty yards from shore, seventy, a hundred. Slowly but surely the distance widened.

As Kara pushed with all her might, she heard a banging against the hull above her and to her right. She looked up to see Dave the engineer running and leaning over the rail every few yards to hammer on the hull with his palm as he tried to see her in the darkness and get her attention. As she looked up Dave O’Blivion finally saw her. He was still around 50 yards from her postion. He started to shout something, his words drowned out by the storm even to her exceptional hearing.

“-e’s a –o-“ he called, his hands to the side of his mouth. He then ran forward a few more steps and tried again.

“I SAI-….-EZZA –O-N-” he called again pointing back down to the engine room, now behind him to his left.

When it was obvious she still hadn’t heard him, he ran forward once more. This time as he shouted she thought she heard him say “SHE’S A-GONE!” as once more he pointed down to the stern.

Kara was staring at it, having followed his arm, when she saw the metal at the stern bulge as she felt a sudden crunch in the vibrations through the hull before an instant later she heard the soft, muffled ‘WHUMP!’ of an explosion and the hull plates were forced back, as a fireball erupted through the side of the engine room. She had looked back up to Dave in that instant as there was a sudden white yellow flash that filled her vision and made her close her eyes in reflex. She didn’t hear the sound of the explosion as the liquid gas ignited as her super-sensitive eardrums were overloaded by her proximity to such a deafening sound. It was heard over 600 miles away in Aberdeen and even in Northern France. The fireball rose over a mile and three quarters high in that first blinding flash, the fiery blast radius spreading over two miles, engulfing and exploding the rescue vehicles on the clifftop, detonating Chieftain instantly. The Lifeboat was more robust but had been designed to weather storm and sea, not fire. She lasted a second or two longer before she too erupted as her engine fuel ignited.

All Kara could hear was ‘WAAAOOOOOOOOOOOAOOAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAA” that drowned out all the noise of the storm. She was flying backwards, but not by choice, carried forward on the concussion wave of the blast as it spread out in all directions.

She was dazed, her vision swimming, a wetness coming from each ear told of her bleeding eardums. The seemingly endless ‘WAAAOOOOOOOOOOOAOOAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAA” noise that she could hear was actually the sound of her temporary deafness. She became slowly aware of things hitting her back and head, little things, weak things that didn’t matter, like trees and hedges. Vaguely she was aware that she was stunned. But that didn’t matter somehow either.

All she could see in front of her was yellow-white, a botched painters canvas that as she stared at it slowly decreased to darkness with white –red-yellow light at its base. That in turn slowly resolved itself into flames, massive, gargantuan orange, yellow-green and blue tinged flames as the remnants of the gas tanker’s cargo burned.

The massive flames were beautiful and terrifying at the same time. She decided to stop randomly hitting things and elected to hover, consciously bringing herself to a stop. The ringing in her ears was slowly diminishing as her Kryptonian body already began to heal itself. She felt …numb. She was over two miles away from the shattered shell of the ship. Broken and now finally run ashore on the rocks, its entire stern section was gone and with it the crew quarters and deck housing that was directly above it. The second tugboat was nowhere to be seen but part of the orange and blue lifeboat was visible some way off - upturned, split in half and ablaze. Blazing vehicles littered the clifftop, scattered by the force of the blast.

She slowly got her act together and flew back to the now wreck. There was still some of the bow recognizable but the rest of her was either gone or ablaze, no one could have survived such a blast and no one had. She cast her despairing gaze over the clifftop but there too was a scene of similar devastation - grass, shrubs and vehicles were all ablaze although the rain was dampening and extinguishing the smaller fires with each passing second.

All the while the scene was played out for her in pseudo-silence – a secondary explosion would flash briefly in the night but she would hear no bang, no sound but the endless single tone of the ‘WAAAOOOOOOOOOOOAOOAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAA” ringing in her ears.

For the first time in her life she was completely at a loss as to what to do. Everywhere she looked there was devastation and destruction, seemingly everything was on fire. The wind lashed her and the lightning flashed in silence as her own tragic tears mingled with the rain. She landed at the clifftop, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand though they were instantly replaced by raindrops. But there was nothing to be done, the blast had incinerated anyone outside, and anyone inside a vehicle...was already dead. She flew off in floods of tears and combed the sea, desperately looking for someone to have somehow been miraculously spared. But only burning debris rose and fell on the crashing waves. There was no one left to save.




Many hours later, she landed in the middle of the night outside Rob’s café. It must've been around 2 a.m. She didn’t know where she had been in the intervening hours, just flying around in a daze. Somehow she had known he wouldn’t have gone home. The shop was in darkness except for a single light on behind the counter. Rob was sitting at a table, one arm spread upon it, with a cold cup of tea before him, slouched back in the chair and staring at nothing as he looked down at his cup. His dog Harvey was lying at his feet, his head on Rob’s foot. The tv was on, though on mute, tuned into BBC News 24, but she, just like him, couldn’t look at it. The ticker tape scrolled across the bottom of the screen:-

‘BREAKING NEWS...TANKER DISASTER…108 MISSING FEARED DEAD AS 'CORNUCOPIA' EXPLODES IN BRISTOL CHANNEL…’

Kara stood outside in the dark for long moments staring at them, a man and his dog. She had a terrible sense of dread about walking in there. She had set off to save his friend a few hours ago and had failed completely. She wondered if he would hate her for that failure or at the least resent the sight of her whilst his grief was still fresh. She had never known a feeling like this before - a type of mild fear without there being any danger of physical hurt. Trepidation, that once she entered that room, the relationship between her and her friend might never be the same again, possibly wiped out by a wave of anger as he saw her. She felt wretched and just looking at him gave rise to a surge of emotion, a terrible sadness that she had failed him had failed all those poor people at the scene of the disaster.

It was Harvey the dog who finally noticed her, jerking his head up slowly before precariously standing up with a slow wag of his tail. The animal could sense her downbeat mood and whined sympathetically.

Rob looked up and saw her, standing slowly himself. They stood for a long time staring at each other through the glass of the door. Finally he turned and hurried quickly away, disappearing behind the counter of the shop. He spent several seconds with his back to her and then rushed out carrying a cup of tea by the saucer, holding it out towards her in both hands. As she stayed where she was he raised it in a gesture to get her to come and take it. She finally stepped inside and stood motionless, her head dipped slightly as the door swung shut behind her. Her hearing had finally returned and whilst she hadn’t completely returned to her super-hearing best, she could at least hear to human standards. She looked at him timidly from under her brow as she slowly raised her head just a tad.

Whatever fears she had over Rob’s reaction were utterly destroyed the second he opened his mouth and burst into tears.

“Oh, lovely girl! I’ve been so worried! Someone needs a cwtsh” he set the tea down with a clatter on the table and stepped towards her as she in turn ran to him, flinging her arms about him and burying her nose into his neck.

“I’m so sorry! I-I couldn’t save him, Rob! I couldn’t save any of them!” she sobbed as a wave of guilt and emotion struck her then, as big as the monstrous wash that had swept Cornucopia to her doom. Great heaving sobs wracked her body as she shuddered and shook, her eyes clamped tightly shut against the pain of memory, her hands clenching into fists as she gripped his back. “It blew up…it…it just blew up…”

“Hey-hey-hey, it’s done now, all that matters is you are safe! Don’t fret about that stuff now, its done, its gone…”

“All those people! All those poor people….” She wailed.

“NOT-SO-TIGHT…PHEW!” he panted as she realized she was crushing him and eased her grip. He caught his breath. “Look, look at me” he pulled back holding her shoulders. Her hair was wet and matted, flat to her skull and bedraggled. Dried blood was coagulated in the base of both her ears and on her neck, her costume was damp and stuck to her skin, scorched and blackened from the blast, She had treated it long ago to prevent its destruction from conventional rigours of heat and cold, and indeed more extreme ones, essential when you were flying through space. Rob looked her up and down with concern. “You TRIED. That’s what matters. You didn’t sit back and watch it all on telly like, well like me and loads of others. You went out there and you tried to stop it, you tried to save them. It didn’t work out. But you risked your life to save people you didn’t even know. Why? Because you are bloody amazing that’s why!”

“They are all dead!” she wailed. “I couldn’t- I couldn’t help them! ALL GONE!”

He stepped back and slapped her. Her head didn’t move but they both heard the crack of his little finger fracturing.

“OWWWW FUCK THAT HURT!!!!!” He shouted thrusting his hand under his armpit. His dog objected to his sudden assault on Kara and bit his shin. “AAAARGGGGHHH!!!! SHIT! FUCK! GERROFF YA BASTARD!” he cried as he floundered around on one leg. He fell backwards and without thinking she sped behind him to catch him before he fell. Harvey growled at him.

“W-why did you hit me? Are you ok?” she sniffed in concern his injury distracting her from her grief.

“I thought you was hysterical…”

“I wasn’t…” she said still sobbing.

“Well, I know that now! Bloody dog” he said bitterly. “Bit by my own bloody dog. Bastard hound. Just a nip luckily, didn't break the skin. You caught me…that’s amazing! See I said you were amazing.”

She looked at him balefully through red rimmed eyes. “Today I don’t feel so amazing…” she sniffled.

“Hush now. You ain’t ‘sposed to be talking , you are ‘sposed to be cwtshing” he said as he stood and pulled her head back onto his shoulder.

“What the hell is that? You said that before…cwtsh?” She could speak every language on the planet, aswell as 48 that were extinct and 54 that weren’t on this planet but sometimes she wasn’t aware of all the vocabulary, plus often Rob had crazy made up words for things.

“Cwtsh?” He said it like ‘crutch’ but without the ‘r’ and more of an ‘oo’ sound. “It’s Welsh. This, this is a cwtsh” he lifted his arms slightly as he held her and then lowered them again.

“It’s just a hug in Welsh?” she asked as Harvey snuggled up to her leg.

“NO! It’s a cwtsh. It’s like a hug and a cuddle and a snuggle all in one from someone who loves you that tells you things are gonna be ok. Mams always give the best cwtshes. Like when you fall over and she holds you and tells you it’s gonna be alright and you KNOW it is, because she says so. That ain’t no ordinary hug, that’s a cwtsh. And this is a cwtsh, its way better than just a hug. So shut up and just be cwtshed.”

“You’re crazy, but you’re the best.” She said with a tearful smile and a sad half-laugh.

“Shut up, ya bimbo.”

He held her tightly and she held him back and neither of them said anything. She had no idea how long they were like that, but she could feel his heartbeat through his chest and hers; she could smell his body - a mix of sweat and cheap deodorant and even bacon from splashes of fat that were on his apron; she could feel the warmth of his body through his shirt and beneath her fingers she could sense his skin- solid, reliable, comforting. She didn’t notice when she stopped crying, and that she realized was the point. Harvey was lying across both their feet, keen to share in the moment.

She drew in a shuddering breath and sniffed as she moved away from him. “That was nice of you Rob. But I’d better go.”

“It’s what big brothers do. But you ain’t going anywhere yet. You’re gonna sit down and have a cuppa with me, its good for shock and if you wanna talk we’ll talk, if ya wanna just sit we just sit. I’ve run you a hot bath in me old flat upstairs, you can go and soak in that. Be cold by now though, but I figured you could use them eyeball bomb things of yours to warm up the water… ”

“WHAT? ‘Eyeball bomb things’? Rob it’s my laser heat vision, not ‘eyeball bomb things’! Where the hell do you get these things from?”

“Well, excuse me for not knowing the proper name for the…bloody…thingamajiggers that you can do. But either way you are having a soak. And then you are gonna go out there and help save some one, somewhere, ‘cos it’s what you do.” he said forcefully.

“I don’t think I can tonight Rob…” she said starting to fill up again.

He gripped her shoulders as he looked her in the eye .”YES YOU CAN. YOU GOTTA. Like my Auntie Pam always says, ‘if you are out riding a donkey and you fall off the horse, then you gotta pick yourself up and get straight back onto that camel…’ ”

“That’s all kinds of messed-up-wrong, Rob” she smiled at him weakly.

“Yeah, well she is as mad as-“ he began.

“-a box of frogs” Kara finished for him. “You’ve told me before.” She smiled a faint smile. She sat down wearily and slowly sipped the strong sweet tea. She had heated it up with a glance. Unlike Robs coffee, it tasted really good. He didn’t say anything, but just sat opposite her, holding her hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. She cried again, a lot, but this time they were slow, thin wet tracks that crept down her cheeks until finally there were no more tears left to fall. He was crying too, partly for his loss, partly to see his friend in so much pain. They looked at each other in a tearful silence. When she had finished her tea he rose, still holding her hand and tugged on it gently.

“C’mon. Lets get you in that bath…” he said affectionately. “Look at me, been blubbing away here, and there’s you thinking I’m some big rough tough bloke…”

“What? I don’t think that you are ‘rough and tough’ at all Rob. You cried when you saw ‘UP!’” she pointed out .

“You don’t?” He said with surprise, sounding disappointed at the ease of his macho image’s destruction. “Well,... it’s sad at the beginning when his wife dies…” he said defensively.

“Beginning, middle, end - you pretty much sobbed all the way through the film. It was like sitting next to one big bag of salt water…” she smiled.

“Oh, well…” he blushed furiously. “Well, anyway…lets get you in the tub.”

“You’re NOT scrubbing my back…” she said firmly, but with a shy smile. He looked slightly disappointed.

As he escorted her upstairs to the bathroom with a protective arm around her shoulders she stopped in the doorway. It felt good to have someone caring about her. “Rob…”she sighed heavily. “Thanks for all this. You’re the best.” She lent in towards him and he hugged her sideways on, her head dropping so she rubbed her temple against his cheek and neck. She lifted her head and pecked him lightly on the cheek.

“That’s what all my celebrity lovers say, which is why I swore them to secrecy, in case word gets out and my house got besieged by hordes of adoring women.” He said with a smile.

“I should really just go home after this…” she said softly in the doorway.

“No, you should go out and help someone else because they need you. And right now, you need to help them.” he said firmly. “And besides, you are home, ya stupid cow.”

She narrowed her eyes briefly at him in mock irritation, then smiled as she closed the door. She flashed a quick glance at the tepid water in the tub, brought it to 30 degrees, and a few moments later discarded her battered costume and slipped into the foamy bath gratefully, sighing softly as the warm water gracefully caressed her tired body. She closed her eyes, listening to Rob lose an argument downstairs with his dog. This did feel…comforting to be here. Maybe not quite home, but close. She smiled to herself. He was a good man, and he was right. It had been a long, long day, but it wasn’t over yet. She would go out again tonight. Somewhere out there, someone needed her. Someone always needed her.

And like always, she would be there for them.




THE END
Last edited by tallyho 7 years ago, edited 4 times in total.
How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.

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DrDominator9
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Simply remarkable work. A surprise ending and a wonderful denouement to bring the story to a wise and satisfying conclusion. Heartfelt heroine fiction with great and unique peril. Can't ask for more than that. Thanks Tallyho.
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SGWriter
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I really enjoyed this one as Kara had to face the fact, she can't save everybody. She tried her damnest, along with everybody else to save the day. However it just didn't work out. A tough moment but a strong character piece for Supergirl here. I'll also applaud how you spent time developing all those guys Tallyho. Packs a bigger punch with the end of the story.

Great job man!
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tmon
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This was an excellent story that I really enjoyed. Thank you for sharing.
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