The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

Hi all. So I’ve been sick as a dog for 9 days, was even coughing up blood for a spell, and I got some big personal stuff going wrong too so in the end I just thought sod it, I’ll write a quick short story as I can’t do anything else (and the way I was feeling I might not last long enough to write a long one!). So this is nothing like my usual epics, won’t be much in the way of characterisation and moral angst for our favourite lass, as I can’t think about anything too complicated, (gives me a headache) it’s just gonna be a quick 2/3 parter. Inspired by SGZ6’s Tales of Supergirl : The Robot Robbers, I thought I’d write my own variation of SG against a metal monster. So here is the first half, just setting the scene before our gal tries to save the day. Enjoy!



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. This story!

TOSG : Of Gods and Monsters
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=23369
TOSG : Cornucopia
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24565
TOSG : Aftermath
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25155

TALES OF SUPERGIRL: GOODBYE, MR A
PART 1



“Anything?”

“Nope.”

“My Joes are all A-ok. You called for Blair?”

“Well bully for you. An’ yeah, I buzzed him.”

“Tough break man. I’m gonna take a leak.”

“Errrr….okay….let’s try this the old-fashioned way….Delta, Nine – Five X-ray, X-ray, do you copy, over?”

“This better be important Sykes, it’s the bottom of the ninth an’ this is an awesome turkey sandwich you’re ruining for me…” said the man standing behind him. Sykes ignored him.

“Delta, Nine – Five X-ray, X-ray, do you copy, over?” Sykes tried again. The agitation in his voice conveyed the seriousness of the situation to his superior.

“Okay, what is it Sykes? Why the hell are you using audio comms.? And where the hell is Foster?” Lieutenant Blair asked, still chewing slowly but his eyes glued to the monitoring screens.

“The john. We got a Dark Runner, sir. D95XX, not answering. Went dark about 10 minutes ago. All normal up until then. I’ve tried everything. That’s why I’m tryin’ the voice recognition software now.”

“Where-away?” Blair asked.

“Errr …quadrant 4, sector 8.” Sykes pointed to the co-ordinates on one of the screens. “It’s about 40 miles out. It’s still live, ‘cos it’s still moving. Got a big storm out that way, could be a short-out ‘cos of that…”

“Well, could just be we lost comms…’cos of the storm…”Blair suggested.

“Other test droids further out are answering sir, beyond the storm. Gotta be a short-out rather than interference. Maybe took a strike?”

“A lightning strike? It’s supposed to be proofed against a strike. What are the odds?” Blair said disbelievingly.

“Well, it is an 8 foot high hunk of metal bristling with antennae roaming the landscape in a thunderstorm – it’s gonna attract a strike…”

“Don’t smart mouth me, mister. You tried the coded sequences to regain control?”

“Sir.”

“You tried all the comp channel codes?”

“Sir.”

“You tried all the digital transfer channels before you switched to audio, I suppose?”

“Sir.”

“You tried all audio channels?”

“Sir.”

“You tried the shut down switch?”

“Sir”

“You tried the hibernation sequence?”

“Sir.”

“Shit….”

“Sir.”

“Get Captain Young. Send in the recovery team, with an escort chopper, we’ll wait for their visual sit rep, then we better…..yeah. Get the Old Man.”


“What the hell is this, Charles, I’m missing the game?!!!” said the gruff voice on the telephone a short while later.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Sir, but we …we have a situation. Sir…one of the new Mechanised Recon/Attack units, the MR A’s, seems to have malfunctioned. “

“Well, just shut the damned thing down, that’s why we gave them an off switch for Christ sakes!”

“We tried, sir. It’s not working. There is an electrical storm in the area…we think we had a lucky lightning strike, sir!”

“Lucky? Lucky for who , exactly? How the hell is that LUCKY?!”

“Just a figure of speech sir, I –“

“Never mind that now! Shit. Are there any risks?”

“It’s about 39 miles away from the nearest town…that’s about 45 minutes if it heads that way. We think the strike fried the shut down protocols. “

“I thought we’d given these damned things protection against a direct strike? “

“We had sir, that’s why it was in this area, part of the all-weather – all-terrain testing procedures.”

“Really? Well, I think it’s fair to say it failed, don’t you?”

“Sir… It’s got live ammo too, sir… Lots of it…”

“Great!” said the sarcastic voice. “Where the hell is Young, anyway?”

“It shot down the recovery chopper and the Apache escort we sent to get it ten minutes ago with Captain Young on board… he’s ok. We were lucky really, seven injured, two seriously, but they’ll make it. It also destroyed the nearest two Mr A’s we sent after it. We can get some ground units down there but not in position for another twenty minutes, the storms flooded some of the roads, we got mud slides all over, the weather is lousy for choppers and the Mr A will eat our guys for breakfast if the sims play out for real. We don’t need a bloodbath. We lost the closest two EMP weapons that would stop it when it got the recovery chopper. I’ve got more in bound but they are over an hour away.” He took a second as Sykes pointed out something on screen. “I can confirm, sir it is heading for a civilian population centre…”

“Crap. Blair, where are you based?”

“Er,…Sir?” Blair said confused.

“The base, where you are now, what’s it called?”

“Er…you know what it’s called, sir.”

“Yes I do. The President doesn’t know what it’s called. But I do. It’s Area 52. And it’s been a secret
for five decades. And do you know why it’s been kept a secret, Blair?”

“Er…because it’s hidden in plain sight? Not in the middle of nowhere, where everybody thinks such things are hidden, but just a quiet backwater still quite close to…” the silence on the phone line caused Blair to lose confidence”…Errr…no, sir?”

“BECAUSE WE DEFLECT ALL THE CRAP AT AREA 51, THAT’S WHY, BLAIR!!! THAT THING HITS TOWN AND WE’LL BE ON THE FUCKING NEWS!!! AND I GUARANTEE YOU’LL BE CLEANING THE TOILETS ON GUANTANAMO, CLEAR? ”

“SIR!”

“Now STOP IT, I don’t care how, but just stop it. NOW! Understand?”

“Sir…we’re tryin’ to get a F-15 CAP mission to take it out, but…with the electrical storm I think they’ll struggle for a lock and even if they do…well, it’s got ablative ceramic armour over a titanium casing with all kinds of close range defence systems, capable of taking down an ASM; that only leaves the F-15 cannons… coming in fast against a fast-moving, small-sized target in densely wooded terrain in poor visibility…I think the pilot would have to shoot like John Wayne to stand any chance of hitting anything vital enough to stop it. I think we are gonna need Her, sir…” Blair said desperately. “We got nothing left after the Tomcats fail…and they will fail, sir.”

“Evac the town. Given the conditions, say it’s threatened by a mudslide or geological instability caused by the rain, something like that…”

“I don’t think we can get any serious ground units there before it hits the town sir, certainly not enough for a proper evac…”

“Okay, get the local law to make a start, usual shit, stay in your homes, keep calm, have people move upstairs, keep away from the windows etc. How big is this shitburg anyhow?”

“Errr…it’s 4,500 souls sir. Lucasville.”

“Shit. Big enough. Do we know why its heading that way?”

“Negative, Sir.”

“Well, what is it supposed to do when it suffers damage?”

“Err…if impossible to complete its mission, then to head back to base by quickest route, Sir.”

“What was its mission?”

“Just general area recon, like I say, it was part of the all-weather, all-terrain testing- it was just supposed to roam around, see how it coped in the bad weather.”

“Then why the hell did it have live ammo?”

“Er…it was thought to be a good chance to check the weapons housings, that a bad weather strike wouldn’t trigger the ammo, even with a full load. With no active mission targets it was thought they’d never get used. That part seems to have worked, Sir!”

“Well now, that’s just super. If its mission is to return to base by the quickest route when damaged, it’s probably just trying to make the road…that’s why it’s heading into town. Probably just bagged the chopper as it was trying to stop it and its mission was to head back…”

“We can’t take the risk sir, if it hits town and goes ape… We can just get a token ground presence there before it hits. Just infantry, light recon, maybe a hundred guys and no heavy support weapons. It’ll go through our ground guys like a knife through butter, Sir.”

“Well, I’m not going running to the President, cap in hand, to get Her involved and then the Combat Air Patrol stops it with a couple of air-to-surface…I’ll look an idiot. Let me know when the air strike goes in, and then I’ll make the call. IF it fails. Get on to the Marine Corps, get some Harrier Jump jets in there, they can hold position and blow that thing to hell.”

“We got them, AV-8B Matadors, and some F-22 Raptors inbound sir, but it’s likely to make townfall WAY before they get there because of the-“

“Because of the storm, I know. Give me an update when the strike goes in. DAMMIT! ” He slammed the phone down.


Sykes turned to his boss, one hand on his earpiece. “We got…we got a transmission…we got a transmission, sir! From the Dark Runner! Guess it’s no longer dark! It’s …it’s in basic code...I...I think it’s Morse…shit, it is Morse!” he scrambled to get a pen and paper. “It’s repeating…seems to be three groupings…three groupings of three…hold on…A….L…J…. I can’t make out the rest maybe…I…G…N… then garbled…Then its repeating…A…L…J…no…I’m losing it…its…gone…”

“Gimme.” Blair took the earpiece. For a moment there was static. Then – “It’s up again! Take this down! A…M...S…”

“A…M…S…” Sykes repeated.

“I…G…N…”

“I…G…N…”

“A…L…J…”

“A…L...J...”

“Then its repeating, back to A-M-S again…yep the whole thing is looping…” Blair said as he listened.

“But what’s it mean?”

“A-M-S,

I-G-N,

A-L-J” Blair read aloud from Sykes’ pad.

“Shall I run it through the code boys , sir? Get the techs on it?”

“For Christsakes, Sykes, it just says ‘SIGNAL JAM’…” Blair said exasperatedly. “You just picked it up part way through. What are you, an integral part of Operation Dipshit? At least it proves our boy can transmit something even if he can’t receive. Try the shut down protocols transmitted through Morse instead. See if that works.”

“But sir, that’ll take ages!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have a dinner date? DO IT SOLDIER!!!! And get the emergency watch crew out of bed, if this don’t constitute an emergency I don’t know what the fuck does. When they pitch up, get them to help you. All the other Mr A’s ok?”

“Sir. Well, apart from the two ’95 baked.” Said Foster.

“How many still out there?”

“Six.”

“Well, have the nearest ones try and head ’95 off. Foster, get the others back here, don’t want any more getting fried by the storm. Sykes, when are the F-15’s due?”

“18 minutes out, sir!”

“How long if they overfly civilian airspace?”

“But sir-“

“HOW LONG?!!!”

“Er…about 11 minutes I guess…but sir, they got live ordnance, they’re not supposed to-”

“DO IT. My authority.”


Twenty minutes later Blair was on the line to the ‘Old Man’ again.

“You will need to make the call, sir. Tomcat strike failed. We really, REALLY need Her. NOW.”

T, sorry you've been feeling so bad. I hope your getting better!

Good intro to the story looking forward to seeing SG take on the bot.

Hope you best Tallyho, and promise it's nothing serious

the story to be going well, but do not try so hard to improve and relax

Rest up! That way you'll get better :P

Enjoying the set up. All technical and stuff. Ooohh. But seriously, get yourself better and then write. Unless you're bored to tears. Either way, it's always fun to read you.

Get well soon!!!

Thanks for the concern guys, rest assured I only wrote this to relieve the insanity of day-time T.V. I had no plans to write anything for a while (the next few Grace Story posts are already penned) but I just rattled this off to cheer myself up and speaking of which your comments also cheered me up a little so I thank you all. I am a bit better, and as they've sent out search parties from my local pub two streets away to find me, I think I shall venture out for a drink this evening.
Here is the conclusion, I hope you all enjoy it.


PART 2


Kara grimaced as the rain lashed her face, soaking her hair flat to her head, the torrential water running down to be blown from the tip of her chin by the speed of her flight. It was a filthy night and she knew almost nothing about this device she was supposed to recover for the military. She hated these kind of missions. Extremely short notice and poorly briefed. It was the worst kind of job that they could give her. Head to Lucasville; in the woods to the south of the town she should find some sort of army mechanized reconnaissance unit. Armed with an array of missiles and cannon it was a threat to the civilian population and had to be stopped. And that was about it. No time for anything else, just a verbal briefing before she had to head off, or it would reach the town before she could stop it. No description, specs, nothing. Great. Not even details of the type of weapons it had. It had malfunctioned, had shot down two helicopters, so there were jets inbound and roughly a company of infantry already deployed as a screen and that was about all she knew.

She over flew the town from the North and spotted a thin arc of troops just south of the outskirts of the small hamlet. Other troops were in the streets, busy herding families from their homes. She spotted a radio operator and landed next to him, reasoning that one of the men standing near to him was the c.o. of the unit. It was.

“Oh thank God, Ma’am. Am I glad to see you! I’m Captain Johannes, for my sins I’m in command here. You know any more about this than I do?” She shook her head. “Great. I got orders to support you. This is Lieutenant Coombes, my second; we got a strength of 108 men, I got Lieutenants Barnes and Lorenzo and half the guys clearing the folks out, tryin’ to move ‘em out the way and the other half in a defensive screen just here –“ he pointed to the line of men before her, only five or six visible to the human eye but with her vision she could clearly see 37 or so in the immediate vicinity hidden in the night. “We got no real heavy gear; I got a mortar team back there – “ he indicated the graveyard-“ ready to fire starshell, and I got four .50 cals, two at each end of the line on Humvees and two here and that’s it. But I’ve been told even they will struggle to get through the armour on that thing.” He was wearing a supposedly all-weather poncho that was being lashed by the rain, making a constant ‘shhhhh' noise that forced him to shout to be heard. He didn’t actually need to in her case, but she didn’t stop him. “We also got about 20 guys and four vehicles on the road that-a-way about 4 clicks south, under Lieutenant Dodds; we’re trying to med-evac the chopper guys that got hit. They’re ok, just a few broken bones. Got lucky. I’ve been told to take orders from you Ma’am, an’ I got no issue with that. We’ve had no contact thus far, just saw the missiles that smoked the choppers, about half hour ago, but HQ says it’s about 6 miles out, that way –“ he gestured.”All I know is its some kind of armoured recon unit?”

“Me too. That’s all they told me. Any idea how big?”

“I’ve heard its tracked, about 10 ft high, got shitloads- er sorry Ma’am,- lots of missiles and it can take some direct hits. That’s all I know. What are your orders, Ma’am?”

“I don’t think your men stand much chance if it gets passed me…” Kara said blinking in the heavy rain. “Have half of your men on this screen help clear the town, move the people up the hill as far as you can. The rest can just maybe delay it a little if anything happens to me, buy some time for the evacuation. I understand some jets are due in about 40 mins, that’s our target, hold it up for that long if I can’t stop it.”

“Awww c’mon. You’re Supergirl, you’re gonna eat this guy for breakfast.” Johannes said with a grin through the rain. “You’re just tryin’ to impress me… bigging it up for when you do stop it, so you’ll look like a hero…”

Kara smiled in spite of herself “You got me. Don’t let your men get too close Captain.” She turned and made to fly off but he held her arm gently.

“Hey. Don’t get hurt, ok?” he said earnestly.

She was surprised and touched by his concern. “I’ll try not to, Captain.”

“’Cos Wilkes, our medic, is crap…” he grinned at her, squinting as the rain hit his face. She smiled back. Then she shot into the night, flying over the trees into the darkness.

Coombes came to stand beside him, staring up after her.

“Wow! She can really do that whole flying thing , huh? What I’d give to join the mile high club with her…” he said wistfully.

“Ain’t gonna happen now, Coombes.” Johannes said to him with a smile. “She can hear a pin drop a mile away.”

“Aww shit! You reckon she heard me?”

“Better believe it. And besides, if there was the slightest chance of that happening…I’d pull rank.” Johannes said with a grin. “Right, you heard the lady, take every other man from the skirmish line and re-inforce Barnes and Lorenzo in town. Post two forward observers ahead of the line with comms and night goggles. Where are the sharp shooters? Nelson! NELSON!”

“Right here,sir. I wish you wouldn’t call me that, Sir.” Said his radioman.

“Well too bad, Muntz, we can’t always get what we wish for. Take Coombes here. He’s only two girls away from a threesome right now this very minute, ain’t that right, Coombes? Where’s Christiansen and Lindemann?”

“Bell tower sir,” Muntz pointed to the church “and er… I think Lindemann’s gone for an enfilade shot along the skirmish line. Him and his spotter Dalby are way out over on the right flank.”

“Ok, stay tight. Any word on the air support?” Muntz shook his head. “Get on the horn, tell ‘em the cavalry has arrived. If she’s as good as she’s supposed to be, we won’t need it.”

Just a few moments after leaving Johannes, Kara had covered the three or four miles to the south and hovered, scanning the forest ahead and below for her quarry. She started a visual sweep off to her left but turned quickly as she heard the sound of a missile launch to her right. She spun and flicked her body easily out of the way as the missile breezed past only for it to turn and home in towards her. She was surprised that it was a heat seeker for such a small missile and that it was sensitive enough to pick up on her body heat, but she dodged it a second time, this time grabbing it as it went passed her. She had intended to hurl it away and then detonate it with her laser gaze but to her surprise it exploded in her hand. Though the blast didn’t harm her she was stunned for a moment, the sudden bright flash blinding her and the percussion wave of the blast knocking her backwards through the air. She stopped her fall, hovering once more. She shook her head to clear it and realized the missile could not have been a heat seeker after all, but must have been guided and then remotely detonated. Which meant that she must be lit up somehow. She dropped her chin to her chest and sure enough there was the tell-tale red dot of a laser point slap bang in the middle of her ‘S’ symbol. She suddenly heard the hiss of another incoming missile as she cleared her mind and swept aside to her right just in time. This time as it banked passed her and started to turn, she detonated it harmlessly with her heat vision. The missiles were small, approximately 18 inches long, and seemed to be local anti personnel-type weapons. She doubted they had brought down the helicopters which made her wonder just how many missiles this damned thing carried. As if in answer, another salvo of three small rockets homed in towards her. She hovered, blasting them back with a powerful blow from her breath and then detonating them with a sharp look from her heat gaze. As the three small explosions briefly lit up the night she followed the smokey trail back to its point of source. To her surprise the robot weapon was not immediately obvious. It blended in to the night time surroundings almost seamlessly until she switched to an infrared gaze and then finally it was visible.

She had expected some kind of robot warrior somehow, something big and man shaped like Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. What she could see was more like a small vehicle. It was a robot in the sense that the demolition robots were robots, the small tracked vehicles they used to detonate bombs. This was much bigger; approximately 4-5 feet long with large triangular caterpillar tracks at its sides, designed to rotate over objects about a central axle. Its body was a cylindrical tube around eight feet high and almost the width of the tracks, with an array of weapons mounted to sides, front and back. Where she had expected a head of some kind, there was merely a flat series of camera lenses and small speakers or mikes facing in each direction, giving the unit a 360 degree field of view. Above the lenses were a series of antennae arrays. Its surface was a matt dark colour that seemed to reflect its surroundings. There were no arms as such and the whole thing seemed ugly. Bizarrely, she was a little disappointed. As giant killer robots go, it was something of a let down. She could see banks of small missiles to its sides and two pairs of small mini-guns mounted to front and rear. She realized this was an offensive reconnaissance device. There seemed to be larger missile racks at the back that were now empty, presumably for the SAMs, but it seemed to only carry the two Surface-to-Air-Missiles that it had already used. Where unarmed drone aircraft were designed to observe enemy positions this contraption was a totally different type of military creature. It, she realized, was intended to observe and then flush out enemy positions by essentially attracting fire at itself and returning it. That was why it wasn’t controlled remotely in the way drones were. It had its own degree of free thought prioritizing the targets as it identified them. Whilst it relayed audio-visuals back to base it wasn’t controlled by them, other than through changes to its operational orders. Suddenly another missile launch in the woods around a quarter of a mile distant caught her attention, rapidly followed by three more. Then she spotted a second machine, presumably ordered to attack the first. Her original target swivelled and the auto-guns to its front opened up. To her surprise they didn’t target the threat of the missiles but let off a short clipped burst of fire at the other Mr A.

‘BBBRRRRRPPPP!BRRRRP!’ The bullets shattered the lenses on the camera mountings on the other device, effectively blinding it. At the same time , D95XX suddenly shot into reverse, skulking back some ten feet, then stopping, before shooting forward five feet and then finally slamming back a further fifteen feet. The result was that the four homing missiles all exploded harmlessly into the screen of trees between it and the attacking robot, unable to make the quick course corrections necessary in the dense woodland. As the trees were shredded and exploded to matchwood the rogue device popped forward again, its machine cannons again spitting accurate fire at the top of the other robot. As she looked on she saw the second robot, temporarily blinded, rotate the top foot of the cylinder 90 degrees so a new array of lenses could focus in, but the move had been anticipated and they too were shredded by the accurate suppressing fire of D95XX. The newcomer started a barrage of cannon fire of its own but as it was suffering from a lack of its target visuals its fire was initially wayward. It never had the time to correct that problem. As the last two faces of cameras each turned they two were destroyed leaving the entire unit now blind. It continued firing for a few moments until an antipersonnel rocket destroyed one of its tracks and it slumped over onto its left side. The rogue unit adjusted its position, pulling further back to then pour a burst of gunfire into the top of the droid, which finally caused the unit to explode. The night was lit up by a series of explosions as the missiles cooked off, still locked in their housings. She counted twenty smaller explosions, presumably the anti-personnel ones and then a massive double explosion as the SAMs went off, all accompanied by sporadic pops of the mini gun ammo exploding.

As she looked down, there seemed to be not one but two scorch marks to the top of the rogue unit. ‘Who said lightning never strikes twice?’ She thought. ‘That must be why it had lost its comms, a dual catastrophic strike that had overwhelmed the proofing measures. Talk about bad luck!’ she mused to herself.

Well, on the plus side it had shown her how to disable it – blind it, knock out a tread and then attack the softer top of the vehicle-like unit. She felt slightly easier about the whole thing. She estimated that the rogue machine had probably used up around half its ordnance, maybe more. Time to put this matter to bed. She swooped down on her target as fast as a bullet, intending to just smash it over onto its side. But as she neared it to her surprise the machine did nothing. ‘Well, that was its last mistake’, she thought. But as she approached, in the instant before she made contact, she felt the sudden change in the air as the atmosphere around her became ionized, charged. As she was only millimetres from contact, a vast surge of electrical current arced out to greet her, knocking her backwards, as if she’d been hit by a train. She flew, back-first into a tree trunk with enough force to snap it before she fell to the ground, stunned and groggy.

“Whoa!” she said aloud, as she gasped for breath, on her side before she rolled over flat on her back, blinking up at the dark night sky through the spikes of the fir trees that seemed to point to where she really belonged – far from this place. That wasn’t part of the plan.

She had little time to gather her thoughts as the machine suddenly bore down upon her, the sounds of it crashing through the undergrowth dragging her stunned brain back to the present. She scrambled back on her heels and palms as she saw to her horror the mini-guns zero in on her at almost point blank range. She dropped onto her butt and brought up her hands to shield her eyes as the barrage of cannon shells exploded against her chest, her stomach and her forearms. She was confident a conventional bullet could not pierce her eyes but she daren’t take the risk with armour piercing cannon and H.E. at such close range.

‘BBBRRRRRRRPPPP!BBBRRRRRRRPPPPPP!BBBRRRRRRPPPPPP!’ The guns spat in short, precise , clipped bursts, only her lightning reactions preventing any shells from striking her face as she finally recovered her wits after the electric shock. She shielded her eyes with an arm as she cast a heat blast with her gaze at the obvious weak spot – the tracked treads. She broke the caterpillar links and the slatted, triangular thread peeled away from the underlying wheels on the right track as the machine rumbled forward. The machine slewed to a stop, allowing her to scramble back further away and finally regain her footing. But to her surprise the weapon started to crawl forward again, shedding the track and revealing three metal orb-like wheels that ran within the treads. Now the tread was gone they still served as wheels, housed as they were in a triangular mount about the central axle. It was slower than when fully treaded but still manoeuvrable. It was a clever piece of design, she had to admit, but right now it was one that she wished they hadn’t thought of. Bullets were still bouncing off her chest, a mix of incendiary and armour piercing, but she barely noticed them. She let the machine come straight for her, intensifying her gaze on a central point of its armour. She kept it up as it approached her, finally using her fists to smash aside the barrels of the mini guns as she kept up her gaze. But to her shock, her vision had little effect. She frowned, switching to an x-ray scan of her adversary. She could see then that its armour was layered with thin and thick layers of titanium sandwiched between ceramic layers, alternately coated with graphene and Martensite an alloyed mixture of nickel and titanium. She had heard of this shape –remembering metal before but never actually seen it. The ceramic layers helped to disperse the heat from high explosives and the Martensite helped to reconstitute the armour's shape after being hit by armour piercing. The graphene dispersed electrical weaponry. Her gaze, as hot as it was, was having little effect.

She was still coming to terms with this unsettling fact when a second charge struck her. She didn’t know where it had originated from but again she was rendered senseless for a second or two, lying flat on her back gasping in shock. She could hear the machine bearing down on her again and this time she decided enough was enough. She flashed a heat burst then her freezing breath at the camera lenses then finally reheated them again. They cracked and shattered and she repeated the process as the top of the machine rotated to expose another set of its electronic eyes. Finally all four sets were disabled but as she concentrated on the last one, a metal grabber suddenly extended from the bottom front of the device and clamped hydraulically around her left ankle. So it did have arms after all.

Although it was now blind the fact that it held her gave the machine a point of reference. A second appendage with a drill on the end extended from the base of the cylindrical body. She realised these were for taking rock, soil and sand samples prior to airborne or amphibious invasions. But now the drill was a danger. She tried to kick out with her leg to kick herself free, but the grip was too strong. She moved a hand to stop the drill and was suddenly stung by a point of pain as a tiny laser pierced her palm. So there was a laser drill as well as a conventional diamond one.

“Owww!!! Tricky little beggar aren’t ya?” she said bitterly as she used her breath to freeze the exposed wheel bearings on the treadless track, then slammed a fist into the tiny laser as she grabbed the drill hand. She crossed her slender legs and kicked out with her free one to smash the frozen wheels, cracking the metal where it met the axle. The machine slumped to the side as she yanked the drill arm off. It finally seemed to have run out of attacking options and sat there, lopsided, still with an arm clamped on her foot. It was some kind of instinct that kicked in on her part. Perhaps it was that she understood the aggressive military mind-set of people who built these devices or maybe at a micro-sonic level she could hear its internal clock but that was unlikely. But either way, she suddenly thought, ‘what would be the last act of programming for a crippled, immobilised machine such as this?’ It would try and prevent itself from falling into enemy hands.

She shot into the night as fast as she could, the entire vehicle yanked initially upwards some twenty feet into the air behind her, painfully still attached to her leg, wrenching her thigh and hip, before the arm finally couldn’t support the vast weight of the machine and it snapped, the grabber still clamped around her ankle. She sped up into the dark night sky as the machine fell back to the forest floor. As it landed, there was a muffled ‘KKKRRRUUUUMMMMMPPPP’ of an explosion then that engulfed the forest in a twenty metre radius.

She turned and looked down at the wreckage with relief. She finally prised off the remnants of the grabber and tossed it back down into the dying flames. She then blew on the burning vegetation, dampening the flames initially before extinguishing them, though the heavy rain would have put them out soon enough. She left the wreckage of the machine to burn as she sped back to Johannes.
He greeted her with relief as she set down beside him, delivering a smart salute as she landed.

“All done, its burning in the forest a few miles that way. It destroyed one of the other machines about a quarter of a mile off to the right. I wouldn’t let your men get too close yet some of the ammo may still be burning up.”

“See, told ya it wouldn’t give you any trouble!” Johannes smiled with a grin. “I don’t suppose you’d care to give me your number…in case I might need rescuing again….? “ he asked optimistically.

“Sure!” she said. “ It’s eight.” She kept a serious face as she saw his face light up expectantly, but then he realised she wasn’t going to say anything else. "Although sometimes, it's four..."

“Eight- ? Oh. “ he laughed. “Good one. I meant no offence Ma’am, and I hope you understand, I just had to ask…”

“Captain Johannes, I’m glad you did. If you hadn’t I’d have been worried I was losing my touch” she smiled back at him.

“That was probably the bravest thing I’ve ever done…” he grinned, slightly embarrassed.

“Well, you know what they say Captain. ‘Faint heart never won fair maid’. And for whatever its worth, if it did come down to you and Lieutenant Coombes, you wouldn’t need to pull rank.” She looked at him with a knowing smile.

“Still hope for me yet then, huh?” he smiled.

“There’s always hope for everyone, Captain, as long as I’m around.” She added with a shy smile.


THE END

Nice short story there T! Supergirl vs. a Robot just makes sense as robots are the Super family's thing. Loved the attention to detail and how smart Supergirl was during the fight. Might have been nice to have the MRA with a red-sun beam laser to make things a little hard on SG but still its a good story. Makes me think I should do some shorter stuff too.

Great story and glad your feeling better too

Nice one, Tallyho. Wished there was a bit more danger but it was all done well and neatly concluded.

Hmm. A short story. Not sure I'm capable of it.

Anyway, glad you're feeling better.

Nice story short but sweet. And please continue to get better.

The story was good, I hope you're already well

Thanks chaps miles better.
Glad you got something out of it.
I am writing the Grace sisters v BG and WW for the next few months but I may post a few TOSG short stories like this one. The idea is that she doesn't face out and out peril as such but the possibility of failure with a bit of danger thrown in. I see them as a show case for our girls talents, so I'll try a bit of variety to demonstrate her abilities.
I admit SGZ6's red sun laser was a good idea but I didn't think of it and I couldn't think of a reason why Kryptonite would be in the MR A so I just kept it simple.
As I've said elsewhere gonna post a link on the end of Mayan Prophecy to The Last Human story in a few days - don't bother to read it, it's just a thanks and a link, not intended as a bump but I want to address something in the last post there from Sam the Wise 2.

Thanks all for the well wishes, back to my usual under- achieving self.

T.