Supergirl and the Military Exercise

[DrDominator9]

And now the conclusion of Supergirl and the Military Exercise....

Chapter 24


It takes a good 15 minutes for the diligent Lieutenant Mezwani to get all the immediate problems dealt with in the overall aftermath of the General Daniels attack on Supergirl. He has to give orders to his men to efficiently handle all the medical emergencies; arrange careful transport of the injured back to base headquarters; command his top men to debrief all the participants who are capable of talking coherently; and detail how he wants communications set up between the soldiers tasked with searching the tunnel for evidence and the command center back at the base.

One of the first tasks Falak takes on himself the moment after Daniels is secured in handcuffs and put in the back of the troop transport truck is descend into the tunnel with Sgt. Nelson in tow. One look at the pale-faced trembling Supergirl shows Falak that her long ordeal has clearly drained her both physically and emotionally. Held up by the comforting arm of Matthew Daniels around her shoulders while both remain sitting on the tunnel floor, Supergirl looks up at the lieutenant with eyes creased with worry.

“You’ve got the general?”

“Yes,” Mezwani nods. “He’s handcuffed in the back of our troop truck with a guard.”

“He’s got a flash drive hidden in his belt buckle,” the blonde alerts him. “It’s got pictures of everything that happened back in his office. It has to be destroyed!”

“It will be. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I need to be sure,” Supergirl demands. She starts to stand up but falters badly, thumping back down on her rear end and collapsing against Matt Daniel’s chest, wincing and weak.

Two other soldiers, one with a medical bag, climb down the ladder moments after Mezwani. Once they note that Supergirl is being attended to one goes over to Captain Shavers and the other to Corporal Delancey.

“Lay her down gently,” Mezwani says to Matthew. Falak hurriedly whips off his jacket and folds it to cushion the heroine’s head as Daniels lowers her down. “I need to see if I can fix that drone’s UV light. There’s not enough light to help her recharge. She looks shocky to me. Take off your jacket and cover her as best you can. She’s starting to shiver. And keep pressure on that wound.”

While the general’s son complies with Falak’s order, the Lieutenant dashes over to the lifeless drone and examines it quickly. “Thank goodness, the UV bulb isn’t damaged. The ultra-violet radiation this offers will help reestablish Supergirl’s powers.”

Falak lets out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding while checking out the bulb. “Sergeant Nelson, get another drone from the truck down here pronto. And have my soldering tool kit brought here and some better lighting. No, belay that order. We’ll have to bring Supergirl back to the base. It’ll take too long to jury-rig everything here. Supergirl needs a recharge. She’s not looking good.” Indeed, the night has taken a heavy toll on the heroine. Her face is drawn, tight, and ashen, almost skull-like, with the exception of limp blonde hair curtaining her face. Even in the poor light it’s clear she’s near the end of her rope.

“This man needs immediate surgery, sir,” says the soldier carefully laying Delancey down onto the floor from his propped-up position. The medic rips open a thick cotton gauze pad package with his teeth, takes out the pad and applies it to the side of Delancey’s blood-soaked shirt. “I don’t think any organs are hit but there’s a lot of blood and the light down here is for shit. Pardon the language, sir.”

“Agreed, Flanders. Patch him as best you can for now. We’ll then take all three victims up the ladder to the truck. Sergeant Nelson, we’re going to need about 25 feet or so of rope to haul up these men. I can carry Supergirl up and pass her to waiting hands up top.”

“I can climb,” whispers Supergirl.

“In a pig’s eye you will,” Falak states categorically. “You have your orders, Sergeant.”

“I’m on it, sir.” Sgt. Nelson is on his walkie talkie immediately giving orders to the remaining men above ground.


* * *


Had it been daylight, the rejuvenation of Supergirl’s powers would have begun the moment she was lifted out of the tunnel exit. As it was, she was carried over to the troop truck by two soldiers and carefully laid on the floor there as a handcuffed General Daniels watched with some haughty satisfaction. He looks down at Supergirl’s sallow complexion and closed eyes and exhales loudly.

“So close: Such a shame that Arnie’s knife didn’t go through your heart.”

“At least...I have a heart…for a knife to go through,” Supergirl murmurs softly, exhausted. Her eyes open and they sparkle for a second with tension at the man’s face far above her. Then she closes them and draws a pained sigh.

“Cut the chatter, both of you,” barks Mezwani who stands at the open back of the vehicle. He hoists himself into the truck on his butt and then stands up, holding out his hand to the soldier guarding the general. “Your weapon, Stokes. You’re on evidence detail. Fine-tooth comb that tunnel from the exit back 50 yards toward its front. Anything unusual, you bag it and bring it back to base as evidence.”

“There are guns and a knife, with prints,” Supergirl softly states, the pain scorching through her shoulder. “Oh, and a glowing green bullet; it’s kryptonite. Find that. Please!”

“Yes, ma’am. Don’t you worry none,” Stokes says, nodding firmly. “I’ll find whatever there is to find down there.”

As soon as Stokes climbs down out of the truck, Lieutenant Mezwani pivots and looks down at the general sitting on the back bench. “I understand you have a flash drive hidden in that belt buckle, General Daniels. Hand it over, slowly and carefully,” demands the irate officer of his superior, the gun centered on the older man’s chest.

“…careful…he’s……a snake…” rasps Supergirl from the truck’s floor.

Mezwani surveys his superior officer’s movements carefully. It’s been a long night filled with harsh revelations about Daniel’s rotting inner need for vengeance against the trembling heroine laying near his feet. He’d been shocked on both sides of the equation. His general’s horrific behavior and Supergirl’s selfless heroism. The opposition of such actions, the stark quality of how people could behave shines a light on how far the distance between good and bad can be sometimes.

Daniel’s hand goes to his belt and pushes down on a hidden switch there. The eagle’s leaden wing pops up and the flash drive behind it tumbles out onto the seated Daniel’s thigh and bounces off that onto the floor. Mezwani starts to bend to pick it up but Supergirl, seeing this and screeches, “NO!” Her hand jerks out and grabs the small black memory stick. Daniels’ boot stomps down on her fist and she screeches in pain. Mezwani clubs down on his general’s head with the barrel of the gun and the cold-cocked man flops off the bench onto the truck’s floor in a groaning sprawl.

Supergirl immediately draws her hand out from under the limp general’s body and clutches the flash drive to her chest, salty tears flushing down her cheek. The combination of the pain in her hand, the knife wound, the salvation of her reputation, and the culmination of an overwhelming night of heartache, humiliation and unbridled hate swamps the blonde with tremors and racking sobs that send her entire body into a quaking palsy.

Falak Mezwani kneels beside Supergirl, pulls her shaking figure up into his arms. She draws her legs up close to her body as he hugs her tight and offers the soothing words, “it’s all over now.” She buries her face into his shoulder and just trembles and cries uncontrollably for a good half minute. The unnerved lieutenant simply holds the exhausted young woman in his arms and gives comfort with this quiet strength.

After a few minutes, an unconscious Frank Delancey’s body is gently laid down onto the truck bed by two soldiers who then leave to retrieve Captain Shavers. After the groaning captain is laid onto the truck floor, Mezwani moves his right arm off Supergirl’s shoulder and bangs on the forward wall of the truck with three quick thumps of his fist, alerting the driver to start back to the base on the double.
Sergeant Nelson, who’d helped load Shavers into the truck, sits quietly on the side bench, watching with amazement the silent heroine curled within his lieutenant’s embrace. He looks down at the limp form of General Daniels on the truck floor nearby, then at the moaning captain and his unconscious pal, Delancey. Nelson shakes his head with disbelief at all that transpired this evening. He unconsciously cradles his own package more securely in his grip: the vital segment of the broken drone that holds the UV bulb, Supergirl’s deliverance.


* * *


When the truck arrives back at the long low building housing the base’s command center, waiting soldiers quickly offload the limp, groaning Captain Shavers and the pale-faced Corporal Delancey on stretchers. The two men are taken through the white glow of the parking lot lights and into the base. Falak then helps a weary Supergirl off the back end into the extended arms of Sergeant Nelson who follows the procession, guiding her wobbling form toward the base’s front door.

Turning back to handcuffed General Daniels who had been hoisted onto the back bench, Mezwani hooks his hand under the man’s elbow and pulls his commanding officer to his feet. Having regained not only his senses but his military bearing, the general jerks himself out of his subordinate’s grasp.

“I know the way, dammit. You don’t have to frog march me like some dumb grunt, Lieutenant!”

“With the way you acted tonight, I’d have a lot more respect for some grunt. Now move!” Mezwani commands, angrily pushing the older man forward toward the truck’s open back end. Daniels stumbles awkwardly and helplessly tumbles onto the parking lot onto his shoulder with a grunt, rolling over onto his back and lying there with his eyes staring up, his head at odd angle.

“Fuck!” Mezwani curses loudly at himself and the situation, quickly hopping down off the truck to see to the general.

This is bad!

Falak squats down and reaches over to Daniel’s neck to check for a pulse when the general’s hand grabs his forearm and the other hand wraps around Mezwani’s head and drives his forehead down against the tarmac, the skin splitting and spurting blood. Stunned senseless, Falak’s body goes limp and rolls sideways onto the ground.
Daniels gets to his feet slowly, clutching his painful shoulder from his desperate fake fall off the truck. He bends over and yanks the gun out from Falak’s belt where the lieutenant had tucked it behind his back. When the grimacing general straightens up again and starts to look around at the base’s front door to see if anyone’s noticed his tussle with Mezwani, a very hard feminine fist lands in the middle of his face, breaking his nose and dropping him on his back on the pavement.

“You bidch!” Daniels screams at Supergirl through his gushing nose, bringing the muzzle of the gun up to shoot her.

She’s not bullet proof now!

Before he can pull the trigger, her flashing boot crushes into his hand, pulverizing the bones within while sending the gun flying off into the darkness. Screaming with pain and rage, Daniels tries to stand up but the boot on Supergirl’s other foot plants hard against his chest, breaking three ribs with a loud crack. The old soldier collapses backward onto the tarmac wheezing with his eyes bulging, writhing in breathless gasps of agony.

“Stand up again, you prick. I’d love to knock you down a few more times.”

The general’s arms cross over his chest as he groans thickly, rolling on his side so he doesn’t choke on his own blood. His cowed eyes look up at the young woman silhouetted by the outdated mercury-vapor light behind her and he puts his good hand up, palm out, waving her off.

“You wuld, you wuld” he gargles twice, desperately, meaning ‘won.”

Supergirl squats down near the badly beaten general and very deliberately holds the small memory stick out in her open palm so he can see it from where he’s lying. She closes her fist and you can hear the crackle of plastic and the crunch of metal as the last of the evidence of her shameful night is destroyed in front of her wheezing foe.

“Yes, Daniels, I did,” she says, opening her fist and letting the shattered remnants of the small device scatter onto the tarmac. She stands and rotates her boot, crushing even those remains into dust before she turns and steps over to check out the young lieutenant who’d had her back all evening.

A shocked Sergeant Nelson looks at the general rolling on the ground in agony.

She kicked the shit out of him!

Warily keeping an eye on the older man, Nelson moves across the parking lot to find the kicked gun. When he does, he picks it up and strides back to stand over the general, pointing the weapon at the bloodied officer.

Supergirl has rolled over the young lieutenant and gasped at the damage to his head. The bloody wound is nasty and the barely conscious Falak is obviously concussed. She’s still too weak to use her x-ray vision and can only hope for the best until she regains more of her powers. Thankfully the bright white sodium vapor lighting had imbued her with enough strength to take down Daniels.

Mezwani looks lazily at Supergirl, asking, “What are you doing here? What happened?”

“Sergeant, do you have a handkerchief or something?”

Nelson steps over and hands the costumed blonde the white cloth from his back pocket. She takes it and gently as possible blots it against Falak’s forehead as he looks at her dreamily, one pupil slightly larger than the other.

“I’m dizzy and you’re pretty,” the young officer slurs.

Supergirl bites her lower lip, deeply concerned. If Falak has any long-term effects from this injury, Kara silently vows that she’ll personally show up at Daniels’ sentencing to be sure the book is thrown at him.

“Can you stand? We need to get you inside to a real medic.”

“Can try,” he murmurs as he is slowly helped to his feet by the shapely heroine. He leans on her and the two of them walk into the building through the long dull entryway that she and Terry had used what seems like a lifetime ago.

They are followed by Sergeant Nelson whose palm is pressed against the middle of General Daniels shoulder blades as the officer shuffles along with a gun pointed at his back. Nelson’s warning jab has convinced the older man that any sudden movements would probably end his life at this point.

Supergirl and the dazed Falak enter the long command room filled with men and women who had been officially granted off-duty status an hour ago. Every one of them had remained to know the outcome of the night’s long ordeal. When the costumed blonde walks in arm in arm with their now most senior officer whose expression is blank yet blissful, the entire room breaks into spontaneous applause at the pair. Kara is shocked at this outpouring for her and for Falak and her eyes glisten with tears that gently slide down her cheeks in the realization that her long night of torment is, indeed, finally over.


* * *


While the bright lights in the parking lot gave Supergirl a brief surge of strength allowing her to take out General Daniels, the bathing glow from the UV light bulb she enjoyed in the infirmary felt like a nice warm bath. She sat there soaking in the rays for 10 minutes while anxiously watching Falak being tested by the base’s doctor who’d been called in earlier to deal with the various injuries to the men during the drone test, to tend to Terry Sykes and to triage the situation with Corporal Frank Delancey, Captain Shavers and General Daniel’s nose.

Ambulances were called for Delancey and for Shavers, who was accompanied by armed guards as he was transported back to Midvale Hospital.

After her sunlamp treatment concludes, Supergirl goes over and squeezes Frank Delancey’s hand, walking beside his stretcher as he is carried out to the ambulance. The lovely blonde in her carefully-pinned ripped costume thanks the soldier profusely for his heroics in the tunnel. “You’re a treasure, Corporal Delancey,” she smiles. “You saved Matthew Daniels from Shavers’ murderous attack.”

“I just tripped him and that ended up with you getting your shoulder shishkabobbed! Some treasure,” the man murmurs, fairly high on a morphine drip.

“Just get well soon.”

“I will but my hula hoop days are over,” he grins foolishly, indicating the wound in his side as he is
lifted into the ambulance. He gives a final wave as the door is gently pulled closed by the medic who climbs in.

When Supergirl turns to go back and check on Lieutenant Mezwani, she sees Terry Sykes talking with the general’s son under one of the parking lot lamps. Sykes is actively taking notes as the Maid of Steel walks over to the twosome.

“And you had no idea that your father was so obsessed with revenge against Supergirl?”

“I knew he was angry about how it all went down, my arrest and trial and such. We’d discussed it at length but he masked the depth of his hatred very well until last week. Then I got a glimmer of it when he made a strange request to meet me with a car at an odd location about a mile away from the base. I brooded about it for several days. I just wish I’d reached out to Lieutenant Mezwani earlier than this evening.”

“If I may, Mr. Daniels,” Supergirl interrupts, “I’d like to talk with you before you leave. I’ll be inside.”

“We’re almost done, here, Supergirl,” Terry gestures at the man with a grateful smile. “And I wanted to talk with you, too, about tonight’s incredible events.”

“I’m sure you do, Ms. Sykes, but I’m very busy and it’s been a long night as you’re well aware.” The tone in Supergirl’s voice could chill dry ice. Sykes takes a step back, suddenly embarrassed and nervous as Supergirl walks away, heading to the front door of the base.

Once inside, the Maid of Might walks up to Falak who’s sitting on a plastic desk chair in the corner holding a flexible cold pack on his forehead to reduce the swelling. She sits down beside him and takes hold of his free hand, asking, “How are you doing?”

“I’m still dizzy and the last few hours are really fuzzy. Can’t remember much. They told me I helped save your life using my drones.”

“You did. I’m eternally in your debt.”

“Well, that’s cool, I suppose,” Falak smiles nervously at her, not sure what to say and still quite disoriented. “Oh, Sergeant Nelson said that they found a kryptonite bullet in the tunnel. Did you dodge one down there? Guess that was lucky for you.”

“Well, I didn’t quite dodge it. It was never fired at me. I’ll tell you about it when we meet next time, when your memory isn’t so jumbled.”

“I guess that’s probably for the best. Wait, what? Next time? Another debriefing?”

“No, silly. Our date. I want to see you again after things calm down.” Supergirl nods at the room they’re in and scowls. “Away from this place.” She then turns her baby blue eyes at him with deep admiration. “You’re a very special man.”

“If you say so. Well, uh, sure…a date. When?”

“A couple of weeks or so. Whenever you’re cleared for active duty again, I suppose.”

“Active duty?”

“Yes, we’re going to be very active,” the blonde beauty pats his thigh and smiles at him with a touch of color in her cheeks. She abruptly stands up and strides off quickly before stopping herself short and turning around. “I’ll call you about it again,” she declares. “You probably won’t remember most of what happened tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I’ll remember this! Count on it,” he smiles then winces, rearranging the cold-pack on his head slightly as the shapely heroine walks over to the sergeant who hands her a lead-lined box before she shakes his hand and departs the building.

“Nelson,” Mezwani calls out. “Bring me a Post-it note pad. I need to remind myself of something very important!”


* * *


When she goes back out to the parking lot, Supergirl sees Terry Sykes sitting in her car talking to someone on her cell phone. She also see, standing in a white pool of light under a tall pole, Matthew Daniels drawing hard on a cigarette, the end glowing red as he inhales. He lets out a long gray billowed stream of smoke that drifts upward. The mournful sigh tells the heroine a lot as she approaches the only son of the man who brutally raped and beat her earlier. She’s not sure how much the younger Daniels knows of his father’s actions during the night, how much Terry filled him in during her earlier interview.

Seeing her walk toward him, he marvels at her beauty and poise under such daunting conditions, so quickly reestablished since he’d last seen her in the tunnel. He speaks first as she comes to a stop several feet away from him.

“I’ve thought a lot about you over the years.”

“I can only imagine,” the heroine replies, crossing her arms defensively.

“You saved my life,” he states categorically.

“Me? I…I thought I ruined it.” Kara’s face shifts with confusion.

“That’s what my dad would have you believe. The opposite is true. I was headed in a bad direction, hanging with bad people, making stupid choices. I had plenty of time to look at my life when in jail. Long story short, I learned how to make better decisions.”

“But that brutal attack on you, just before being released…”

“The worst, I’m not going to sugar coat that. Worst night of my life actually. But it was a dividing line between stupid me and smart me. So, I used it for self-motivation instead of self-pity. I went back to college, became a therapist, built up a practice. I even do pro-bono work at prisons around the state helping inmates deal with anger and… sorry. I’m rambling. I just wanted to say how sorry I am for everything my father and his aides did to you. I know that doesn’t mean squat….”

“It means more than you think,” Supergirl says, looking at the pavement and breathing slowly. The soup of emotions still churns and bubbles so close to the surface for her. “I’m glad you’re not your father’s son.”

“I hope you mean that sincerely, Supergirl, because, you know, the Bible says ‘the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation.”

“That’s old school thinking, Matt. As far as I’m concerned. It stops here.” She holds out her hand, he shakes it firmly.

“Works for me.”

“If you’ll excuse me now, Matt, I need to discuss a few things with Ms. Sykes after all.”

“If you ever need to talk about tonight, I understand how weird it would be for you based on who I am, but I’m a good listener and I have a degree and everything,” he says, smiling.

Taken aback by the man’s charm on such a wearing night, Supergirl pauses and gives a wan smile in return. “I’ll give it some thought. Thanks.”

You know,” Daniels says, nodding at Terry’s car, “she’s pretty torn up about everything that happened here tonight. I hope you’ll take that into consideration.”

Supergirl sighs deeply herself as the promise of a sunrise lightly hints on the horizon. “I’ll try,” she promises. As she moves off toward Sykes’ old Toyota, the general’s son heads for his own car. His father has been taken to the Midvale police station as the most secure site for now until arrangements can be made for the military to pick him up later in the day. For now, Matthew Daniels is going home to catch up on some badly needed sleep. It’s been a long night for him as well.


Supergirl raps on the passenger window of Terry’s car and the reporter jerks a bit in surprise, still talking on the phone. She lowers the power window from her side, voicing into the phone, “I’ll have to call you back.”

Supergirl pulls on the door handle but it’s locked. Terry is fortunate the heroine’s anger isn’t roiling at the moment or she’d be minus one door. The brunette unlocks the door and the costumed blonde sits down beside Terry and looks at her coldly.

“How much of tonight’s events will you be covering in your story, Sykes? Were you dictating your copy just now to your copy desk?”

“You didn’t listen in to it?” Terry is shocked.

“I actually try to respect some people’s rights. So?”

“There were a lot of witnesses, I can’t make stuff up here, you know. I’m a good journalist.”

“I realize that,” Supergirl snaps. “But what happened in that office, under those lights, what they did…” Kara’s lip quivers until she stops it with an effort of will. “How much of that makes it into your story?”

“I won’t sensationalize it in any way. I’m as mortified about the whole thing as you are, for fuck sake.”

“Are you?” Supergirl’s cold eyes look through Terry, her ears listen to her rapid heartbeat, her nose quivers to pick up the scent of sweat and sorrow seep through her pores.

“I am. I really am,” Terry chokes out softly, her head turning away, looking down at her lap as her tears fall. “I don’t know what happened to me. It was all so horrible yet I felt so oddly aroused. I can’t explain it. I can’t excuse it. I behaved like a … a slut of the world. You were being abused and I found it hot. You’re hot! Your body…Here’s the deal…the whole experience confused me, frightened me. I thought we were going to die in that room and I honestly had no control over myself. That’s the god’s honest truth. And that’s all I’ve got at this point to offer…

The costumed heroine beside Terry just looks at her and tries to think, to weigh her words, but before she can respond, Terry continues on.

“No, wait, that’s not entirely true. Supergirl, there’s no way I can expect your forgiveness but I want you to know that everything that happened will be reported by me at least as respectfully as humanly possible. No lurid descriptions, no fanciful innuendoes, no conjecture or speculation about what went on there. Not in my newspaper, I promise you that!”

“There’s still General Daniels testimony at his court martial to worry about, and that of Captain Shavers and Sergeant Bernard,” Supergirl says glumly.

“Maybe you can ask the president to seal the evidence or the whole tribunal or whatever the military calls it,” Terry suggests. “He certainly owes you.”

“That he does. I’ll be talking to him later on this week, I’m going to be cutting exclusive ties to the U.S. military establishment, trying to make myself more of a global force for influence, not just in the United States.”

“Based on what they did to you out there with those drones, I don’t blame you,” Terry nods.

“But for right now, I’m going back to my apartment and chill for several days. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

“Again, I’m beyond sorry for how I reacted in that room tonight. I’ve got a lot of thinking of my own to do as well.”

“I’d say so, Terry. But you did try to step in early on and General Daniels beat on you for that. I won’t forget that aspect of things. So, write your story and use your judgement. You should know that there are no pictures remaining on any phones or any memory sticks of any kind to embarrass me or you. It’s all hearsay at this point from those three creeps. Write what your conscience tells you to write about tonight. I suppose I’ll have to live with that.”

“That’s more than fair…it’s…it’s astounding in fact,” Terry whispers. “You’re something else.”

“I just try to do the right thing every day. Like everyone.”

“No, Supergirl. Not like everyone. Not by a long shot!”

With that, the mighty Maid of Steel shrugs as she steps out of the car and looks off to the slowly rising sun on the eastern horizon. She can only do what she can do, she realizes. And right now, what she can do is fly up into the glowing red morning and put some much-needed distance between her and a very long night behind her.

The End

[brdiy]

Great writing! Thanks for this!

[DionneStock]

Really great writing I am soo impressed!!! xx

[DrDominator9]

Thank you Brdiy and Dionne. I'm pleased you enjoyed this story. Anybody else hang in there to the bitter end?