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interlude
Lady Blackhawk & co.
‘Y’all are from the future?’
Zinda lay on the rough litter that had been created for her, dressed under the rough cloth blanket in the torn remains of her Lady Blackhawk uniform. The shredded outfit barely held together on her and concealed even less of her maidenly charms than usual, but the act of having it on made was like an affirmation of her survival, of her ability to live beyond the late Captain Nazi’s…
She shuddered inwardly. Rape. He raped me. Say it – deal with it. It happened. Move on.
Zinda looked at the women gathered around her. There were seven, some of whom she recognized, some that she didn’t. Some that she thought she should have. That was the most disturbing.
The blond calling herself Wondergirl was standing next to the door of the room they had set up base in. She was a little shorter than Zinda, wearing a sullied red T-shirt with a gold eagle chest design and tight fitting, heavily ripped blue jeans. With her was another blond girl with long straight hair. Her clothing consisted of a top that stopped well short of her navel and a skirt that made Zinda’s own look positively prudish. The red boots and cape and the crimson ‘S’ on her chest boldly proclaimed her identity as the cousin of Superman himself, but the hardness in her blue eyes belied the family bond.
Barda was standing in her sable and gold armour, seven feet of toned female fury – literally. The former leader of Darksied’s all female fighting elite still held the mega-rod that she had used to blast a hole through the body of the vile German supervillain. Zinda knew that most of the superheroes of this modern era took a dim view of killing, but she had fought in real war and held no illusions about its necessities. Apparently neither did Barda.
‘We are from a time some fourteen months from this point,’ the black clad warrior woman said matter-of-factly.
Zinda took in the state of their clothes – even Supergirl’s cape showed a few rips and frays, and the women had the same look the pilot had seen on the faces of resistance fighters in occupied France, used to being constantly on the run and only a few steps ahead of the enemy. ‘I take it things ain’t going so well, huh?’
Wondergirl looked away. Barda remained impassive. Mostly.
‘In our present – your future – Vandal Savage has succeeded in conquering most of the land mass of your planet. His forces have killed almost all of the superhero population, and ruthlessly hunt those few of us who have escaped his purge. The world governments, curse their snivelling hides, agreed to unconditional surrender to Savage’s demands after he had defeated the Justice League and publicly executed their last remaining member.’
Wondergirl clenched her fist on the wall so hard than pieces of rock cracked off and fell to the floor. Her eyes were misty.
‘Diana,’ she said hoarsely.
Zinda stared at them aghast, trying to fathom the sheer horror of it. ‘But, come on…everyone? Batman? Superman!?
It was Supergirl’s turn to grow angry. ‘The purple death ray changed everything. It had the power to kill anything.’ Her eyes burned red with sudden heat. ‘Even Kal.’
‘How,’ Zinda began, swallowing hard, ‘how did they get it?’ She looked at the girl in jeans. ‘Sorry, your name…’
‘Cassandra Sandsmark,’ the girl said. She looked to be just over eighteen. ‘I took over as Wondergirl after Diana’s sister Donna gave up the name.’ Zinda nodded comprhendingly, remembering Oracle mentioning something like that in her sessions to help the temporally displaced WW2 pilot adjust to the new century. ‘We can’t be absolutely certain,’ the blond Wondergirl said grimly, ‘except that it was shortly after they seized Themyscria. The villains used, or are using, a temporal displacement field around the island that isolates it from the rest of the world. While time is passing normally for us inside, since the attack mere nano-seconds have elapsed beyond the field boundary. Once they possessed the Amazon tech, the villains had time to perfect their weaponry and then deploy it ruthlessly and with complete surprise when the time field was deactivated.’
‘And by that time, almost everyone they had captured was dead,’ Barda added. ‘There was no opportunity to gather exact information.’
‘So how did you travel back here, then?’ Zinda asked.
‘My mother box,’ the towering black helmeted woman said, showing Zinda the small rectangular device fixed to her arm. It appeared inert. ‘Opening a portal in time is beyond its normal functions, but we were able to modify it to key in on the energy signature of the villains’ time field.’
‘Time travel.’ Zinda shook her head. ‘Thought my case was something special. Can you do that again if we need to?’
‘No,’ Barda replied flatly. ‘My husband, Scott - Mister Miracle - calibrated the mother box and linked it to his own to boost the power. Almost all the energy of both boxes was required. Barely enough remained to heal your injuries’
Zinda did indeed feel her strength returning, slowly. ‘Swell. So is your hubbie here now as well?’
Once again, the uneasy silence. Barda’s eyes were cold as sapphires. ‘We were discovered too soon. Scott was force to provide a distraction while we made the jump. He was…left behind.’
Supergirl looked up at the woman from Apokalypse. ‘He may have escaped,’ she said comfortingly.
‘It is irrelevant,’ Barda commented, almost convincingly. ‘If we are successful here the timeline will be altered and those events expunged.’ Her eyes grew even harder. ‘And we will succeed.’
Zinda felt able to stand, and put weight on her legs. It was amazing, given the pounding she had taken. Cassie gave her a hand getting to her feet as she steadied herself against the wall. ‘So these gals are with you then?’ she asked, nodding at the other occupants of the room.
There were three of them, all women, sitting in the far corner and talking amongst themselves. One was black with blonde hair, dressed in a form hugging body suit that left her shoulders bare and displayed some generous cleavage. It was styled in black and grey – now heavily patched like all her companions clothes except Supergirl’s. On one side of her was a tall woman, almost as tall as Barda herself. Like Barda, too, she was muscular, but while the New Goddess radiated a sense of focussed, disciplined danger this woman seemed like a bear on a leash. She had wild red hair and what looked like an earring through her nose, and sharply angled tattoos down her left arm that not unlike the ones Zinda had seen on islander men in her days flying missions against the Emperor Hirohito’s forces in the Pacific.
Which brought her to the third member of the little group. Dressed unashamedly in a red body suit with a flaring yellow rayed sun across the chest, the Japanese girl silently polished the sword she carried and which Zinda remembered was called a Katana – as apparently was the girl herself. Her black hair was cut shoulder length and hid most of her face, and though her dark eyes behind the red mask she wore never wandered over to the blonde pilot Zinda had the distinct impression she was measuring her up, along with everything else in the room.
‘Thunder,’ Barda said, pointing at the dark girl. ‘Grace,’ she nodded to the red head, ‘and Katana. All members of the Outsiders. Among the few to last against Savage’s attack. Like all of us, they have much to avenge.’
‘So let’s get on with it, then,’ the woman Grace muttered, standing up and facing Barda eye to eye. ‘We hit them, take down the time whatever, call for the cavalry and hand these fuckers their asses.’
‘They have hostages,’ Zinda said, testing her ability to stand. She was shaky but thought she could manage. ‘Civilians.’
‘Girl, you wanna know how many civilians Savage killed when he hit the JLA?’ Grace fired back. ‘Not to mention Washington, London and Beijing?’
‘We don’t sacrifice the hostages,’ Cassie said, staring hard at the towering Outsider. ‘Any of them. That’s not the Amazon way.’
‘The Amazon way died screaming strapped to the torture machine Professor Ivo made out of the Eiffel tower, while the rest of the world had to watch on holographic feeds.’ Grace snapped. ‘Do you remember how many days it took Wonder Woman to die, girl – or the heroes that were killed, or captured and executed, trying to rescue her. Do you remember the sounds she made while they had her chained up naked and were torturing her to death?’
Wondergirl’s eyes flared and she took a step forward, fist clenched, but Kara held her as the Japanese girl Katana stepped between the two. ‘All of us remember, Grace,’ she said. Her voice was musical but steely. The red head calmed a little, and Katana turned to Cassie. ‘But it is not just a matter of the lives of those on this island, but of the entire world. This plan cannot go forward.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Diana would agree, yes?’
Cassie breathed out slowly. ‘Yes,’ she said finally.
‘Okay, so let’s get this ball rolling,’ Zinda said into the silence that followed. ‘What’s first?’
Barda looked at Supergirl, who nodded and stared hard at the wall, panning her gaze around the room. Her blue eyes took on a slightly luminous quality. ‘I can see some of the villains and the hostages, but there are other areas that seem to be shielded somehow.’ She grimaced. ‘I can’t see any of the hero captives, or Savage.’
‘The time field machine,’ Barda asked.
Supergirl stared for moment longer then shook her blond head in frustration.
‘Looks like we’ll have to scout the old fashioned way, then,’ Grace huffed.
‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some more creeps like Nazi off by themselves and they can tell us where to look,’ Thunder said.
‘Sound,’ Barda commented, and looked annoyed. ‘I should not have killed Nazi as I did when we arrived.’
‘No one here blames you, under the circumstances,’ Supergirl said to the battle goddess.
Barda raised an eyebrow as the turned to the teenager. ‘I meant I should not have killed him so quickly.’ Supergirl opened her mouth, then quickly closed it again.
Katana was shifting uneasily, also studying the walls. Her clear tension spread to Lady Blackhawk, and the pilot lowered her voice as she spoke. ‘Hey, didn’t you gals say these SOB’s were safe inside their time field.’
Barda nodded.
‘Well, if they know think no-one can get in, why go to the trouble of hiding where they have this doohicky of theirs is stashed?’
The silence grew more tangible around them. ‘They might have it hidden against an escape attempt by one of the captives,’ Thunder mused.
‘Or, Barda began…
The far wall of the chamber suddenly blasted inwards. Katana dived for cover behind Thunder, as miraculously rocks and debris bounced harmlessly off her slender black frame. Barda shielded Zinda with her armoured form, Grace and Wondergirl braced themselves as slabs of rock the size of footballs buffeted them back.
But the most dramatic effect was displayed by Supergirl. As the blast wave struck her the supposedly invulnerable teen was lifted off her feet and catapulted back into the wall, falling like a broken puppet next to Zinda. The gorgeous ace stared at the caped girl in shock as she noticed the debris seemed strewn with pieces of glowing green fragments.
‘…they know we’re here.’ Barda completed her sentence, as a group of over a dozen costumed figures stepped through the dust cloud, led by Deathstoke the Terminator. He tossed aside the still smoking shoulder launcher he had used on the wall and drew his sword. The heroines formed up around the moaning Supergirl, faces set grimly.
‘Hello ladies,’ Deathstroke said, and they could hear the smile in his words behind the black and orange mask. The villains behind him were grinning like ghouls. ‘Welcome to the party. There’s always room for more.’
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