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Ballus ran painfully in the direction that Supergirl and the escaping Earth girls took, towards the shuttle bay. He now knew what she intended, but she would not escape from him and his wrath. Supergirl would pay for what she did to him, he swore to himself. The attack upon the ship had distracted him and permitted Supergirl to catch him by surprise and nearly thermally castrate him. Oh, she would pay, he vowed to himself. He had a few surprises in store for her, things that even Slaver did not know about.
The ship was now in total chaos as crewmen shouted and swore, preparing themselves to face the final assault that was soon to come from the Star Legion Marines. Ballus now understood why he had felt so uncomfortable about the twin suns. The threat was real. The suns had restored some of Supergirl's powers. Each of the stars by themselves did not give off the proper radiation to return Supergirl to normal, but combined they made Supergirl a serious threat. Not only to Slaver and his organization, but perhaps to himself as well. She could not be allowed to interfere with his master plan, he thought. No one must come between him and his goal. Not Supergirl, not Slaver, not Lysander. No one!
He knew that he must not allow Supergirl to live, regardless of Slaver and his plans for her. The attack will cause a serious set-back to his plans. But, he had thought of a possible way to utilize Supergirl...and her death, as a way to use this defeat to his advantage. For that, he had to capture Supergirl for himself. But before that could happen, he wanted to make sure that all traces of his existence were erased.
"Lieutenant!", he shouted, stopping a blue uniformed security officer.
"Yes sir!", the officer relied, throwing Ballus a snappy salute. Ballus was pleased that most of the crew members were keeping their heads.
"Initiate the self-destruct sequence. Authorization code is 0990909 beta. Got that?" "Yes sir! Self-destruct code 0990909 beta! Anything else, sir?", the officer replied with a smile. He knew that he was going to die in combat with the Star Legion, and was pleased that he would be taking a large number of him into the cold pits of hell.
"Yes. Initiate the sequence in 5 minutes. Set the delay for 5 minutes. That will give us 10 minutes to bring those curse Legionnaires into our trap. Now, go!", Ballus replied, pushing the officer towards the engineering section and the fusion reactor, not waiting for any response from the officer. He then raced for his quarters. He would go to the hanger bay, but there were a few things that he wanted to pick up first. A few items that would assure his victory over Supergirl....and Slaver as well, if he should attempt to interfere with his plans.
Ballus soon reached the hanger bay, carrying a large metal case. He entered, and then locked the entry doors behind him, punching in a code into the access panel, locking it and freezing the controls. He wanted to make sure that no one would be able to get in or out, except by shuttle into space.
The bay doors were still closed and Ballus could hear no engine noise and knew that Supergirl had not escaped. He stood still, closed his eyes, and opened his mental senses, searching for life within the shuttle bay. It did not take him long to detect Supergirl, along with six other Earth girls, and.... He opened his eyes. Damn!, he thought to himself. He would have to wait for the right time to make his move in capturing Supergirl. Now was not the time.
The Trull silently boarded another shuttle, one specially adapted for him in secret, and closed the shuttle door behind him. He buckled himself in and began his pre-flight checks. If nothing else, Ballus vowed to be safely away from the Klarion Rebel when it exploded in another six minutes.
***
Supergirl had just started to make some sense of the shuttle's instruments when the shuttle door swung open and Slaver and another man, a Vegan, came rushing inside. The girls behind her screamed in terror, and Supergirl started to turn towards Slaver to let him have a major dose of what he gave Ballus when Slaver activated their paralyzing collars. All the girls cried out and froze in place in their seats.
"Thought you would escape me, huh, Supergirl?", Slaver sneered as he came up behind the young heroine. He grabbed a fist full of her long blonde hair and bent her head back so that he could glare into her eyes. She wished that the collar did not affect her heat vision, but it did. Otherwise, she would have burnt out his eyes.
Slaver snarled into her face, "You are going to pay, Supergirl, and I am going to delight myself in punishing you. But, right now we simply do not have the time." Saying that, he undid the harness that held the superheroine in the pilot's seat and threw her to the floor at Commander Lysander's feet.
"Secure the women, Commander. Make sure to put their arms inside the harnesses. That will keep them secure and out of our way. I will begin the pre-flight checks."
The two men went to work. Tasdron Lysander redid the harnesses of the girls already seated, placing their arms under the webbing before tightening them up again. He then bent down and lightly lifted the paralyzed Supergirl and placed her in a vacant seat and fastened her in, with the harness holding her arms tightly pinned to her body. He also secured her legs and ankles to the chair with straps that were included especially for the purpose of transporting slaves in the shuttle, and turned towards the rest of the girls.
Soon he had the rest of the Earth girls secured as Supergirl was and moved forward to the cockpit. Slaver moved over to the co-pilot/navigator's station and Lysander sat down into the pilot's seat and strapped himself in. By now, they could hear a warning klaxon start to sound. A different one than the one that had started to sound once they had been attacked by the Star Legion.
"That's the self-destruct! I did not authorize that!", Slaver barked. He punched in a code to activate the computer system, and saw that they had only 5 minutes to get safely away from the Klarion Rebel. He checked the code. It was not one that he recognized. He punched a few keys, to attempt to cancel the self-destruct. He did not want his crew and his ship destroyed like this. The main ship's computer did not respond to any of his code instructions. He had been locked out! He glanced over at Lysander who was now starting the engines.
"I can't stop it. Someone has tampered with the system! We don't have much time, Commander. It's time to get out of here."
"Ready, Captain. Open the bay doors." Slaver punched in a code and the bay door before them silently slid open. Neither man noticed the nearby shuttle shiver as it's own engines came on line. "I am going to give full-power and blast out of here, Captain. Hopefully, we should be able to escape the tractor beam and be away before the warcruisers or destroyer can concentrate on us."
"Right. Once we are far enough I will initiate warp," Slaver said as he began to code in the coordinates of his destination into the flight computer. Lysander did a quick check out the window into the bay, and then to the main tactical screen. He was all clear. For the moment. Without a second thought, he applied full power and the shuttle leapt out into space, shooting away from the Klarion Rebel. Two nearby fighters wheeled about to give chase, but were too late to chase the shuttle for right then it made it's jump into hyperspace. Nor were they fast enough to stop the second shuttle craft that followed closely at the heels of the first.
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