Chapter 32: The Best You Can Do

“Kara, sweetie, wake up.”

“Huh? Mom?” Kara sat up sleepily and rubbed her eyes. It was Emily, not Mom. Kara couldn’t help it: her face fell.

Emily regarded her silently for a moment, then said, “Honey, a plane went down in a remote part of Siberia. They’re not sure where exactly, and there’s a bad snowstorm so they can’t search by air. The Russians are hoping you can find any survivors before they die of exposure.”

“Oh,” said Kara, still sleepy. “All right.” Even she needed some sleep, and it had only been a couple of hours since she went to bed. That had only been a few hours after she returned from California. She swung her feet out of bed and sat for a moment, waking up.

She looked up at Emily. “Emily… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

Emily sat down next to her and gave her a one-armed hug. “I understand, sweetie.”

Kara leaned into Emily for a moment, then stood up. She stretched, yawned, then blurred to her closet, where Supergirl’s uniform hung on the door. She paused. “Umm…”

Emily smiled. “I’ll close my eyes, honey.”

“I’m done,” said Kara a moment later; she was already dressed. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“Moscow,” said Emily. “Red Square, which should be lit up and easy to recognize. There’ll be someone waiting there with the information you need. Do you know how to get to Moscow?”

“Yes, I remember.” She’d memorized the locations of all the major cities of the world.

Emily stood up, and Kara came over to hug her.

“Sweetheart?”

“Yes, Emily?”

“This is a plane crash; it won’t be pretty. I almost said no. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Kara thought about people surviving the crash, only to freeze to death. “I’m not sure I want to, but I have to.”

Emily kissed the top of her head and released her. “I’m so proud of you. Be careful.”

Kara nodded, then floated silently up and through her roof exit. A moment later, there was the faint echo of a sonic boom.

• • •


It took Kara over an hour to find the plane, even with the estimated position the people in Moscow had given her. She’d had to search nearly a thousand square miles.

Just looking through the snowstorm wasn’t enough: the snow was falling so heavily that the plane was already covered by about four inches’ worth. She couldn’t even see the glow of the aircraft’s residual heat with her special vision. To find it she’d had to focus her sight through the snow and track the contours of the ground as she flew.

Now that she’d found it, she zipped down, then halted, unsure what to do. The plane had made an emergency landing in a relatively flat area, but the fuselage had broken in two. She looked into the cockpit and recoiled: the pilots were obviously dead.

She hesitated, uneasy, but if anyone was left alive they needed her help or they would surely die, and soon. It was well below freezing, and the roar of the wind was like a physical force.

Maybe they’re all dead. The thought of being alone with a plane full of dead people sent an electric current of fear through her. She didn’t feel the cold, but she was shivering nonetheless.

After a minute, she floated down to the gap between the two halves. There were more bodies strewn all around amidst loose wreckage. Again, she hesitated. She hovered about fifteen feet off the ground, the wind howling fiercely around her like a rabid animal.

She saw men, women, a few children. People like her family and friends, their lives ended abruptly, their bodies mangled.

There were so many of them. They lay lifeless, cold, and silent, covered in thick white shrouds. She wanted nothing more than to fly away from the gruesome sight. It was bad enough with the snow hiding everything; she didn’t dare look through it. After all she’d seen she was afraid to look inside the plane.

She finally thought to focus her hearing through the roar of the blizzard and check for heartbeats. She found them: a couple in the front half, and many more in the rear. She shuddered and choked out a sob, half from relief and half from sorrow. The graveyard terrors she’d felt faded, leaving only grief.

Though the dead still weighed on her, she was able to turn her mind back to saving the living. She entered the rear half of the fuselage and noticed a group of about thirty people huddled together for warmth at the back. Several of them were injured. They were as far from the opening to the elements as they could get.

She floated silently down the debris-strewn aisle. As she passed down the length of the aircraft, she noted three people who were alive, but unconscious and still in their seats. There were more dead. She tried not to think about them.

As she drew near, someone noticed her and said something she couldn’t understand. The rest looked up in wonder.

She hovered in front of them. “I came to help. Can anyone speak English?”

One woman spoke up in a heavy accent. “I sp-speak Eng-glish, y-yes.” She was shivering, as were the rest.

“I’ll warm you up.” Kara spent a minute gently running her heat vision over the survivors and the cabin around them, her eyes glowing like heat lamps. The people relaxed visibly and let go of each other, even as they gaped at her.

“Th-thank you,” said the woman. “You are Supergirl?”

Kara nodded. “Yes. Is there anyone else alive?”

“There are two in front part. We cannot move them, they don’t wake up. Three more in back. The rest dead, I think.”

“The people in Moscow told me to bring the plane to Mirny, but they didn’t know it was broken like this. I don’t think I can lift both halves, so maybe we should put everyone in one of them? I guess this one, since it’s bigger?”

The woman looked unsure, and repeated what Kara had said to the remaining passengers. One man spoke at length, and the woman turned back to Kara. “This man is engineer, he says yes, that is good plan.”

Another woman spoke, and a discussion ensued. Kara watched, unsure, until it concluded. Her translator said, “We help get ready. Sooner is better, yes?”

Kara nodded and floated back up the aisle. She warmed the unconscious survivors with her vision as she passed. She floated into the front part of the plane and quickly located the two who were still alive. She didn’t want to carry them over her shoulder, so after warming them she simply ripped their seats out and carried them back to the other half, one at a time. She ripped some unoccupied seats from the rear half to make room, dumping them outside.

She wasn’t sure of the best way to handle the injured. She asked her translator if there was a doctor on board, but none of the conscious survivors had any medical training, not even first aid.

In a few minutes they had the living under control. Kara asked timidly, “What should we do about the… about the…” Her eyes shone, and she couldn’t continue. She waved vaguely at a motionless form a few rows up. She’d never seen so many dead people before. Before she’d become Supergirl, she’d never seen dead people at all. Her mind kept straying back to them despite her best efforts.

The woman regarded her seriously for a moment, then turned and spoke to the others. There was a short discussion, and she turned back. “Is important get hurt people to hospital fast. Others can come later for dead. You mark spot on map, no?”

“But…”

The woman put her hands on Kara’s shoulders and smiled sadly. “Don’t worry over them, OK?”

Kara nodded uncertainly. “Is everyone ready?”

They’d moved everyone towards the center of the rear half of the fuselage, well back from the opening to the elements. Those who were conscious all nodded.

Kara went to the front and floated outside. Following a suggestion from the engineer, she took the jagged ends of the jet’s ruptured skin in her hands, and methodically crimped it together like tinfoil around leftovers until the opening was sealed.

She softened the metal with her heat vision, squeezed it, pushed it, and bent it until it was a somewhat aerodynamic shape, enough for her to fly at a reasonable speed. She was glad the man had suggested this; she never would have thought of it herself. She hoped it held together until she got them to Mirny.

She wondered how she should pick the plane up. The wing would be easiest, but that scene from Kevin’s movie worried her. Superman had tried to grab the spinning airplane by its wing and it had snapped right off. She realized that since the plane couldn’t fly anyway, even if she accidentally damaged the wing it wouldn’t be a problem.

She floated to the one remaining wing and reached under it. The fuselage creaked as she lifted it into the air, but thanks to her… whatever it was, it stayed in one piece. She nodded; Superman in the movie must have been doing it wrong. She was sure her dad would never make a mistake like that.

She held it overhead, and carefully worked her way, hand over hand, towards the center, more or less under where the people were. Then she lifted into the air, breaking through the clouds in a matter of moments. She didn’t look down at those who’d been left behind, and tried not to think about them.

She stayed low since the cabin was not completely airtight and the passengers had no oxygen. She gently accelerated to a few hundred miles per hour; the plane couldn’t handle supersonic speeds even if it were still in one piece. Her makeshift nosecone vibrated noisily, but held together. The lone wing tried to make the plane flip over, but she was able to compensate easily.

She looked up through the fuselage to check on the passengers, and everyone looked OK. She focused her attention on getting the plane to Mirny.

• • •


It was about two hundred eighty miles to Mirny and it took her an hour to get there; the sun had set by the time she arrived.

As she approached the airport she spotted a cluster of ambulances, fire trucks, and other emergency vehicles on a side apron. Looking past the end of the single runway, she gawked at what had to be the biggest hole in the ground she’d ever seen, easily more than a half mile across. It looked to be a mine.

The rescue workers watched silently as she floated down, the plane held above her. She stopped just above the tarmac. She worked her way back out from under the plane in reverse, until she held it by the wing, and finally set it down. The fuselage groaned again as she released it.

She was about to go around to the front to open it up again when the emergency exits over the wing popped out; the rear door swung open as well, extending the emergency slide. Kara expected people to slide down it like they had in the safety videos she’d watched on flights to Kansas and California, but they didn’t.

Rescue workers charged forward and were soon swarming the plane. Kara didn’t quite know what to do with herself, so she just stood in the light snow that was coming down and watched. Everyone was so busy they ignored her.

It was so different from London, where people had been intensely curious. All alone in the middle of Siberia, she felt a little lost. She almost left, but remembered she had to tell someone where the crash site was.

A metal ramp was attached to the rear door, and medical personnel scrambled into the plane. At the same time, the passengers finally started to emerge over the wing. Shortly thereafter, the injured were being carried out on stretchers and rushed to the ambulances. Kara watched them go, biting her lip.

One of the five unconscious passengers was carried out covered with a sheet.

Kara’s breath caught; her vision zoomed into the man’s chest, confirming her suspicion.

He’d died. While she’d been bringing the plane here, he’d died.

Kara slowly sank down into a crouch; she folded her arms on top of her knees, and rested her chin on them.

She hadn’t found the plane quickly enough. She’d hesitated after she found it, afraid of the dead. She hadn’t gotten the survivors here quickly enough. She hadn’t been fast enough, or known exactly what to do. This man had died as a result. Would some of the other people who died have lived if she’d been faster?

Superman — Dad — doesn’t mess up like this. She felt her face turn hot with shame, and tears trailed down her cheeks. She buried her face in her arms.

She didn’t know how long she sat there before she felt hands on her arms, gently lifting her to her feet. She looked up through her tears, and blinked to clear her eyes.

A gray-haired man wearing the red cross of medical services was looking back at her. “What is wrong, child?”

“He died,” she whispered hoarsely. “A lot of them died. They’re… they’re back with the rest of the plane. I should have found them faster… gotten them here faster…”

The man sighed and shook his head. “You found them faster than anyone else could have. You saved many lives today. I am very sorry a child like you had to face such death and destruction. But it is not your fault.”

“But…”

“You will not find anyone here who thinks you failed. Even the best, most experienced adults cannot save everyone. I am a doctor. Whenever a patient dies, I feel what you are feeling. We can try our best, but it is not always enough.”

Kara nodded, downcast.

“Now, come with me. You can tell us where the plane crashed and we will take care of the rest. Then you can go home, yes?”

• • •


Emily felt Kara stir in her embrace, and opened her eyes. The gray light of predawn was just starting to come through the windows.

She’d slept in Kara’s bed, worried she’d be needed when her foster daughter returned. Kara had made enough noise coming in to wake her, and she’d been right: the girl had been distraught. Emily had listened as she’d related the whole tale.

Kara was not a stranger to death: she’d talked about mourning her pet hamster, and how she spent time on a farm every year, where death was part of the natural order. It was just seeing people die that she was not used to, especially on the scale she’d witnessed this night. It was a terrible thing for anyone to see, much less a child of eleven. She seemed haunted by the images of the dead.

Emily had spent nearly an hour helping Kara with her grief and distress. She’d reinforced the message of the Russian doctor, trying to help her foster daughter understand that as amazing as she was, she didn’t have the power to make everything turn out right every time.

What counted was that she’d done her best. That was true for everyone, and Emily told Kara she was sure it was true for Superman. Kara had frowned at that, skeptical.

Finally she’d simply held the girl, murmuring reassurances, until she fell asleep in Emily’s arms. Rather than risk waking her, she’d slowly leaned back, continuing to hold Kara, and stared at the ceiling. She had her own guilt to deal with.

When she’d allowed Kara to start doing rescues it had been with great reluctance, and with the expectation that the Kents would show up soon to collect their daughter. Instead, this had dragged on for well over a month and a half, and there was still no sign of Kara’s parents.

It always came down to the same conundrum: Kara could continue being Supergirl, which had the potential to disturb her as it had tonight. Or she could quit, and do nothing while people died, knowing she could have helped — which would also disturb her. This was a Catch-22 if ever Emily had heard of one.

She had thought that allowing Kara to help would be best, but now she wasn’t so sure. She wished Kara could take a break from being Supergirl, but didn’t know if that would be possible. She did know that Kara needed to have another session with Penny.

She wondered how Kara’s father had survived this dilemma while growing up. Surely he’d been under the same pressure?

Going home with her parents would eliminate the stress on Kara, because Superman would be on the job. But while she was here, the only way to shield her would be to get her away from the news, away from the government, away from people needing help. She didn’t know if Kara would be willing to turn her back on Supergirl, even temporarily, and she was certain that the people who were already complaining that she was “holding back” Kara would complain even more.

She’d chased these thoughts and more around her mind until she, too, had fallen asleep. After a scant couple of hours, she was awake again.

Kara yawned and blinked. She focused drowsily on Emily and smiled. “Morning.”

Emily smiled back. “Good morning, sweetheart. Are you feeling better?”

“I guess,” said Kara. “I still feel bad I wasn’t able to save everyone.”

“Don’t,” said Emily firmly. “If you hadn’t gone they all would have died. Just try to focus on the thirty-six people who are alive today because you saved them. Think about how happy their families are to get them back, OK?”

Kara nodded.

Emily kissed the top of her head. “Come, let’s get the day started.”

• • •