"Their species, as best I can describe it... there's a term I couldn't fully parse, but it sounds like their Overmind collapsed. After that, some kind of disease swept through the population—most of them died. What's left is this handful of survivors." Thea set aside the memory fragment. "A figure they call a 'Saint' dispatched them with a prophecy: that somewhere in human DNA, they would find a path to rebuilding their species—a new genetic foundation. That said, this individual's rank was fairly low. There are large gaps in what he knows. What did your side find?"
Batman looked genuinely put out. "We can't fly this ship. Demostar blood is required to initialize flight systems, and all subsequent command inputs have to come from an authorized operator. The computers we accessed are purely auxiliary. They don't actually run anything."
He was already running the math on what that meant and not enjoying the result. Without an operator, the ship was a very expensive piece of lunar furniture. The alien crew, though alive, couldn't exactly be stored in the Batcave—that was his private property. Thea's Management Committee, on the other hand, was a government institution and the directly responsible authority. The prisoners would inevitably end up there. Take away the crew, and what exactly did he have? A ship he couldn't move, full of cloned humans he couldn't kill, couldn't release, and couldn't ignore. His interest in the whole situation evaporated.
"We also need to call in the League."
"Why?"
"Their computer records reference a rogue—an outcast, expelled to Earth over a thousand years ago. Described as the most defiant and most powerful individual their species ever produced. The Overmind never received a death signal from him, which is what first drew their attention to Earth." Batman paused. "And there's one more thing. They arrived at this lunar position fifty years ago, but they launched from Jupiter. Meaning somewhere in this solar system—in the Jovian system—they have another installation. Possibly a whole city."
Thea said nothing for a long moment. She had no words left.
Mars had its population of over-powered residents. There was a hero with the codename Saturn Girl, which implied Saturn wasn't empty either. Now Jupiter was throwing aliens into the conversation. How many people are living in this solar system?
Factor in the Atlanteans, the pre-human civilizations that still left fingerprints on the world, the survivors of the First through Third Ages, whatever was allegedly living in the Earth's core, the serpent-people, the doomsday cults, the mad scientists, the extinction evangelists—and somehow, through all of that, the average human being was out here living their best life, watching the Super Bowl and buying overpriced lingerie show tickets. It was a miracle of the highest order.
What had been a Bat-family expedition was rapidly taking on the shape of a full League deployment.
They exchanged a look. Whatever was on Jupiter, they weren't leaving loose ends. There was no guarantee this ship wasn't sending a signal right now.
Thea and Batman left eight people on the vessel to continue copying data and cracking systems, then she teleported back to Earth with Batman in tow.
The League assembled quickly.
Superman, Diana, the Flash, and Hal Jordan converged from four directions. Aquaman was slightly delayed—but Mera, inspired by everything she'd absorbed at the last Female Justice League summit, had been working on a new approach. The two of them combined their command of water pressure to essentially launch themselves like a hydro-pneumatic cannon. The speed was actually impressive.
Thea half-listened as Batman walked the group through what they'd found. She was already thinking ahead.
An alien presence on Earth wasn't surprising. An alien presence that had been quietly observing the Justice League for decades—that was something else entirely.
She added her portion: the human genetic experimentation, the hybrid specimens, the cloned operatives already embedded in human society.
"The data stream going out has been intercepted and is contained. The woman named Priscilla has been detained, though analysis suggests she isn't the original—she's a clone of the actual subject, who is currently in FBI custody. The situation is complicated." Thea folded her arms. "And then there's the thousand-year-old exile. Somewhere on this planet, there is what their records describe as the strongest individual their species ever produced. He may have been here since before the Middle Ages. He may still be alive today. And then there's Jupiter."
"Earth first." Superman's voice carried the quiet finality of a decision already made. The others nodded.
Finding a millennium-old alien on a planet of eight billion people was a different kind of problem. The three most experienced members of the group split their approaches:
Thea sat apart and tossed pebbles, reading the fall—divination through fate-threads. Batman patched into his lunar team and began mining the alien computer for any reference to the individual's last known location. Superman took to the air and began systematically combing the globe with his super-hearing.
All three came up empty.
The Flash disappeared and came back with Cisco Ramon in tow.
"Use your vibrational sense," Barry said. "If we can give you a biological signature from one of the Demostars we have, can you track the ancient one?"
Cisco put his hands together and thought about it. "If I can lock onto a unique resonance frequency distinct to their physiology... yeah. Should work a lot faster than a planetary manhunt."
A Demostar prisoner was brought up. Cisco worked in silence for a minute, isolating a frequency signature that didn't belong to Earth, the Moon, or Jupiter.
"Got it." He opened his eyes. "It's not the Moon. It's not Jupiter."
Everyone leaned in.
"World's highest peak. There's a cave."
They thanked Cisco and sent him home. Gear was checked, adjustments made, and the group set course for the summit.
The peak was buried in clouds. Sustained temperatures of -30 to -40°C (-22 to -40°F), with gusts reaching Beaufort Force 7 and 8 raking the slope every few minutes, throwing sheets of snow in all directions. On the side of a mountain that most humans climbed only with months of preparation and at serious personal risk, seven very strange individuals had just appeared.
"It's freezing..." Barry's teeth were close to chattering. At this temperature, the air itself was fighting him, and his speed was paying the price.
Aquaman, who had a well-established tradition of fighting bare-chested, was faring no better. He held the trident with perfect composure, projected absolute confidence—and anyone watching his knuckles closely could tell he was absolutely suffering.
What made it worse was looking at two members of the group.
Batman—a baseline human, last Thea checked—was in a full thermal parka, which was at least understandable. But Thea, wrapped head to shoulders in a billowing quilted blanket, hunched like a turtle, performing the body language of someone about to shatter in a light breeze—she was the one who had punched out an Egyptian god.
"Do deities actually get cold?" Aquaman couldn't stop himself from asking. He pointed at Diana for good measure—Thea's counterpart was in full Amazon battle armor, and while it was superior gear, it was not exactly weatherproof, with skin visible at the arms and thighs.
Thea shifted her golden fleece cloak closer. (She had to admit—the fleece was extraordinary. Watching everyone else suffer made it feel even warmer somehow.)
"Of course they get cold," she said. "Most divine beings aren't pure energy constructs. Low temperature acts on everyone equally. Everyone except—" She gestured at Superman.
Superman stood in his standard suit, utterly untroubled. His years making base at the Fortress of Solitude had apparently been good preparation for this.
Everyone was miserable. The Flash's speed was compromised. Hal Jordan's willpower—the literal fuel of his ring—had frozen into a dull, unhelpful sludge somewhere around the tree line.
Batman had actually come prepared. High-altitude boots, ice axes, safety lines—enough kit for the whole team, though the others had clearly not planned for a mountain in their morning schedules.
Diana had declared that the climb itself was a form of discipline, and required Thea to ascend on foot rather than fly. Thea picked her way up the slope one grudging step at a time, as unimpressed with this approach as she had ever been with anything.