The scene remained frozen for a full minute before a few bold soldiers finally walked over, rummaging through the robot wreckage to see if there was anything worth salvaging.
"Miss Queen, aren't you going to take a look?" Luthor asked Thea from his position well away from the battlefield.
"After you, Mr. Luthor." Thea had no intention of going over herself. She could tell at a glance whether a living being was alive or dead, but with a pile of machines like this, without Gideon to scan them, she couldn't be certain whether the enemy was truly finished.
Thea didn't go herself, but she could command others.
"Abby, cut the red wire on that arm-like piece of wreckage under your feet."
"Joe, see that iron box by your left hand? The thing inside emitting a faint yellow glow should be the energy block. Pry it out."
"Pearl, the thing by your feet is extremely dangerous. Kick it away."
Drawing on her extensive mechanical engineering knowledge, Thea pretended to peer through binoculars from a safe distance as she directed the group to systematically dismantle the wreckage.
No one objected. In their eyes, Thea was the quintessential scientist type, and commanding from the rear was perfectly normal.
They had no idea that this "scientist" could single-handedly annihilate eighty or a hundred robots of this caliber.
To the soldiers, Thea was a beauty, a billionaire, a scientist, and a leader all rolled into one. With so many halos surrounding her, none of them expected her to possess much combat prowess. The fact that she was willing to brave life and death alongside them was admirable enough. So even though everyone was being ordered around by her, not a single complaint was raised.
"The weapon systems, communication systems, and energy supply—once we've stripped those, that should cover it, right? Mr. Luthor, what do you think?" Still holding the binoculars, Thea continued issuing instructions. The robots, already shattered across the ground, were being dismantled even further. After muttering a few calculations under her breath, she turned to Luthor beside her.
Now that they were all in the same boat, Luthor wasn't about to oppose her. He observed carefully and offered several suggestions, all of which Thea accepted. Neither she nor Luthor could assemble a robot from scratch—but taking one apart? Child's play. Scientific principles were largely interconnected. No matter how absurdly powerful Brainiac was, he didn't have technology powered by love—that much was certain.
With the only enemy dealt with, everyone searched the spaceship twice more to confirm no threats remained. Only then did they return to the collection chamber and selectively restore another three hundred or so people.
General Lane needed to stabilize the situation in the city, so he gave the opportunity to be restored to his daughter. In the original timeline, she had experienced a day trip aboard a Kryptonian ship, but in this timeline that journey had been disrupted by Thea. Now, aboard an alien vessel, this could be considered Lois Lane's first real contact with extraterrestrial civilization. She touched this and examined that, endlessly curious.
Seventy percent of the dignitaries were restored to normal. They congratulated one another repeatedly and secretly swore that they would never again set foot in Metropolis to attend any damned Anti-Superman conference.
More than a dozen scientists were also pulled out. Experiencing extraterrestrial civilization for the first time, the group was practically vibrating with excitement. The spaceship's propulsion system, hull materials, and energy weapons became the focus of their heated discussions. The entire marching group moved in relative silence; only their nonstop chatter over the communication channel could be heard.
At first, Thea held herself back from interrupting, but eventually she couldn't resist and selected a few components that were close to Earth's current technological level to explain.
She had seen more spaceships than these scientists had seen living people. This ship's technology was indeed very advanced, but in the broader universe, it ranked upper-middle tier at best. After all, Earth was too remote, and Brainiac wouldn't waste anything particularly sophisticated on this backwater region.
Because of the successful de-atomization, the scientists had already accepted Thea as one of their own, and each of them humbly began seeking her input.
Some answers right, some wrong, and the rest pure speculation—Thea casually deflected their various questions while leading the way toward the main control room. This wasn't due to any foresight on her part; a few military hackers had traced the signal source and pinpointed the location.
Pretending she had no idea how to operate the ship, Thea took out a tablet and recorded everything aboard that resembled written text. She huddled with the group of scientists off to the side, throwing out wild guesses and weaving in a few subtle suggestion spells. After continuous brainstorming and pooling the collective wisdom of everyone present, a rudimentary spaceship operation manual was officially produced.
"First, adjust the oxygen levels on the ship to Earth standards!"
"Then figure out how that artificially synthesized food is actually made. We're full-sized now, so the existing supplies won't be enough."
"Check our current position. Are we still in the Milky Way? What's this ship's maximum speed?"
Thea boldly found a crate and perched on it, legs crossed casually. She was becoming more and more adept at commanding others. The scientists and politicians had no clue what to do on their own, so when given clear orders, no one complained. Everyone racked their brains, combining the manual with trial and error to explore the ship's functions.
The oxygen issue was easy to solve—setting it to Earth standards was sufficient.
Once the environmental tests matched Earth conditions, Thea was the first to strip off the cumbersome spacesuit. For everyone else it was life-saving equipment, but for her it was purely a prop. She didn't want to wear it for a single second longer than necessary.
Seeing her "exemplary leadership," everyone else followed suit and removed their spacesuits.
Several leaders heard that there was no food on the ship. Undaunted, they organized a few soldiers who hadn't yet been restored to their original size to transport food from inside the glass enclosure, then enlarged it for everyone to eat.
Thea didn't have time to worry about their affairs. She was examining the ship's flight logs. After just a brief glance, she knew the ship had long since left the Solar System.
"How far are we from Earth now?" Thea could understand most of the ship's text even without using the ring; it was essentially written in the Universal Common Language. Luthor didn't have that advantage—he was a pure Earthling—but he was still impressive. With his photographic memory, he had forcibly memorized all the symbols. Through deduction alone, he could parse sixty to seventy percent of the text. Seeing Thea frown, he quickly asked in a low voice.
Thea glanced back at him, hesitated for a moment, then told him the truth. "According to the flight records, converted into Earth distance units, we're approximately 1.5 light-years from Earth."
Luthor immediately fell silent. The number 1.5 didn't sound large, but the diameter of the Solar System was only 0.003 light-years. This distance was unimaginably vast.
"This ship couldn't have taken us this far in one jump, could it? Does it have some kind of jump drive? Space-folding or similar technology?" Several high-ranking officials were popping champagne to celebrate in the distance, while the more pragmatic scientists remained nearby studying the ship's structure. Hearing Thea's words, they all went pale. A round-eyed, portly old man spoke up.
"Professor Stein," Thea acknowledged first. This man was none other than one half of the Firestorm duo from the Waverider—though at this point in time, he wasn't Firestorm yet and had only met Thea yesterday.
Thea had initially been quite surprised to find this physics heavyweight in Metropolis. She'd heard he was here to attend some kind of seminar.
"Professor, you're right. This ship does indeed have jump technology," Thea said, first giving them some reassurance. Then she shifted tone. "However, during a jump, the ship's systems were designed around a robot's physical tolerances. That means when the ship passes through a black hole, it will instantly generate enormous g-forces. The human body simply can't withstand them."
She handed her tablet to the group. "This is the overload data I calculated. It would generate roughly 200 Gs. For reference, even our best pilots can only withstand about 9 Gs."