"Ugh!" "Oh!" "Mari, are you crazy?" "Do you know what I could do to you with this ring?" "Promises, promises." "Why the ambush?" "Seems like the only way I can get your attention." "We haven't gone out in nearly a month." "It hasn't been that long." "Not going to argue about it, boo." "You're taking me out to dinner tonight." "I'm in the mood for Chinese." "The place by my apartment?" "No, a romantic little spot I know in Beijing." "I'm not off-shift until 1600 hours." "That's breakfast time in China." "I like breakfast." "It's a date." "Okay." "John, aren't you forgetting something?" "Whoops!" "This isn't the time or place, Mari." "It's unprofessional." "I'm compensating for the interference." "Say again?" "This is a distress call from the mining ship Hockalint." "We took samples from a vein of unidentified ore, and that's when everything started going wrong." "Slow down." "Tell me what happened." "Radiation from the ore." "Ship's main power is off-line." "We're stranded, and there's some kind of chain reaction taking place in the vein we took the sample from." "I need your data on the ore." "Transmitting, for all the good it'll do." "It appears to be a simple hematite, but iron oxide isn't radioactive." "Look at the atomic number:" "676." "It makes no sense." "Shayera." "Is this what I think it is?" "It's transuranic iron ore." "Nth Metal, like my mace but unrefined." "What about it?" "We're stranded on a rock pretty much made of the stuff." "Are we in any danger?" "Sit tight." "Don't move, and don't touch anything." "Prep a javelin for me." "I'm on my way." "Wait." "I'm assigning a support team." "Don't need one." "I'll handle it myself." "That wasn't a suggestion." "You haven't been pulling your weight as a team leader." "Excuse me?" "You're not alone anymore." "Stop behaving as if you are." "I'll go with you." "No, you won't." "You're both founding members." "I don't want there to be any question who's leading the mission." "Then I'll go." "Fine." "You gotta be kidding me." "Javelin 26 is ready for you on Pad 9." "I'll have the last team member meet you there." "Come on, then." "Yes?" "Why did you do that?" "Vixen hasn't spent much time in space." "Good experience for her." "You know what I mean." "Sending my girlfriend and my ex on the same mission?" "Difficult as it may be for you to believe," "I don't take your love life into consideration when I make command decisions." "I've assembled a rescue party." "Help is on the way." "Signing off." "I don't know how to thank you." "But I'm sure I'll think of something." "No, no, no." "Reset your hyperdrive vectors." "Nobody likes a back-seat driver, ma'am." "You need another 20 hours of flight time before you're certified." "And some of us are already right certifiable." "Vigilante, you got a problem with me, we can take it to the gym after the mission's over." "No problem, ma'am." "Resetting vectors." "Maybe you ought to try riding sidesaddle for a change." "Let him be." "Men have fragile egos." "To get what you want, you have to know how to talk to them." "I don't do that." "So I've heard." "But maybe you ought to learn." "Guys, I'm not seeing a mining ship out there." "There's nothing on sensors, either." "I followed the distress beacon, just like in the manual." "Not saying you didn't, but this is weird." "I'm not detecting any Nth Metal, either." "We could sit here studying on it all night, or we could go take a look-see." "All right, but stay sharp." "This looks funky." "Somebody was here." "Maybe they went into the mines." "What is it?" "The shadow's fake." "The whole mine's a hologram." "We've been suckered." "Move!" "Back to the javelin!" "Vig, lay down some cover fire!" "Scatter!" "Head for cover!" "Can you even see what you're shooting at?" "Nope, just keepin' 'em honest." "Giving away our position is more like it." "You got a better idea, I'm open." "How about we fight the bad guys instead of each other?" "Shayera Hol!" "Paran Dul?" "Friend of yours?" "Birds of a feather." "Did you really think you could get away with betraying the entire Thanagarian empire?" "Hold up." "I thought we were the ones she betrayed." "Sounds like she betrayed everybody, cowboy." "You helped the Justice League destroy my hyperspace bypass." "Only to stop you from killing everyone on Earth." "That bypass was our last hope." "Without it, we were helpless against our enemies." "Because of you, the Thanagarian empire lost the war." "Nothing to say, traitor, or hadn't you heard?" "Hro." "What happened to Hro?" "After you and the Justice League destroyed the bypass, our fleet was ordered back to Thanagar." "By the time we exited hyperspace, the Gordanians had already begun their final assault on our home world." "In their minds, the war was over, but not for Hro Talak." "He single-handedly destroyed a dozen of the enemy battleships." "More." "But finally, the battle was lost." "Of our entire fleet, only Hro Talak's ship remained." "He ordered us into a scout ship." "We barely made it out." "With his final breath, he destroyed the Gordanian flagship." "Too little, too late." "The war was already lost." "I didn't know." "You still have feelings for him." "For a lot of people I've let down." "All we want is Shayera Hol." "If you hand her over, the rest of you can go free." "If you choose to fight with her, you will most assuredly die with her." "Let me think on that." "You don't speak for the team, I do." "Maybe I should let them take me." "Like horse hockey." "Pardon my French." "We're Justice League." "We don't turn our backs on our teammates." "Still having a little trouble with that notion, huh?" "This is a waste of time." "We should be headed back home to join the resistance." "Not until the traitor is dead." "Or until she kills us." "No." "We're here to kill Shayera." "Calm down, Kragger." "Calm down." "We're killing her, though, right?" "Of course." "Put him down." "Don't confuse me." "My head doesn't work so good since..." "It doesn't work so good." "But I remember it's Shayera's fault I'm this way, right?" "Right." "That's right." "She hurt us all, and we're going to hurt her back." "I'm just saying," "Shayera Hol was an instructor in Espionage Wing." "She's better trained than the five of us put together." "Then we'll just have to outthink her, won't we?" "Hold your fire!" "What?" "That's loco!" "I got him!" "He wouldn't be flying that low unless he wanted to be seen." "You think he's a stalking horse to trick us into revealing our position." "What makes you so sure?" "Because it's exactly what I would do, and I'm one of them." "I've found their trail." "Search in delta configuration, but search on foot." "Why?" "We don't care about the others." "But she does." "She's with them on the ground." "That's where we look." "Vix, ain't this supposed to be your territory?" "Use some of your animal tricks to give us a leg up." "What makes you think I know anything about the jungle?" "I live in a loft in Chelsea." "We're going to split up." "We'll each try to find Paran Dul's ship and use her radio to contact the Watchtower for help." "Be a lot easier without all them bird folk in the way." "We should thin the herd first." "We'll do it my way." "You're still loyal to them, aren't you?" "She ain't loyal to nobody." "It's not about loyalty." "I understand them." "I understand how they feel." "Well, ma'am, all this understanding is liable to get us killed." "I'm not going to argue with you." "I'm in charge." "You have to" "What, trust you?" "Seems to me that's been tried." "Vig, we can't do this now." "She's mission leader." "She's a Thanagarian!" "I don't know what you did during the invasion" "I fought them." "So did I, for all the good it done me." "Filthy hawks caught me, locked me up in a tiny cell, humiliated me." "Your people, Hawkgirl." "I've told you not to call me" "You've been hit." "I was in a fight, remember?" "Why didn't you say anything?" "Didn't wanna raise no fuss." "If you don't trust me, you shouldn't have to follow me." "I'm going to take Paran Dul's offer." "Turn yourself in?" "We've been through this already." "What do you care?" "I'm just a filthy hawk, right?" "When I look at myself..." "Maybe I owe my people the chance to pass judgment on me." "You know, for the last few months, all I've been hearing is:" ""Shayera's so brave."" ""Shayera's so tough." "Shayera never quits."" "Vixen." "I'm embarrassed to say that I was maybe a little jealous of you." "But seeing you in action here," "I'm thinking John must have been talking about some other Shayera." "We're in this together." "That's how it's done." "You took Commander Talak from us, Shayera." "And your friend, the green one, did something to my mind, something bad." "I miss Commander Talak." "I miss being able to think without pain." "But no one's going to miss you." "I got plenty for these two." "Get Vigilante out of here!" "I won't leave you by yourself." "I'm right behind you." "I'll ditch as soon as you guys are clear." "You're wasting your time." "Right now, it's like an elephant is sitting on your" "Wait!" "Wait!" "Don't shoot!" "Please!" "I can't think of a good reason not to." "Because I can give you Shayera Hol." "You still want her?" "I'm supposed to believe you would give me your teammate?" "Heh!" "I'm brain-damaged, not stupid." "My animal senses are 100 times more acute than yours." "I could find her with ease." "And why would you want to?" "You mean besides saving myself?" "Shayera and I... we want the same man." "Enough of this." "Wait." "I believe her." "Lead the way." "Either of you got a med kit?" "We've got an analgesic projective back in the ship, after you help us." "If you want me in condition to track someone over this terrain, you'll take me to it right now." "Do it." "This will kill the pain." "You'll be needing that when you wake up." "J'onn, it's Vixen." "Can you hear me?" "Over." "Barely." "Increase your H.M. gain." "Over." "We've been ambushed by a bunch of Thanagarians who have a serious mad-on for Shayera." "Over." "J'onn?" "J'onn!" "I don't think he heard you, human." "She's taking too long." "I'm going back for her." "Only reason she ain't back:" "the hawks got her." "You already know that, so where are you really going?" "Where I should have gone in the first place." "Maybe they'll let her go if I give them what they want." "Dagnabbit, girl!" "I ain't gonna allow it!" "You're not really in a position to stop me, are you, cowboy?" "Please." "The Justice League is bound to send a search party in a day or two." "Stay safe." "Vaya con Dios." "Appears that you've got the drop on me, partner." "Ahh!" "May have spoke prematurely on that." "Now, you and me are gonna have a little confab concerning the location of your spaceship." "Would you care to surrender now or shall I have Kragger do something unseemly to your friend?" "Let her go and I'm yours, no tricks." "I'm sure." "Drop your mace, and we have a deal." "No!" "Who's flying my ship?" "Consarned, dang-busted, alien control panel which can't nobody work proper!" "I'm comin', darlin'!" "Yee-haw!" "Shayera!" "You folks mind?" "Doomed driver up here!" "You took everything from me!" "Destroy you!" "Destroy you!" "You okay?" "I will be, if you let me drive." "Aahh!" "Aahh!" "Need a lift?" "I was worried about you." "When do you want to do this?" "No time like the present." "Mari." "Shayera?" "Oh, man." "This is gonna be ugly." "Not to mention his taste in movies." "I know." "Old Yeller?" "What's that about?" "And he's such a Marine!" "You should see his underwear drawer." "He folds his socks." "I have seen his underwear drawer." "He still has feelings for you, you know." "I know." "Is it mutual?" "What's not to love?" "Funny thing about me:" "whenever I start a book or a movie, no matter how bad it is," "I just can't stop until I get to the end." "So even though John and I have only been together for a little while, well, I just like to see things through." "En garde."