They nod but before heading off to do their individual tasks, Cassie speaks up, “We need a 100 planks right?”

“Yeah,” Kon agrees, “However I was thinking perhaps if we get 150 just to be on the safe side. Then there’s always plenty of spares if we need them.”

Cassie raises an eyebrow at him, “Are you sure?” She glances back at the ship. “Will we be able to store it all, along with everything else we still need to collect?”

“It should be fine. I want extra of this stuff because it’s more rare than everything else we need to get. Also this planet is abandoned, so there should be plenty around and then we won’t have to fight for it either.”

“Okay, if you’re sure…” She trails off looking doubtful.

Kon rolls his eyes and opens his to speak but he cuts himself off when a loud clanging sound could be heard from the distance. The three of them freeze, looking at one another with uncertainty. The clanging happens again and again, the sounds traveling through the air right to them at the ship.

“So much for this planet being abandoned.” Bart, the third member who had been uncharacteristically quiet until now, comments.

Both Kon and Cassie send him a glare for the obvious statement. “What do you think it is? Kon can you use your advanced hearing and see if they’re a threat?”

Kon focuses on his hearing, stretching it to where the source of the clanging sound was coming from. “It sounds like metal hitting metal.” He reports to the others. “Whoever it is they’re very angry and frustrated, I think they’re ship has crashed? They’re lost by the sounds of it?”

He draws his attention back to his crew, “Shall we go and see if they need help?”

Cassie looks apprehensive at the idea but Bart lights up. “They could be in trouble! I’ll go have a quick look!”

“Bart-” Cassie starts to protest but he’s gone before she could even finish his name. She turns on Kon then. “It could be a trap you know? Could be a siren or pirates, someone who wants to kill us.”

Kon shrugs, “Or it could be someone in need of our help. Look why don’t we just go see if they’re alright then get what we came for and go?”

In a blink, Bart is back in front of them. “Well it appears to be only one guy. I couldn’t tell what species he was from looking at him. He’s pretty angry and was beating, what looks like a singular escape pod, up with a metal bar which is making the clanging sound.”

“Escape pod? Oh joys he could be a universal criminal for all we know!”

Kon thinks about it for a moment, but there was a strong pull inside of him that’s telling him to go and check on them. He looks at Cassie, “I’ll go then, I’ll go see if they’re alright while you two start loading up the planks if you’re that concerned.”

Cassie crosses her arms and glowers at him, “We are not letting you go on your own to see an unknown. Bad things will happen if we allow that. We’ll go as a team if you really think we need to go and help them.”

Kon nods and sends her a smile which gets him a glare in return. No more was spoken between the three of them as they make their way over to where there was someone apparently beating up an escape pod. He and Cassie take to the air while Bart runs along the ground, making the trip there much quicker.

They make their way through the forest that was surrounding them, allowing Bart to lead the way, until they come across another opening. They stop at the edge, crouching behind some bushes of the clearing and take in the sight before them. Bart wasn’t wrong, there was a lone, male looking, figure beating up a broken looking escape pod. He seemed to be yelling, beating and kicking at it.

It was just as amusing watching it as it was worrying. There’s all kind of reason why this figure could have ended up like this. This guy was screaming at the thing as he beat it relentlessly with a pole.

“Now what?” Cassie asks watching the scene with a raised eyebrow. “It’s probably not best to go and engage with him while he’s got that pole in his hand.”

“That pole couldn’t hurt us.” Conner says looking at her.

She looks back at him, “Probably not but we don’t know who he is, what species he is, what power he holds and the reason why he’s here in the first place.”

Kon looks away, not wanting to admit she’s got a point. He looks back at the figure, his Caucasian skin, dark hair gives nothing away, neither does his lean figure. The way he’s speaking sounds different, he’s got an accent but Kon doesn’t recognise where it’s from.

“Well there’s only one way we’re going to find out.” Before the others could protest he stands up and leaves the bushes to walk out into the clearing. He goes slowly and starts making his way towards the raging figure.

“Hey!” He calls getting his attention. He mentally prepares himself to fight just in case he’s severely miscalculated this whole situation.

The figure stops at his words, the pole was in mid-air as he was taking another swing at the pod when Kon called. Just as Kon was getting closer the figure slowly looks over his shoulder, Kon sees his eyes go wide once they make eye contact and then the figure was spinning around fully and raising the pole up in defence, pointing it at Kon.

Kon stops walking and raises his hands up in the universal sign of peace. Hopefully the guy won’t attack him. “I don’t want to hurt you, can we talk?”

The guy doesn’t move, he’s looking at Kon with something like terror. He wasn’t that scary was he? He could be intimidating when he needs to be, but he’s trying to show that he wants to help.

Kon points to the pod behind him, “Your pod broken? Did you crash here? Do you need help?”

The guy carries on staring at him unmoving. It’s like he hadn’t even heard Kon. After a moment, the figure in front of him shifts, the pole moves slightly to the left of him which gets Kon glancing over his shoulder. He finds to Bart and Cassie now walking towards them. The guy opposite them was watching all of them with wide eyes and stood defensively, still using the pole like a barrier between him and them.

“I don’t think he can understand you Kon.” Cassie comments watching the guy before turning to him.

“But surely he should have a translator” Bart says. He looks at the figure in front of them, “Hey! Do you understand us? Do you have a translator?”

The guy continues to stare at them in what appears to be shock. Cassie slaps Bart, “You’re freaking him out!”

“It’s Not my fault! Hey what happened to your ship?” Before anyone could tell him not too, Bart zips over to the pod and looks around it. He stands still for a moment, peering into the broken window.

The guy blinks at them and whips his head around to find Bart close to him. He immediately backs up even more and holds the pole higher as if to fend Bart off. Then in a blink Bart was back at their sides, Cassie once again slaps him.

The figure somehow manages to look even more freaked out when Bart was no longer near him but now back at their sides. It’s strange, it’s like he’s never seen a speedster before.

“So if he can’t understand us what do we do?” Bart asks rocking on his feet.

Kon goes to answer him but he’s stopped short when another voice speaks up. They all look over with wide eyes at the guy, “Look I don’t know who you are, where I am, but I will severely hurt you if you don’t back the hell off.”

“Wait, so you do understand us?” Kon asks perplexed. He had the idea that he didn’t know what they were saying.

“I don’t know what you’re saying! Leave me alone! I’m warning you!”

“Kon maybe we should go.” Cassie says quietly. “He doesn’t have a translator how are we going to communicate with him? Also we’re here to do a job remember, we’re wasting our time.”

Kon stays silent for a moment, thinking through a few things. He knows that it’s almost pointless, how the hell do you communicate with someone who doesn’t understand you but you can understand them? But there was something inside of him telling him that this is wrong, how he needs to help this person.

“You two go, start loading the ship with the planks. I’ll see what I can do here. I’ll be fine.”

They hesitate to leave, looking between him and the figure still standing with the pole aimed at them.

“Guys, go.” He urges them. Eventually they go, but not before telling to yell if he needs help.

Once they’ve disappeared he turns back to the figure in front of him. Kon has no idea on what to do. They can’t talk to one another because the guy doesn’t understand him and it seems like anytime Kon opens his mouth, he just scares the guy even more. If he could work out what species this person was then that would help him more.

He puts his hands back out in front of him, to show that he wasn’t going to attempt anything or hurt him, and bends down to the ground. Using his hand he starts carving a couple different symbols into the ground. Digging up dirt and moving any rubbish he doesn’t need away. He carves three different ones, three symbols which symbolise three different species.

After he’s done he backs away and looks expectantly at the guy in front of him. The guy just stares back before his eyes flicker to the ground and back up again. “What? What do they mean?” Kon waits as he edges forward and really looks at them. It’s a while but eventually he’s backing away again and shaking his head. “I have no idea what they are. They look like something that witches would draw. Oh my god, are you going to sacrifice me? Or eat me!”

Kon blinks at him. He has no idea what a ‘witch’ was but he gapes at the guy when he says about sacrificing and being eaten. Where the hell was he from? Kon reels back to the matter at hand, so symbols were a no go. He pauses and looks around trying to find something else that could potentially help, that’s when he eyes up the damaged pod behind him.

Maybe Kon could pull something from there.

In slow, meaningful movements Kon edges his way towards the pod. The guy opposite him follows his movements closely, starts backing up as Kon moves forward, always keeping that distance between them.

When he reaches the pod Kon ducks inside the broken window, he’s stumped however as soon as he gets to the controls section. It’s old, like really old. The technology to build this pod was made before Kon was even alive, he has no idea who or what still uses this outdated machinery. Maybe that’s why this guy crashed in the first place, why it’s so broken and damaged, it’s too old to even be considered safe to use.

Deciding that it was a lost call he climbs back out and finds the guy still standing there, the pole in his hands had been lowered however but as soon as he spots Kon, it’s instantly back up in a defensive position.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He’s not getting anywhere at this rate. Maybe he should just chance trying to get this one back to his ship, once there he would have more technology at this disposal to try and work out this situation, perhaps he could even attempt to get a translator into the guy as well.

Deciding that’s his only option now, well he could always just force him to get on the ship but Kon has a feeling that really wouldn’t go down well. Before heading back to the ship he points at himself, “Kon-el.” He says firmly. Perhaps if the guy could call him by something that might ease a little tension away.

He gets a blank look in response. Kon does it again, tapping his chest, “Kon-el.”

“Kon-el? What does that mean? Is that some sort of code? A name?” At Kon’s nod the guys eyes widen. “Your name? Your name is Kon-el.”

Kon excitedly nods then, smiling as he does so. That’s the most progress he’s made so far!

“Okay. Okay, sure, you’re Kon-el.” Kon watches as he finally lowers the staff. Keeping one hand on it, he uses his free one to tap his own chest, just as Kon did. “Tim. My name is Tim.”

“Tim?” Kon tries. It’s an odd sound coming from his mouth but wasn’t too hard to pronounce. “Tim.”

The guy smiles and nods, thankfully that seems to be the universal gesture of ‘yes’. “That’s right. You’re Kon-el and I’m Tim.”

Happy that he’s finally made some progress, Kon continues to smile. Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause after all. Turning slightly, he starts walking back to where his ship was, after a couple steps he gestures to Tim to follow him.

Tim seems hesitant to do so. He stares at Kon with a hard expression. Kon makes the gesture again, this time a bit more harder.

“You want me to follow you?”

Kon nods and starts walking again, once he’s at the trees he realises that Tim still hasn’t followed him. He makes an agitated noise at not being followed and repeats the gesture. Kon watches as Tim looks at him, then looks at the broken pod and back again. It’s like he was debating with himself. In the end he starts slowly making his way towards Kon, following where he gone while quietly talking to himself.

“This is a stupid idea. I’m probably walking to my death right now. I’m going to die, this is it. But what other choice do I have. Maybe they’re friendly after all? I have no idea but by god I hope this is the right choice.”

Kon has no idea what Tim was on about. Who’s this ‘god’ he keeps mentioning? Once he’s satisfied that Tim was following him he starts walking through the forest again, making sure to keep in Tim’s eye sight all the time, that being the reason why he wasn’t flying back.

As he walks back to the ship he thinks over what just happened. He, Cassie and Bart only came to this planet to pick up the rare planks that were requested by their leaders on Krypton, but now they’ve picked up this unidentified guy as well and who knows what kind of chaos that’s going to cause.

Communication was certainly an issue. Tim didn’t understand him, or the other two that briefly appeared, speaking in languages he had never heard of. What made it worse that all three of the strangers had different languages, yet they all seemed to understand one another just fine. The most success they had between them was sharing their names.

Kon-el. The guy he was following was called Kon-el. He seemed friendly enough, he was trying to make his actions clear enough for Tim to understand as he checked the pod he crashed and then the way he gestured for Tim to follow him. Maybe he wasn’t out to hurt Tim, but there was no way in hell that Tim wasn’t going to be defensive around him until he knows for certain. Just because he looks friendly doesn’t mean he truly is.

He grips the pole in his hands tighter as the two of them walk out into another clearing. He freezes at the tree line as he sees the space ship in front of him. It was long, silver and clearly a newly built one. It reminds Tim of a cargo plane back home, only without the wings and engines, for a moment he wonders about the mechanics of it and how it’s supposed to fly but he shakes his head before he thinks about it too much. There are more important things to worry about.

The ship’s back door was open and going up and down the ramp were the other two strangers he had briefly saw earlier. They were busily loading what looked like long, shiny brown planks into it from where a large stack of them where on the ground just to the side. In front of him Kon-el walks towards them, saying something in that odd language of his.

The other two stop to listen to him, for a moment their glances turn in his direction before they start talking back. Tim watches, bewildered at the scene. He has no idea what they were on about, but the blonde girl seems to be getting defensive while the ginger guy was simply shrugging like he didn’t see what the problem was.

They seem to argue for a few more minutes before Kon-el was running a hand over his hair and sighing. His shoulder’s slump and gives his friends a pleading look, though it seems to be more aimed at the blonde rather than the ginger. It seems like his look wins because the blonde suddenly throws her arms up and storms away, heading back over to where the pile of planks were stacked.

Tim gapes as she easily picks up the plank like it weighed nothing and takes it into the ship. He gapes because the plank was easily 7ft long and at least 5cm deep, it’s like she has super strength or something.

“Tim.”

Hearing his name he turns his attention back on Kon-el who was stood by the door next to the ginger making the gesture of him to go over. Tim hesitates to. He had no idea of what these people were capable of, he didn’t know what they were saying and his instincts were telling him to run. However knowing that nothing else was waiting for him he starts forward, clutching the pole in his hands tightly and gets prepared to use it.

He gets over there and stays a good few feet away. Kon-el says something to his friend who nods before turning to him. “Bart.” He says simply. Tim blinks at him, not understanding. Kon-el points to his friend, this time his tone firmer than before like he’s trying to make a point. “Bart.”

It takes a moment but Tim thinks he seems to get it, “His name is Bart?” The two of them nod, the ginger’s head moving at a much quicker pace than Kon-el’s.

Kon-el then points to him, looking at his friend, “Tim.”

Bart smiles and frantically waves in an over-excited way. Unsure on what else to do, Tim waves back which just makes Bart grin even more. Apparently waving is a universal sign of ‘hello’, good to know.

Kon-el turns and points to the blonde who was still loading the planks into the ship. “Cassie.” This time it clicks quicker. So his friends are called Bart and Cassie, that’s helpful.

They stand around for some time and Tim feels extremely awkward, he’s in an unknown place surrounded by people he’s never met before in a situation he has no absolute control over. It seems like they’re waiting for Cassie to finish loading the ship before continuing to do anything

The situation is made worse then, because the other two start speaking to one another, he couldn’t understand what they were saying but Tim certainly knows they’re talking about him from the glances they keep directing his way. He scowls and looks away. Tim doesn’t appreciate being spoken about and not understanding any of it.

Eventually the blonde finishes loading and the three of them talk as a group again, each of them nodding and making gestures before finally moving. Tim stands there awkwardly beside them, having no clue on what he should be doing with himself.

Eventually it seems like they all come to some sort of agreement because they were all nodding and then start making their way up the ramp and into the ship. Well, he sees Cassie make her way up the ship, Bart on the other hand just disappears, like one blink he was there and the next he was gone. Tim couldn’t get over that, it’s like he had the ability to teleport or something.

It was all very confusing.

Kon-el starts heading up the ramp but after a couple steps he pauses and glances back, noticing that he hadn’t followed. The guy makes the gesture of ‘follow me’ again. Tim looks away from him and around at his surroundings, one last time debating with himself whether this was a good idea or not. Swallowing hard he turns back to the ramp and starts making his way up it, being careful to maintain the distance between them.

Kon-el smiles at him and leads him up the ramp. Once they get to the top and were inside the ship, Kon-el pauses and turns to the wall where an electronic menu thing appears and he presses a few buttons, a moment later the door begins to rise up. Tim watches as it slowly ascends, he keeps watching until it fully shuts and locks them inside of the ship, there’s no going back now, he just hopes to god that he’s made the right choice here.

He turns around and finds the interior of the ship all lit up and Tim takes moment to look around. There were several storage containments alongside both walls that stretch far down the ship’s length, all of them different sizes and labelled differently. At the far end Tim could see a stairway which goes up to what he assumes is the next floor.

It was certainly different to the other ships he’s been on recently, however this one seems much more friendlier than the last one he had been on, but that doesn’t mean anything. Tim isn’t letting his guard down because anything could happen and he didn’t want to take that risk.

Kon-el starts walking down through the ship, waving at Tim to follow him as he does. Having no other choice Tim follows him. As he walks Tim finds that there are a few doors hidden between some of the containers, he didn’t see those at first and briefly wonders what they were for. Before he could think too much about it they reach the stairs and start climbing up them.

Tim follows Kon-el and soon finds himself walking through a door, that was on the right at the top of the stairs, and out into a corridor. This floor was completely different to the floor underneath them. A long corridor, which was filled with bright lights, stretches both ways. It has multiple doors on each side both ways and at both ends there were closed doors facing them.

Without hesitating Kon-el turns left and starts heading down the corridor, not knowing what else to do Tim continues to follow him. They walk past all the other doors and head for the one at the end, getting there Kon opens it up and they enter the room.

Tim gapes at seeing the room, it was clearly the cockpit of the ship. A large dashboard filled with millions of colourful buttons and handles filled out an entire bottom half of the wall, above that was a massive window which looked out over the planet they were currently on. Next to the dashboard were two chairs.

Behind that there was another two chairs with a small table between them. Then somehow the room kept going because on the other side of the room was a large round table with a few chairs around it, paper was scattered all over it and there was a whiteboard type of thing just off to the side. There was a small kitchen type of area set up in the far corner of the room by the table.

Tim couldn’t believe the size of this room. The ship looked small from the outside but inside it was huge!

Bart was in the room, currently occupying one of the second set of chairs and was eating something. Cassie was over by the whiteboard looking at whatever was on it, Tim had no idea what it was. Kon-el leaves him by the door to walk over to the dashboard, he takes a seat in one of the chairs and starts pressing multiple buttons.

Tim continues to look around in awe, this was nothing like the other ship he had been on. It wasn’t nearly as clean, or as high tech as this one apparently is. For a second time he wonders about all the mechanics behind this ship, wondering how it all works.

He must have been lost in his thoughts for a long time because suddenly there was a hand waving in his face. Startling at the sudden action Tim swings out with the pole that was still clutched in his hand. It doesn’t make contact with anything and suddenly Bart appears from nowhere just to the side of him. Tim blinks, trying to catch up with what just happened.

He looks wide-eyed at Bart who just looked back with a raised eyebrow. Then he starts talking and Tim is beyond lost in what he was saying, not understanding his language obviously doesn’t help but it seemed like he was talking a mile a minute and he couldn’t work out a single word he was saying.

From where she was standing, Cassie speaks up making Bart pause in his speech. He pouts at her who responds with her own raised eyebrow and stern look. Whatever she said to him must have gotten through because when Bart faces him again, he talks more slowly and almost looks apologetic.

“Tim.”

The call of his name gets him to glance at Kon-el from where he was sat at the dashboard. The guy meets his gaze and gestures to the chair next to the one Bart had previously been occupying. Tim could have a guess at what he was implying but didn’t move from his spot still at the door.

After a few beats Bart reaches forward and gently grabs his arm to tug him over to the chair. Tim jerks at the touch and tries to pull away but the ginger didn’t let up and simply dragged Tim over to the chair before pushing him down on it.

Tim blinks, processing what just happened. He’s briefly aware of Kon-el talking to Bart, the disappointed look on his face makes it seem like he’s scolding Bart for his actions. Bart says something back and just like that the two of them were conversing, to Tim it looked like they actually bickering but it was hard to tell.

Now with the attention off of him, Tim relaxes a little in the chair. It was soft and padded throughout, there was enough space to shift around if he wished to. The arm rests where wide and it even had a hole in at the end like it was a cup holder.

He turns his attention to the wide window and was surprised to find that they were slowly rising into the air. He didn’t even feel them take off. After seeing that a sense of panic once again came over him, he’s in a space ship with people he doesn’t know and can’t understand. Would he even be able to breathe once they were out of the atmosphere? Would they ditch him somewhere soon? Sell him off in a trade on another planet? Eat him? Probe him!?