The Quinjet's engine note changed—its low rumble abruptly spiking into a piercing shriek.
The fuselage shuddered violently as a brutal surge of thrust slammed all three of them into their seats. This prototype craft—an amalgamation of humanity's cutting-edge technology and fragments of alien engineering—shot upward like a thrown javelin, punching straight through the disguised rock dome above the base without slowing, spearheading into a cloudless sky.
Carol gripped the control stick with both hands, her focus absolute. She didn't need to look at the dense instrument panels. Her body seemed fused with the cold machine itself. She could feel every subtle tremor as the wings sliced through thinning air, sense the strength of each pulse from the engine core.
"Crude design."
Talos's voice came from the rear seat, carrying the Skrull's distinctive rasp. At some point he had already unbuckled his harness. Under G-forces that would have rearranged a normal human's organs, he stood as steadily as if nothing were happening, drifting calmly into the center of the cockpit. Outside the windows, clouds gathered rapidly beneath them into a boundless white sea, while overhead the sky shifted visibly—from bright blue to deep indigo, then into pure black.
Levi lounged lazily in the copilot's seat, arms crossed, eyes closed, looking less like someone embarking on an interstellar flight and more like a passenger on a long-distance bus ride home. From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Carol's profile—her lower lip clenched tight, her gaze a mix of excitement, tension, and a trace of uncertainty she hadn't noticed herself.
"Approaching the Kármán line," Carol said, her voice trembling slightly—not from fear, but from the instinctive response of returning to the cosmos after so long.
The instant she finished speaking, the crushing pressure vanished. The violent shaking and shrill noise disappeared at the same moment.
The world fell silent.
Outside lay absolute darkness, so deep it seemed capable of swallowing all light. Against that ultimate black backdrop, countless stars blazed with frightening brilliance—no longer gentle points as seen from Earth, but shards of ice-cold diamond light. Beneath them, a vast, serene blue planet rotated slowly, veiled in wisps of cloud.
Earth.
The ship slipped smoothly into its designated orbit, engines switching to low-power cruise mode. The cabin was freed entirely from gravity.
Talos floated clumsily toward the viewport like a child, reaching out as if he could touch the distant planet. He stared greedily at the blue and white expanse, his expression complex. It was the ideal home his people had dreamed of throughout their flight—brimming with life and hope—yet forever beyond their reach. War had taken their homeworld; now they drifted like cosmic dust, searching for a corner where they could simply breathe.
Carol released the controls as well, letting herself float in the weightless cabin. She gazed at the blue planet in silence. She couldn't remember which corner of that world she had been born in, but she could feel it—a pull from deep within her blood, tugging at her heart. Her past was down there. The life that had been stolen from her.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Levi's calm voice broke the silence. He drifted to the viewport, standing beside them as they took in the view.
"I've seen many worlds," Talos said hoarsely, exhaustion clinging to his words. "Burning worlds. Frozen worlds. Worlds drowned in poison gas… But one like this—so alive, so gently covered by life—rare. It's like a miracle."
"Yeah," Levi replied flatly, then turned to Carol. "You find the lab, reclaim your lost memories—and then what? What do you plan to do?"
Carol slowly drew her gaze away. The confusion in her eyes was replaced by a cold, blazing fire.
"I'm going to find the Supreme Intelligence. I'm going to expose its lies in front of every Kree. And I'm going to make Yon-Rogg pay—for everything he did to me."
Her voice wasn't loud, but every word was forced out through clenched teeth, brimming with ironclad resolve.
"Revenge," Levi summarized in two words. "Sounds good. Simple. Direct."
He paused, then abruptly shifted tone—like a scalpel slicing precisely into the weakest point of her plan.
"But have you thought this through? The Supreme Intelligence isn't a person. It's a program—a super AI formed from the fused minds of countless Kree elites. How do you expose a program's lies? Fly to Hala, punch that giant green brain? And then what?"
Carol froze.
She really hadn't thought about that. In her mind, revenge was straightforward—Yon-Rogg lied to her, the Supreme Intelligence was behind it, so you drag them out and beat the truth out of them in front of the universe. Wasn't that enough?
"Even if you destroy that green brain, it won't matter," Levi said evenly. "Its core code is backed up in every Kree military network—every major warship's central computer. As long as the Kree Empire's war machine keeps running, the Supreme Intelligence will never truly die. You're not facing one enemy—or even a few—but a deeply rooted system, a civilization that's endured for millennia. One person can't bring down a system."
Talos, silent until now, listened with deep agreement in his eyes. No one understood better than him how hopeless it was to oppose a vast interstellar empire. The Skrulls had tried. The result was a destroyed homeworld, scattered people, and sixty years of pursuit.
"Then what should I do?!" Carol snapped, frustration breaking through. It felt like a punch she'd wound up for with all her strength had landed on empty air.
"I don't know," Levi replied bluntly, leaving her words stuck in her chest. "I'm just reminding you not to oversimplify this. Revenge doesn't solve the root problem—it only creates more. You kill Yon-Rogg, the Empire sends ten commanders stronger and colder than him. You destroy the Supreme Intelligence's mainframe on Hala, they activate backups and brand you the Empire's number-one enemy, hunting you across the galaxy. Then what? Spend decades drifting through space, just like them—never finding a place where you can sleep in peace?"
He gestured toward Talos.
Talos stiffened visibly, his eyes dimming, pain etched across his green features.
"We… don't want revenge," he whispered. "We just want to live. To find a place to rebuild our home. War… we've had enough."
Carol fell silent.
Levi's words, Talos's pain—they were like icy water poured over her roaring anger. For the first time, she began to think beyond rage and revenge. What else could she do? What should she do?
"Beep. Beep. Beep."
The navigation system's monotone alert cut through the heavy atmosphere.
"Arrived at target coordinates."
All three drifted toward the cockpit window. Outside lay only empty, pitch-black space. No structures. Nothing but distant stars.
"What's going on?" Talos asked, barely containing his anxiety. "Wrong coordinates? Or… another Kree trick?"
"No," Carol said suddenly, her voice soft but certain.
Her eyes glowed faintly gold. She stared into the seemingly empty darkness, as if seeing something invisible to the others.
"I can feel it," she murmured. "Energy from the same source as ours—very weak, masked by some kind of field. But it's there. Like… a sleeping heartbeat."
She pointed to a dark patch of space about thirty degrees to the left.
Levi raised an eyebrow. As expected—the Tesseract's energy resonated across shared origins, transcending distance. Under his guidance, Carol's energy perception had grown remarkably sharp.
"Can you make it show itself?" Levi asked.
Carol closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Following Levi's instruction, she stopped trying to force her senses outward. Instead, she emptied her mind, letting the cosmic energy within her become still—like a calm lake—feeling for the ripples from that distant heartbeat.
It was harder than anything she'd practiced on Earth. Like trying to hear one person breathing in the middle of a roaring rock concert.
Minutes passed. Sweat beaded on her brow.
"No… it's too faint. I can't grasp it," she said, opening her eyes in frustration.
"Don't try to grasp it," Levi said gently, his voice like clear water. "Call to it. Treat it as part of yourself—like a finger. You don't grab your finger to move it. You just think, and it moves."
Carol froze, understanding dawning.
She closed her eyes again. This time, she stopped chasing the energy entirely. She imagined herself as a boundless sea of power, and that faint signal as a single drop of the same water far away. She didn't pursue it—she simply called, softly and steadily.
Slowly, she felt a response.
The faint heartbeat grew clearer, no longer distant and vague. Drawn by her call, it seemed to move toward her.
"Now," Levi said quietly.
Carol snapped her eyes open. Golden light flared brilliantly in her gaze. She thrust out her right hand, palm forward, releasing a tightly focused beam of golden energy—silent, precise—toward the point she sensed.
There was no explosion. No thunderous roar.
The golden beam vanished into the darkness like ink dropped into water.
From its point of contact, visible ripples spread through space itself. As they expanded, the empty void warped and blurred—and then, amid shifting light and shadow, the outline of something enormous emerged from nothingness.
A space station.
A breathtakingly elegant one.
Unlike any human or Kree vessel, it lacked harsh lines or militaristic angles. Its structure resembled a metal lotus blooming in space, with flowing curves and vast ringed sections.
Countless large blue observation windows—like tranquil eyes—gazed gently down at the blue planet below. Advanced optical camouflage cloaked the entire station, blending it seamlessly with space. Without same-origin energy as a guide, no radar or sensor could ever have found it.
On the station's central body, its name was engraved in graceful, alien script:
—The Mar-Vell.
Talos trembled as he stared at the suddenly revealed station, tears welling for the first time in eyes worn by decades of exile. Sixty years of flight. Decades of searching. The sacrifices of countless lives… At last, they had found their final hope.
Carol stood frozen, staring at the station named after her mentor. A powerful sense of belonging—and indescribable sorrow—surged through her. This was where Dr. Lawson truly belonged. A home far from war and chaos.
The Quinjet drifted closer. As if guided by an unseen hand, a hidden docking bay—perfectly flush with the hull—slid open, revealing a brightly lit hangar.
"Come on," Levi said, patting Carol's shoulder. "Go meet your real past."
The ship glided smoothly into the bay and settled with a faint vibration.
The hatch opened. The three of them stepped onto cold metal decking, greeted by air that felt old but not unpleasant.
Ahead stretched a long, pure-white corridor—simple, open. As they entered, lights activated automatically, casting a soft, gentle glow. Along the walls hung holographic images: brilliant nebulae, majestic galaxies—and photos of everyday life.
Carol stopped before one image.
It showed a young Dr. Lawson beside a young woman in a U.S. Air Force flight suit, laughing together in front of an old propeller plane. The girl's smile was carefree, sunlight glinting in her blonde hair.
It was her.
Her hand trembled as she reached out, fingertips hovering over her own smiling face.
Then—
A faint metallic scraping sound echoed from deep within the corridor, as if something was moving.
"Who's there?!"
Talos reacted instantly, spinning around and assuming a combat stance, eyes locked on the shadowy end of the hallway.
Levi frowned slightly. His energy perception already blanketed the station. He could clearly sense that this supposedly empty place held a fourth—no, a fifth—presence.
One was powerful, composed of pure energy. The other was… strange—half life, half machine.
A stiff, synthesized female voice suddenly echoed through the station's speakers, shattering the long silence.
"Unknown visitors. Identity verification failed. Initiating… Level One Defense Protocol."
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