Most Justified Kill-Order

July 4th, 2009:
Kassandra grin became manic. She had spent the best part of a week preparing for this moment, and now that it was here, she was shaking with the anticipation. All the calculations, making sure everything was just right, it would all pay off in the next few minutes.
The sight from up here was beautiful; it almost made her forget about her plan. She could see half of the entire planet. That’s was to be expected when you were 400 km above the surface, but the sight was truly something special when seen in person. Far to the North, the stunning lights of the Aurora Borealis danced across the world. From the surface they would be gorgeous, but from up here their beauty was magnified tenfold. How many had had the honor to see this sight?
The moment passed, and the mania and anger returned. She wasn’t up her to sight-see, she was here for revenge. She had to focus. She was still flying at a speed that would be impossible even at half the height she was currently at. It had taken days of non-stop acceleration to reach this point, but fortunately she had no need of food, rest, or even air anymore. How fast was she going? According to her calculations, she was going almost 15,000 miles an hour, which likely made her the fastest human traveling under their own power.
While some might be grateful for such power, Kassandra felt only rage. She had been tortured and experimented on, pushed beyond breaking, all for the psychopaths who wanted a weapon. Well they had one, one pointed right at their den of vipers! She saw a speck cresting the planet and began to adjust course.

There were six men aboard the single most expensive item ever built by mankind: Gennady Padalka, Michael Barratt, Koichi Wakata, Roman Romanenko, Frank De Winne, and Robert Thirsk. All of them were at the top of their fields. All of them had earned the right to be astronauts aboard the International Space Station. All of them were going to die. They were flying through the space above the world at over seven and a half kilometers a second. They had no idea what was about to happen.

Kassandra saw the station coming toward her. She had been “trained” in the use of her power, if training was the right word for being hit with various weaponry in order to stockpile power. From her experiments, she believed that she would be able to withstand the collision. The station was going over 16,000 miles per hour, or over 7 kilometers a second. With the speed she had built up in the near vacuum, her toughness, and her regeneration, she was confident of her survival. She would then need to recover and make the necessary course corrections. She braced herself as the station bore down on her…

The shock-wave from the impact shattered her body, breaking almost every bone and tearing almost every muscle. But that was nothing compared to the damage done to the station itself. There was a rush of air as the station was ruptured. A couple of bodies were thrown out; dead before they could even realize what a horrid death had befallen them. The others had been fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to survive the initial impact. They would have to comprehend the fate ahead.

Kassandra pieced herself back together, bones re-knitting and muscles rejoining in moments. She had struck the “top” of the station, forcing it downward as a reaction. She looked down onto the planet, focusing on her target. There was no going back now, and one way or another, this would all be done in the next two minutes.

Far below, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, communications were suddenly cut off. There was momentary confusion; this wasn’t supposed to happen, there was no scheduled maintenance that would have caused a sudden blackout.
“ISS, come in. This is Houston, we have a blackout on our end, how is everything up there?”
Nothing but static.
“ISS, come in. Repeat, this is Houston, report.”
Nothing.
“What’s the matter?”
“They’ve gone dark.”
“Space junk taken out the comms?”
“Or its on our end.”
“Try getting in contact over HAM, meanwhile reboot our network. Best to be safe than sorry.”
This decision would not be enough.

The surviving astronauts were in complete panic; they had no idea what just happened, but the station was impacted by something big, and hard enough to rupture the whole facility! They were stuck on the other end of the station, they had no visuals on the situation, there was little they could do aside from try to get in contact with ground control. Around them, they could hear and feel the station lurch.

Out in the vacuum, Kassandra was ecstatic with how things were going. She had struck the station in almost the perfect spot, launching the station on a curve toward her target. Once they realized what was going on, it was almost certain that they would engage the thrusters to try and mitigate damage, but she was ready for that when it happened. For now, she simply exerted her physical strength and flight to keep the station going right where she wanted it.

On the ground, radar picked up what was happening. It was worst case scenario: some space debris had somehow smashed into the station. This was impossible; everything up there was monitored and tracked, that piece of debris couldn’t have moved like that, not without external force! Whatever had caused this, they still couldn’t get in contact with the station, while it seemed to be staggering in its orbit. If it fell out of the sky, it would be the worst disaster in aeronautic history, not just space. Using all the power they could, to get in contact with whatever computers were still operational up there, they told the thrusters to correct the orbital decay. They could not have known that this was going to make things much worse, but that wasn’t going to be accepted as an excuse.

Kassandra could feel the heat increasing, and it wasn’t just because of re-entry. Looking behind her, she could see that they had done exactly what she thought they would. The thrusters were engaged, trying to fight gravity’s sudden hold on the structure. She made her way over to each one, making sure to keep her grip. The heat from them didn’t matter to her, her power having grown to such a point that it meant nothing. She grabbed them and forced them to the direction she had calculated for. After doing so, she ripped out the sections that her research told her would allow the ground control to either stop or change their trajectory. Nothing was stopping this ride.
They were speeding up now. Less than one minute until impact.

“Welcome to the White House!”
The newly inaugurated President of the United States took to the microphones to the applause of the crowd.
“And Happy Fourth of July! Michelle and I are honored and proud to have you here on the Fourth. And we’re humbled…”
The speech was pre-written, of course, but that didn’t make it go over any worse with the audience. The danger was careening toward them at over 18,000 mph now; had they looked up they would have seen a bright light in the midday sun getting closer. Had Houston made the call even 30 seconds earlier then perhaps some high-ranked lives would have been saved. Had this, had that, had those. None of these questions would matter, but they would be asked, nonetheless.

Kassandra was on fire, not that she cared. It was working, her plan was going to succeed! She saw the Delaware, and an instant later, she saw her target: Pennsylvania Avenue! The maggots crawling in this pile of filth were responsible for the hell she went through, so she was going to drop hell on top of them!

As the President spoke, his bodyguards picked him up and began running. They did not get far.
The crowd, seeing this, called out in confusion. Some looked up and ran. They did not get far.
Across the capital of the most powerful nation on the planet, panic spread in their last moments. It did not last long.

Kassandra rolled onto her back, head away from the impact. She smiled and closed her eyes. This part she had no idea if she would live or die. She wasn’t sure if she even cared. This act was going to make her vengeance complete. Or would it? Her eyes snapped open. In the instant prior to impact, she realized what should have been obvious; there were more of them beyond this place. Just because all of the ones here were going to die, didn’t mean everyone responsible was going to die. There were collaborators everywhere, not just in Washington, not just in America. There was so much more to do. She couldn’t die here.

The station made impact on Pennsylvania Avenue, right on top of the Navy Memorial Plaza. There was a cataclysmic explosion, followed by a terrible noise and shock-wave, before all fell silent.

Everything within 1400 meters of the impact site was obliterated, nothing but a crater was left. At one side, the ruins of The White House. One the other, what little remained of the Capitol Building. In between, the Smithsonian Museums were eradicated. The Washington Monument was gone. So much was gone in an instant. At the bottom of the crater there was a charred body, vaporized from the waist down, skin blackened to ash. It rocked upwards; jaw dropped in a silent scream.

Kassandra writhed as her powers refused to let her die, responding to her desire to live. Once her body regrew her eyes, she saw the devastation that was her handiwork. All around her was soot and ash and smoke, a thousand fires eating at the ruins of Washington. As the smoke rose, she could see further, beyond the boundary of the crater. The shock-wave had caused even more destruction beyond the crater, extending the amount of damage she had unleashed. Her legs regrew and she stood up. Her revelation had made her resolved; there was still much more to do, and while this was a fine declaration of her war, it alone was not a victory. Her internal organs regrew, and she felt ready to leave. She took to the air and flew north. Where to go next? She did not know. New York? Boston? Brockton Bay? Somewhere north along the coast.

 As she flew off, there were those with cameras who captured her image. Those photos would soon be broadcast worldwide, as combined with some footage from the station prior to impact and some parahuman powers, made an airtight case against her. Guilt was past doubt, and much like other terrorists, she was declared The Most Wanted Person in the World, and a Kill Order was issued. Unsurprisingly, there was no controversy over this decision.