Greg Cox - Man of Steel

“They’re turning Earth into Krypton,” he added.

“But what happens to us?” Farris asked.

“Based on these readings,” Hamilton said, “there won’t be an ‘us.’ If this keeps up, the increased gravity alone will crush our internal organs.”

Swanwick had no reason to doubt the scientist. This was more than just an enemy attack. The human race was facing extinction.

‘How long do we have?” he asked.

“In Metropolis?” Hamilton performed some quick calculations. “A few hours. Maybe a few weeks for the rest of the planet. After that, Earth won’t be able to support human life.”

A hush fell over the trio, until a nearby analyst waved for Swanwick’s attention. The man held a land-line receiver to his ear.

“Sir, I’m with the control tower. Colonel Hardy’s on his way in. And he’s got Superman in tow.”

“Superman?” Swanwick remembered the name from earlier, back when Lane had coined it in the interrogation room. “You mean the alien?”

“Yes, sir,” the analyst said. “That’s what they’re calling him now. Superman.”

Swanwick experienced a moment of déjà vu as he, Farris, and Hamilton piled out of the ops center and took a jeep to the airfield. A squadron of Sikorsky Super Stallion choppers came thundering in from west. Flying ahead of the massive aircraft was the caped alien, “Superman.”

A heavy-lift skycrane helicopter was with them, towing what appeared to be a tank-sized Kryptonian space capsule. The alien starcraft was suspended in a sling beneath the skycrane.

Unlike last time, Superman’s arrival wasn’t greeted with an aggressive display of arms. Touching down on the tarmac, he immediately began issuing directions to the crew of the skycrane, as though this was a perfectly natural turn of events. Despite the threat of imminent annihilation, Swanwick was more than a little amused by the speed with which the illegal alien had somehow gone from inhuman threat to commanding ally.

Hardy clambered out of the lead Sikorsky, accompanied by Lois Lane. They hurried over to join the general and his entourage. Swanwick was glad to see that the reporter was both alive and free from her alien captors.

Dr. Hamilton stared with open wonder at the skycrane’s extraterrestrial cargo.

“Is that what I think it is?” he said.

Lois nodded.

“It’s the ship he arrived in.” She shoved past the rapt scientist to address Swanwick. “We have a plan, General. We can stop the Kryptonians, but we need your men to deliver this to Metropolis.”

He viewed the capsule skeptically.

“What good will that do?”

Superman approached the group.

“My ship is powered by something called a Phantom Drive. It bends space. Zod’s ship uses the same technology. If the two drives collide with each other—”

Hamilton caught on at once.

“A singularity will be created.”

“Like a black hole,” Swanwick said.

“Yes,” Superman acknowledged. “Zod’s people spent years in the Phantom Zone. They’re still tethered to the energies they were exposed to there. If we can open a gateway, they’ll be pulled back.”

Hamilton peered at the Kryptonian space capsule.

“You want to bomb them with this?”

“Sir,” Colonel Hardy said. “This craft maxes out at around 17,000 pounds. We can drop it from one of the C-17s.” He’d evidently worked out the necessary logistics. “It’s a viable plan.”

“It’s our only plan,” Superman insisted. “Every second we stand here debating, more people are dying in Metropolis. If I don’t shut down that World Engine, those gravity fields will keep expanding.”

Swanwick assumed the “World Engine” was the mega-machine currently wreaking havoc in the southern hemisphere. He weighed Superman’s words carefully. Pure instinct told him to resist the idea of relying on an untested technology, brought to them by an alien being who had kept his very existence hidden from the world for decades. Yet he didn’t see any other option—except for extinction.

Plus, Colonel Hardy seemed to vouch for Superman.

Might as well roll the dice, Swanwick decided. And take a leap of faith.

He grudgingly nodded his assent.

Lois Lane looked worried, though, and not just for herself. Swanwick wasn’t sure, but he thought he picked up on a definite vibe between Superman and the reporter. Every now and then, they exchanged glances that carried some unknown subtext.

“If this machine is making Earth like Krypton,” she asked, “won’t you be weaker around it?”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But I’m not going to let that stop me from trying. I already lost one world. I won’t let Zod take another one from me.”

He looked west, to the horizon. He took a deep breath, as though steeling himself for the challenge ahead.

“You might want to back up a little,” he advised.

Swanwick and the others gave him some space, not quite sure what the issue was. They stepped back a few yards.

“Maybe a little more,” Superman said.

They retreated further, giving him a wide berth on the open tarmac.

He bent his knees, like an athlete preparing for a high jump, and touched his bare hand to the ground, as though drawing strength from the very Earth. The ground rumbled around him. Loose pebbles lifted from the pavement, caught up in some sort of localized gravitational effect.

The rumbling increased in volume as seismic waves radiated from his body.

He cast one last look at Lane…

Then, without a word, he rocketed into the air, punching through clouds until his was only a shrinking blue-and-red blur in the sky. A sonic boom thundered high above the airfield as he disappeared into the heavens. A long white contrail marked his passage.

Down below, Swanwick and others gaped speechlessly.

Godspeed, the general thought.

Zod watched from the bridge as the expanding gravity field pounded Metropolis. Now nearly two city blocks in the diameter, the sky-high column sheared away the unlucky buildings along its growing perimeter. Crude structures of steel, glass, and concrete lost cohesion and collapsed to the ground, before being ground to powder by the pulsing super-gravity.

Panicked humans evacuated the endangered districts en masse, unaware that there would soon be no safety for them anywhere on the Earth. Their days as the planet’s dominant species were rapidly coming to a close. A better, stronger race had laid claim to their domain.

His race.

But there were still a few loose ends to be addressed.

“Faora,” he called out. “I’m handing you the command.”

“Yes, sir,” she acknowledged. “But where are you going?”

He turned away from his birds-eye view of the city’s destruction to contemplate a holographic display. A pulsing icon marked a location near the planet’s northern pole. He smiled in anticipation.

“To secure the Genesis Chamber,” he said, “and pay my respects to an old friend.”

Superman raced over the western half of North America, flying faster than he ever had before. Fierce winds and turbulence buffeted him, threatening to throw him off course, but he held to his heading.

He hated leaving Metropolis under assault by the Black Zero , but the World Engine was the greater threat. He had to bring down that machine before it rendered the entire planet uninhabitable for anyone except the Kryptonians.

Earth doesn’t belong to them, he thought fiercely. It belongs to humanity. Zod doesn’t have the right to steal their future from them.