Greg Cox - Man of Steel

When he opened them again, his fist was solid once more. He slowly unfolded his fingers, watching with satisfaction as the raucous colors subsided until his gloved hand appeared perfectly normal to his eyes.

The deafening cacophony died down as well, making it easier to hear himself think—and maintain control of his heightened senses.

That’s better , he thought.

Leaving his discarded helmet behind in the snow, he confidently approached the fortress. He laid his hand on the ship’s outer hull, which responded to his touch. A doorway slid open and he entered the grounded vessel.

He easily navigated the fortress’s winding arteries until he reached the platform overlooking the Genesis Chamber. There he took a moment to savor the sight, knowing that he was gazing upon the very future of his race. After so many years of bitter exile, now at last he had the means to restore his people to life, and give birth to a glorious new chapter of Kryptonian history.

And this time, he vowed, we will not allow our sacred bloodlines to become weak. Only the strongest and purest genotypes will populate our new world, which will not fall victim to the weak-willed decadence and complacency that doomed us before.

Our new Krypton shall be bold and fearless, run with military discipline and precision.

He plucked a command key from the pocket of his uniform. The head of the key was blank, indicating that it fit all ports. A control cylinder faced the Genesis Chamber. He inserted the key halfway into a waiting port. A lambent radiance lit up the Genesis Chamber as the ancient incubator began to awaken. Budding branches waited to be fertilized with the data hidden in Kal-El’s blood. Bubbles oxygenated the swirling amniotic fluid.

Zod started to press the key all the way in, to fully activate the Chamber.

“Stop this, Zod,” a familiar voice said. “While there’s still time.”

He turned to find Jor-El—or, to be more precise, a holographic simulacra of his dead friend—standing behind him. Zod smiled wryly.

“I knew I’d find you here.” He circled the hologram, finding the illusion quite convincing. Lieutenant Car-Vex had reported seeing a similar apparition aboard the Black Zero, assisting in the human female’s escape. “Haven’t given up lecturing me, have you? Even in death.”

“Listen to me, please,” Jor-El said. “What you’re contemplating—”

“Is an act of creation. And if Earth has to die for Krypton to live, so be it.”

He should have known that Jor-El—or his proxy— would balk at what needed to be done. For all his unquestionable intellect, Jor-El had always been too squeamish when it came to the judicious application of force. That was what had driven them apart so long ago.

As a soldier, Zod knew that mercy was weakness. Jor-El had never accepted that simple fact.

Which is why I’m still alive, Zod thought, and he is long dead.

“I won’t let you use the Codex like this,” the hologram insisted.

“You don’t have the power to stop me. The command key I entered is revoking your authority.” Zod allowed himself the luxury of gloating. “This ship is now under my control.”

Jor-El was beaten—again.

Now all I need is your son’s blood.

The F-35s bore down on the Black Zero, which hovered above Metropolis atop a pulsating energy beam. Captain Douglas Pavlinko, the pilot of the lead fighter, radioed command. Despite the urgency of the situation, he still required authorization before firing his missiles in a civilian area.

“NORTHCOM, Lightning-1 is tally the target. Requesting permission to unleash the hounds.”

“NORTHCOM, Lightning-1,” General Swanwick replied. “You are cleared to engage. Call complete and send battle damage assessment when able.”

“Lightning-1 copies.”

There it was, Pavlinko thought. A city boy who had grown up in the outer boroughs, the pilot was anxious to defend his hometown from the alien invader who was pounding Metropolis into dust. He led the way.

Sidewinder missiles rocketed at the Black Zero. Each of the heat-seeking projectiles carried a high-explosive warhead with enough punch to bring down an enemy plane or chopper. Pavlinko hoped they would put a dent in the Kryptonian mothership.

But he never got a chance to find out. As the missiles approached the rings of debris orbiting the Black Zero , a gravitational field captured them, dragging them down to the flattened city blocks below. The pilot cursed inwardly as the Sidewinders detonated far beneath their intended target.

Smoking fragments were sucked up into the Black Zero ’s dusty halo.

A second salvo of missile fire met a similar fate.

“Inertial guidance and ATR on our missiles is going haywire,” the pilot reported. “We’re losing them! They’re dropping like stones!”

Damn it, Perry thought.

Transfixed by the battle unfolding outside of the Planet’s windows, he had dared to hope that the F-35s and their missiles would bring the Kryptonian ship down before its destructive beam reached the Daily Planet building, but as he watched the Sidewinders going haywire, spinning off in errant trajectories instead of striking their target, he realized that time was running out.

The deflected missiles spent themselves uselessly across the city, adding to the devastation rather than halting it. Fiery explosions blossomed in the streets, outside the perimeter of the alien ship. Perry’s heart sank. If the US Armed Forces couldn’t stop Zod, who could?

Only a few blocks away, a shimmering curtain of energy—resembling a slow-motion tsunami—was grinding its way outward. Stretching higher than the tallest skyscraper, the wall of destruction chewed up everything in its path. Before his eyes, the Hotel Metropolis was pancaked to its foundations, followed by several other venerable office and apartment buildings. Perry hoped to God that the buildings’ residents had escaped the doomed edifices in time.

“We need to get out of here now.”

He raised his voice to be heard over the nervous chatter in the bullpen, not to mention the sounds of collapsing buildings and runaway missiles outside.

“Everyone, we need to head for the street! Take the stairs. Don’t take the elevators.” Hanging back to make sure no one was left behind, he hustled Steve and Jenny and the rest of the staff toward the stairwell. Conspicuously missing was Lois Lane, who had been AWOL since going on the run from the Feds. Perry hadn’t heard from her since, but almost hoped that she was securely tucked away in a detention cell somewhere, far away from Metropolis.

She’d be safer there, assuming that anyone on Earth was actually safe at the moment. And that was looking more and more dubious with each passing second.

Maybe he should have run that crazy story of hers, after all.

Dawn was just a glimmer on the horizon as the World Engine hammered the island with its gravity beam. An expanding haze of alien particulates blackened the sky, changing the very composition of the atmosphere at an accelerating rate. Already the air around the island was more Kryptonian than Earthly.

Superman took a deep breath before diving into the toxic cloud.

Another sonic boom heralded his arrival. Hoping to take out the World Engine quickly, before it could irreparably cripple the planet, he streaked down from the sky with his fists out in front of him. He targeted the venting head of the huge machine, aiming to plough right through the Engine, decapitating it once and for all.