Greg Cox: Man of Steel

“Push, Lara!”

Jor-El crouched beside his wife, holding her hand. The medical suite in his ancestral Citadel now served as a delivery room, the first on Krypton in untold memory. Lara Lor-Van strained upon an antique birthing couch, laboring to deliver their child. Her long black hair was spread out across the cushion beneath her head. A crimson sheet was draped over her trembling form. Sweat bathed her pale skin. Despite the sophisticated medical technology filling the spacious chamber, much of which had been designed or customized by Jor-El himself, the scene could not have been more primal, more elemental…

He prayed they had not made a terrible mistake.

Worry showed upon his features. A short brown beard framed his face. The sinuous crest of the House of El was emblazoned on an everyday blue skinsuit which clung tightly to his fit, athletic frame. Alert brown eyes watched anxiously as his wife attempted to do something no Kryptonian woman had accomplished in ages. Computerized monitors pulsed and beeped in the background. A pair of household robots hovered in attendance.

“Sir!” Kelor addressed Jor-El. A feminine voice emanated from the levitating robot who had served the House of El for longer than he could remember. A threedimensional display screen occupied the center of its thorax, which resembled a floating steel teardrop roughly the size of an adult Kryptonian’s torso. Versatile steel tentacles extruded from the ’bot’s base. “The child’s vital signs are plummeting—”

“We don’t have a choice,” Jor-El said. For better or for worse, they were committed to this perilous course. “We have to keep going.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “Lara, my love, please push. Please.”

Pain and exhaustion contorted her exquisite face. She writhed atop the birthing couch. Tears leaked from her eyes.

“I can’t!”

Jor-El could not let her falter, not when they were so close to achieving what they had hoped and planned for. Awed by her bravery, he sought to lend her whatever strength and encouragement he could.

“Push!” he repeated.

For a moment, he feared that they had dared too much, that their reckless endeavor would end in tragedy. But then, just as he was on the verge of abandoning hope, Lara gritted her teeth, managed another heroic effort…

…And gave birth to a baby boy. A shock of black hair, as dark as his mother’s, crowned the infant’s tiny cranium.

Our son, Jor-El thought. Kal-El.

Kelor gently lifted the baby with her metallic tentacles, cradling it as securely as any flesh-and-blood midwife could have managed. Kelex, her male counterpart, hovered nearby. He resembled Kelor, but his contours were sharper and less rounded, as befitted his masculine programming.

Jor-El was deeply moved by the sight of the child, even more than he had anticipated, but relief and elation swiftly gave way to concern as he observed that Kal-El was silent and unresponsive. A sickening possibility filled him with dread.

What if the child was stillborn?

He held his breath, unable to inhale until his son did. Kal-El seemed so small and fragile. An endless moment elapsed, stretching out as interminably as a sentence to the Phantom Zone—until the baby finally breathed in and, for the first time in generations, the cries of a newborn infant echoed off the venerable walls of the House of El.

The bawling, lusty and full-bodied, escaped the Citadel to ring out over the vast estate below. Rondor beasts, grazing in fields of genetically-engineered grass, lifted their bovine heads in surprise. They gazed up at the huge domed structure, which was anchored to the peak of a looming basalt cliff. Tiny birds, nesting in the Rondors’ armored hide, took flight in alarm.

We did it, Jor-El thought in triumph. We truly did it.

He beamed at Lara, sharing with her a moment of undiluted joy

If only it could last…

“He’s beautiful,” Lara said. “He’s perfect.”

She reclined upon the couch, holding Kal-El in her arms. She gazed down at him warmly, smiling despite her exhaustion. Sitting beside her, Jor-El thought she had never looked so lovely, so radiant. He wished he could stay here, enjoying this tender scene, forever.

But forever was not to be.

“I knew he would be,” Jor-El said. He rose reluctantly to his feet. “I have to go.”

Her azure eyes implored him. “Please don’t.”

It tore his heart out to deny her. The last thing he wanted at this instant was to leave his family’s side for what was probably an exercise in futility, but a sense of duty compelled him. He owed it to Krypton—and his newborn son—to fight for the future. The sigil on his chest reminded him that hope was eternal.

“I have to give it one last try,” he said. “Make them listen—”

Lara refused to let go of his hand.

“What if they don’t?”

A determined look came over his face. He glanced over at the Citadel’s observatory, which was located on the other side of a wide curved archway. His preparations were almost complete. The vessel awaited only its precious cargo.

“Then I’ll do whatever I have to.”

The Council chamber sat atop a towering black pinnacle overlooking the capital city of Kandor. Most of the population had retreated underground, seeking the warmth and energy of the planet’s core instead of the ruddy light of Rao, their aging red sun, but ancient towers still jutted from the surface.

Curved walls, buttresses, and ramparts flowed organically into one another, shunning right angles and emulating the nature that the people of Krypton had conquered in ages past. The sprawling cityscape was like the spiny shell of some enormous living organism—one that had perhaps grown too old and calcified to survive. The immense red sun was beginning to set, slowly surrendering the dusky sky to Krypton’s four small moons, as Jor-El made his final plea to the Council of Five.

“You don’t understand!” he protested.

He stood upon the polished circular floor of the vast chamber, facing the Council members who peered down at him from their elevated thrones. Jor-El had donned his most formal attire for this audience, and was wearing a layered blue robe over his skinsuit. His family crest was embossed upon a gleaming gold breastplate. A golden belt girded his waist. A long red cape hung from his broad shoulders.

“Krypton’s core is collapsing,” he said again. We may only have a few weeks left!”

Eminence Ro-Zar, the leader of the Council, appeared unimpressed. Like his fellow solons, he wore an elaborate robe of muted purple and gold over his skinsuit. An ornate crown towered above his furrowed brow. Honor guards, armed with lances of burnished steel and bone, stood at attention around the perimeter of the chamber. Ribs of bioengineered carbon-silica supported the high vaulted ceiling.