The Last Days of Krypton

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Zod desperately needed to find someone else to punish for this debacle. “Why did this fault occur? I ordered only one weapon to be launched. What caused them all to take off? Who is responsible?”

  “What does it matter? Maybe the weapons were all linked somehow. Maybe this is a final trick that Jax-Ur played upon later generations, his revenge against anyone who uncovered his stockpile. There’s no stopping it now.”

  “Get Jor-El in here!” Zod shouted.

  One of the female technicians gasped. She bent over the display screen. “General! Look at this.” The telescope array tracked the progress of the nova javelins, and on the image, the sky had turned darker, more purple, full of stars. “The parabolic trajectory is wrong. The javelins have changed course!”

  Zod shoved his way closer. “How so? Where are they headed now? What part of Krypton will they strike?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” No-Ton insisted. “With that much firepower, any impact will blow the whole planet apart.”

  The technician shook her head vigorously. “No, they’ve achieved escape velocity. They’re…they’re heading out into space.”

  Zod couldn’t believe what he had heard. “To space? Are we safe, then?” He spun toward No-Ton. “Is it an accident, or was it planned?”

  “I set the coordinates for Argo City myself, General. As you ordered. The missiles have completely deviated from their program.”

  Clustered like a flock of migratory birds, all fifteen nova javelins soared out of the last wisps of Krypton’s atmosphere and clawed their way free of the planet’s gravity well.

  “Are they just going to disperse?” He felt a sudden, giddy hope. “Will they detonate where they can cause no harm?”

  No-Ton sat back, pale with disbelief. “Who can know, General? This is beyond me. When the rockets run out of fuel, they might eventually circle around and fall into Rao. We could have a reprieve after all.”

  The words reminded Zod of the instabilities Jor-El had long predicted in the sun. If fifteen nova javelins plunged into the red giant, might such incredible explosions finally trigger the sun to go supernova? He wanted to scream in frustration.

  The observing telescopes increased their magnification, and the view shifted. Now Zod finally saw the intended target of the doomsday weapons. No-Ton and the other technicians gasped. Zod clenched his fist. “Damn him!”

  Aethyr stumbled into the control room, looking drained and terrified. “I wanted to be with you at the end.”

  Zod showed his teeth in a bitter smile. “There will be no end. Not today.”

  A haloed ball of ice and rock filled the screen, surrounded by a vaporous coma and a long feathery tail. Loth-Ur’s Hammer.

  Like precisely targeted arrows, the nova javelins streaked toward the heart of the comet. All fifteen struck within seconds of each other. The combined explosion released five times as much force as the blast that had obliterated Koron. Filters automatically drowned out a percentage of the glare before the screens themselves overloaded. Outside, the distant detonation created a brief new sun in Krypton’s sky.

  All that remained of Loth-Ur’s Hammer was an expanding cloud of energized gas and the sparkling residue of the greatest weapons display Krypton had ever seen.

  The comet was vaporized, no longer a threat. The world had been saved.

  The weapons had been sabotaged.

  And Zod knew that Jor-El was the man responsible.

  CHAPTER 77

  In the confusion and chaos after the missile launches, Jor-El could have escaped from Kryptonopolis. He could have raced back to his estate or fled to Argo City. But he would never leave Lara behind.

  Like the ancient philosopher Kal-Ik, who had spoken the truth even though he knew that Chieftain Nok would execute him for it, Jor-El had done what was necessary. Even though he had saved the planet, General Zod would quite likely kill him. This was a betrayal of unprecedented magnitude.

  Nam-Ek came for him, his face a thunderstorm of rage. Jor-El had expected a full squad of Zod’s Sapphire Guards and several members of the Ring of Strength, but the burly mute alone was more than capable of hauling him off to the government palace. Unafraid, and proud of what he had achieved, Jor-El prepared to face his nemesis. He would not back down.

  Ever since Zod had erected his pretentious statue, the government chambers had begun to take on the appearance of a throne room. Now, that was where the General waited for Jor-El. Zod sat in a squarish, bulky chair on a raised platform with Aethyr at his right hand, icy and beautiful.

  Nam-Ek released the scientist with a forward shove, making him stumble. Jor-El caught himself and tried to regain his dignity by straightening his white robes. He touched the curved S family symbol on his breast, drawing strength from a lineage that dated back to Sor-El and the time of the Seven Army Conference. Without a word, he met Zod’s gaze.

  Sour-faced Koll-Em entered the throne chamber pulling Lara roughly along, despite her advanced pregnancy. When she saw Jor-El, Lara broke free of the man’s sweaty grip and ran to her husband. He held her, kissed her lips, and buried his face in her amber hair, certain that Zod meant to execute them both.

  With a glower, the General curtly dismissed Koll-Em. When the young noble pouted at being left out of this confrontation, Zod responded with a look that made him scuttle away in silence. Finally the General said, his voice a low burn, “I would ask you to explain yourself, but I am not interested in your answer.”

  Jor-El was not intimidated. “You’re alive now because of what I have done. Shouldn’t you be grateful?”

  “You defied me!” Zod launched himself to his feet as if he himself had become a dangerous projectile.

  “I protected all Kryptonians from your criminally stupid decisions.” Jor-El took a step closer to the blocky chair. “And now it’s time for you to be removed from power. I should have done this long ago.”

  Zod froze at the audacity of his statement; then he began to chuckle. Beside him, Aethyr laughed aloud, and even Nam-Ek guffawed wordlessly. Jor-El ignored them. “General Zod, your rule is at an end.”

  Zod exchanged glances with his two companions, as if one of them could explain the joke. “And how will you accomplish that? I am intrigued. You have always been a thinker, a man of ideas rather than actions.”

  Jor-El raised his eyebrows. “Actions? I am the one who destroyed the Rao-beam generator so you couldn’t use it again as a weapon.” Aethyr and Zod looked even angrier than they had been before, but he continued. “My brother and I coordinated our plans for stopping you. In the days since your armies withdrew from Argo City, Zor-El has pulled together an extensive resistance from all across Krypton. Your senseless attack was enough to goad many other city leaders into action. Even now they are marching on Kryptonopolis.”

  Zod laughed with scorn now. “A ragtag handful of poorly armed rebels? They can’t possibly stand against me. I have been building my military defenses for months, and my whole army is here. We have weapons based on your own designs and wave after wave of expendable foot soldiers.”

  Jor-El smiled. “Perhaps. But I have better technology and greater imagination.”

  Zod looked at Aethyr and Nam-Ek, suddenly uncertain. Jor-El touched the controls hidden inside his loose robe.

  The force-field generator he had placed near Zod’s throne activated. A small dome immediately appeared, trapping Zod, Nam-Ek, and Aethyr inside a hemispherical prison three meters in diameter. Nam-Ek roared and threw himself at the curved wall, but his blows bounced off ineffectually. Zod also hammered and shouted, but it did him no good.

  “Zor-El smuggled me the plans,” he explained to Lara. “The field will contain the General until my brother and his army arrive.”

  Her beautiful eyes were still troubled. “But the rest of Zod’s forces are out there. Even if a rebel military is coming, they can’t defeat all of Kryptonopolis.”

  “They can if we divide the General’s followers into much smaller groups.” He pressed another b
utton, and a second force-field dome appeared, greater in circumference. This one slammed down over the whole government palace.

  Then he activated the third dome, larger still, stretching halfway across the Square of Hope and capping the others like a set of nested eggs. There, it cut off the hundreds who had gathered out in the streets, separating them from their weapons and military equipment. By design, the force-field barrier crashed into the tall statue of Zod, severing it in two, and the pieces toppled to the flat tiles.

  Two more domes extended in stages out to the perimeter of Kryptonopolis, again dividing the remaining soldiers.

  Watching the furiously cursing Zod in his shimmering prison, Jor-El felt tremendous satisfaction. He held Lara, pressed her rounded belly against him, and knew that his son would be born on a free Krypton after all, a world that no longer faced the threat of imminent annihilation.

  “Now we wait, Lara. You and I, here together.”

  CHAPTER 78

  Zor-El’s allied rebels were converging on Kryptonopolis when they saw the nova javelins streak into the sky. He paused to stare up at the curving vapor trails while his companions gasped in dismay and awe. He swallowed in a dry throat. Within moments, if the missiles found their target, all of Argo City might be vaporized. When Zod’s armies had departed, unsuccessful, Zor-El had deactivated the force-field dome. Seeing the missiles approach, they could always switch it back on again, but would it withstand nova javelins? Alura could be dead, and his mother, all his friends and acquaintances, all of Argo City’s great works—gone in a few moments.

  But he trusted Jor-El would do as he had promised.

  Now, as the golden missiles vanished into the distant sky, Korth-Or spoke, his lisp growing more pronounced with his agitation. He had already lost his own city. “So Zod really did it! The bastard.”

  “Should we wait? If the world is going to end today, what good does it do for us to attack Kryptonopolis?” Or-Om shook his shaggy head in disbelief.

  Zor-El drew his dark eyebrows together. “Because if the world doesn’t end, then every moment will count.” They had gambled everything on this surprise turnabout, and he would hold on to hope.

  His multipronged army continued toward the capital city with its hodgepodge assembly of vehicles and equipment—tools that had been hastily converted into weapons, passenger craft refitted to become military vehicles and soldier transports. The fighters came from the refugees of Borga City, as well as dozens of other cities and towns; Zor-El had drawn the bulk of them from his own citizenry. Now the armed group moved inexorably toward the former Xan City, knowing they would be outnumbered. But Zor-El told them to have faith.

  And they did.

  Then the army saw the huge flare high in the sky. Even in broad daylight, the searing blue-white detonation cast second shadows, overwhelming the red sunlight. Blinking and rubbing their eyes, the anxious rebels stared in awe at the spreading glow that marked the destroyed comet in space. They cheered and whooped, but Zor-El allowed them no time to celebrate. “Onward! We can’t slow down now.”

  When at last they reached the city, Zor-El took in the breathtaking view of the rebuilt capital now encased under a nested set of shimmering domes—exactly as he had hoped to find it. General Zod’s supporters were all bottled up inside the force fields. “Now it’s time to do some mopping up.”

  The rebel army encountered several hundred stragglers around the perimeter of the outermost dome. They were trying to batter their way in, assuming that Zod had shut them out. Zor-El smiled at the irony as his troops quickly rounded up the confused men and women. Most surrendered without a fight; some struggled, but they were easily disarmed and taken prisoner.

  Zor-El had brought several dozen smaller force-field generators, which his army used as holding domes to keep the groups separated. Afterward, it would be an arduous task to sort out which of these people belonged fanatically to Zod’s cause and which had been only reluctant fighters.

  By the time the rebels overwhelmed the stragglers and encircled the outermost dome over the city, Zor-El’s rebel army had acquired twice as many weapons as they had arrived with. Then, fully armed, they prepared for the next phase, spreading out around the force field’s perimeter. When Or-Om, Korth-Or, and Gal-Eth announced that their separate groups of soldiers were ready, Zor-El found the hidden shield generator exactly where his brother had told him he intended to install it.

  With a last glance around to be sure his fighters were prepared to face Zod’s men trapped between the next two domes, he deactivated the outermost shield. Because of the large area between the two shells, Zor-El knew that this would be the largest single crowd of enemy soldiers; each successively smaller dome would contain fewer and fewer fighters. Divide and conquer.

  Several frantic members of the Ring of Strength were inside, cut off and struggling to understand what had happened. As the force field vanished, Zor-El’s troops pushed forward, but Zod’s Ring members rallied their followers to attack. Some fired their weapons indiscriminately, but many of the reluctant soldiers simply surrendered.

  Zor-El’s rebels isolated the hot spots and disarmed the numerous men and women who obviously had never wanted to join Zod’s army. Working inward, he deactivated another force-field dome and advanced to the Square of Hope, where the bisected Zod statue lay like a fallen idol on the ground, and within an hour, the newcomers had subjugated all the people inside that shell. By now they had disarmed the majority of the opposing army, and their own casualties were minimal.

  However, when he shut down the subsequent dome that encompassed the government palace, a sudden fury of armored Sapphire Guards led by a screaming Koll-Em nearly overwhelmed them. Some of Zod’s loyalists used beam lances, new weapons corrupted from Jor-El’s original designs, to incinerate the first line of rebel soldiers. The sheer violence drove back Zor-El’s fighters, and they were forced to leave their dead on the ground.

  He cried out, “Pull together! Take them out before they kill any more of us.” Ten of his fighters had already been cut down.

  “For Borga City!” Korth-Or shouted, still pushing forward.

  “For Krypton!” Gal-Eth added.

  Ferret-faced Koll-Em had no interest in surrendering or even surviving. The Sapphire Guards continued to fire their deadly beam lances. Taking careful aim, Zor-El shot his own weapon, sending a burst of thin crystal darts into Koll-Em’s chest. With a scream that faded to silence like the air leaking out of a balloon, the head of the Ring of Strength collapsed to the stone steps outside the government palace.

  Weapons fire pummeled the last Sapphire Guards, powerful enough to breach their armor. After a flurry of noise, silence descended again.

  Zor-El bowed his head. “How many did we lose?” He listened as names were called out, soldiers checking bodies and counting smears of smoke and burned flesh on the ground.

  “Fifteen,” said Gal-Eth.

  “That’s fifteen too many.” Zor-El looked ahead of him at the government palace. General Zod would be inside. All of them had their weapons drawn as they pushed into the imposing building.

  But as the victorious rebels marched into Zod’s throne room, Zor-El saw his brother holding Lara, paying no attention to the faint shouts of the three prisoners trapped inside their small dome.

  CHAPTER 79

  Despite their exhaustion, Zor-El and his rebels spent many hours interviewing the prisoners who had been herded into separate containment domes. They winnowed out the armored Sapphire Guards and the remaining Ring of Strength members, keeping them under a separate prison dome as the most dangerous captives.

  Other hapless citizens insisted they had meant only to help in the wake of the Kandor disaster. They had come under Zod’s spell, plunging one step after another down a slippery slope. Artisans, builders, civil engineers, people of all classes had just wanted to do the right thing.

  In the aftermath, the people of Kryptonopolis reviled General Zod’s actions. Torn blue armbands littered the gr
ound, still showing Zod’s family crest. Soldiers discarded the military uniforms the General had forced them to wear; they piled the garments in great mounds in the Square of Hope and set them alight in large bonfires. All of the former city leaders who had bent their knees and submitted to Zod abdicated in shame.

  Inside the throne room Zod, Aethyr, and Nam-Ek remained trapped in their hemispherical bubble, irate and totally helpless. In addition to Koll-Em, two Ring members had been killed during the fighting. Jor-El spoke on No-Ton’s behalf, explaining how the man had alerted him to the Rao-beam attack on Borga City and how he had subtly resisted the General in numerous ways. The remaining twelve were placed in restraints and brought forward, heads bowed, so they could observe their General in his total defeat.

  Before any sort of trial could begin, however, before the Ring members could plead their cases, beg for mercy, or snarl justifications, Jor-El and Lara made a chilling discovery.

  Inside the government palace, Lara turned in slow circles, studying the architecture of Zod’s primary office. Looking at the intersection of walls and using her artist’s spatial perception, she realized that something was wrong. “This wall isn’t where it’s supposed to be, Jor-El. See this load-bearing column here?” She stepped around the weathered statue of Jax-Ur’s kneeling victim and studied the perfectly interlocking wall blocks. “He’s hidden something behind here. There must be a latch or a lock.”

  Already dreading what they might find, Jor-El tested the panel, listened for sounds of resonance, then returned to Zod’s desk. With his arrogant confidence, the General would not have worried about being discovered in his own office. He would have made the controls easily accessible.