Great, she thought glumly. Talk about a big black zero.
She turned away from the locked door—only to find a tall, bearded man standing behind her. She yelped in surprise.
“Where did you come from?” she demanded.
“The command key, Ms. Lane,” came the reply. “Thanks to you, I’m now uploading a copy of myself into the ship’s mainframe.”
What does he mean by that? Lois took a closer look at her unexpected guest. He was an imposing robed figure whose regal bearing conveyed a combination of wisdom and authority. His graying brown beard gave him the look of some space-age patriarch.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Jor-El,” he answered. “Kal’s father.”
She hadn’t seen that coming. Startled, she peered at the stranger’s face. On closer inspection, she thought she saw a family resemblance… maybe. He drew back his robes to reveal the “S” emblazoned on his chest.
Like father, like son.
She glanced around furtively, afraid that the entire discussion was being monitored. There were no two-way mirrors in evidence, but maybe the Kryptonians had a more advanced method of surveillance?
So she cut to the chase.
“Can you help me?” she asked.
“I designed this ship,” he said. “I can modify its atmospheric composition to human compatibility. And I know how to stop them.” Soulful brown eyes implored her. “Will you help me?”
“Yes, of course.”
This whole business was getting wilder and wilder, but if there was even a chance of blindsiding Zod and his troops, then she was determined to take it.
Jor-El gestured toward a holographic display pad. Helixes of Kryptonian code spiraled across the screen. Lois couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
“We will have to move quickly then,” he said. “The crew is already aware of my presence. You can send them back to the Phantom Zone, but you must give my son the following message…”
Lois listened carefully.
The dropships came in low above the cornfields outside Smallville. Their slipstream uprooted the crops and set the fields ablaze. Smoke rose from burning stalks even as the ships descended toward the town.
Ordinary citizens, going about their business, stared in shock at the extraterrestrial aircraft. A mother in a playground, pushing her child on a swing, froze at the sight. Pete Ross, hearing the commotion, dashed out into the parking lot of the pancake house. His jaw dropped as he watched the bizarre objects streak over the water tower. They screamed through the air like banshees.
Pete froze in place. He hadn’t been this scared since the bus crash, twenty years ago. And this time, there was no one to rescue him.
Jor-El’s data screen blinked off abruptly. The lights went out in Lois’s cell, plunging her into darkness. Alarms sounded.
“Remove the command key, Ms. Lane.”
If you say so, she thought. Fumbling in the dark, she extracted it from the port.
The cell door slid open. Lois poked her head out and took a cautious breath, afraid that the air would still be too alien for comfort. But Jor-El had adjusted the atmosphere, as promised. She could breathe easily.
That was one less thing to worry about.
She slipped out into the cramped, murky corridor, accompanied by Clark’s father. By this time she had figured out that he was a hologram, a computer program who apparently could traverse the ship at will. He looked deceptively solid, but he was as insubstantial as, well, a phantom.
For a brief moment she hoped they could get away undetected, but then Car-Vex spotted her. The female soldier charged, drawing a creepy-looking Kryptonian pistol.
Lois prayed it had a “stun” setting.
Right, she thought. I should be so lucky.
But before woman could fire, an emergency blast door slammed down from the ceiling, pinning her to the floor. Her pistol was knocked from her grip and went skidding across the nacreous tiles toward Lois.
Lois glanced sideways at Jor-El. “Did you do that?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Take her sidearm. Keep moving!”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. Scooping the freaky alien gun from the floor, she sprinted after Jor-El, who guided her through a bewildering maze of arteries. Her sweaty palm was wrapped around the grip of the pistol. She had never fired a ray-gun before, but figured there was a first time for everything.
She wondered how long that door was going to hold Car-Vex.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Blaring klaxons echoed off the walls of the science ward. Jax-Ur looked up from his work, his expression twisted in surprise. He triggered an intercom, but then found himself short of breath. He gasped and clutched his throat.
“What’s… happening?” he croaked hoarsely.
Superman smiled.
“It’s called a backup plan. Your ship’s atmospherics just switched back to Earth levels, which means I’ve got my strength again.” Steely blue eyes, with a hint of solar red, fixed on Jax-Ur. “So if I were you, I’d start running.”
Superman tested his shackles again. Straining beyond his limits, he ripped one loose, freeing his right arm. Jax-Ur’s sunken eyes grew wide. Coughing painfully, he staggered out of the lab as quickly as he could manage. He clutched the stolen blood sample to his chest.
Superman let him go. He took a deep breath, pulling the Earth-like air into his lungs. He felt his strength rushing back.
That’s more like it, he thought.
Lois hoped Jor-El knew where he was going.
They dashed through curved tunnels that branched out at wild angles—the weirdly biological architecture reminded her of the spaceship in the Arctic, but on a massive scale. Emergency lights provided only dim illumination, but her eyes soon adjusted to the gloom. She spotted another junction ahead.
“To the left,” Jor-El instructed. “Fire!”
She spun and clumsily fired the pistol, grateful that the trigger mechanism had been designed for humanoid hands. A white-hot plasma pulse knocked a Kryptonian soldier on his back. Lois grinned in satisfaction, but her momentary victory was cut short by the sight of reinforcements approaching from the corridor on the right. Boots pounded on the floor as they shouted at her to surrender.
Lois wondered how many shots her blaster held. Even though she had seen only a handful of soldiers aboard the ship, she was still outnumbered here.
Jor-El gestured toward the tunnel and another blast door slammed into place, cutting off her attackers. They pounded angrily on the other side of the thick barrier, and Lois decided Jor-El was a pretty handy guy to have around.
“This way!” he said.
She followed his lead, stepping over the fallen soldier. Swiftly they rounded another corner.
“Ahead you will find an escape pod,” he said. “Secure yourself. I’ll take care of the rest.”
A portal irised open, revealing a padded seat inside a spherical cavity. Lois climbed into the seat, which faced the corridor outside. She yelped in surprise as silken restraints automatically strapped her into the seat, and briefly wondered if it had all been a trap.
Then display panels pulsed to life as the pod powered up and was shunted into a long black launch tube. A transparent canopy began to lower. Lois felt as if she was stuck on some futuristic amusement park ride—one which was just about to get rolling.
“Safe travels, Ms. Lane,” Jor-El said. “We will not likely see each other again. And remember what I said. The Phantom Drives are the key to stopping them.” He paused, as though he had suddenly become aware of something, and offered a final piece of advice. “Shift your head to the left.”