“Thunder-One-One, I need you to engage the targets with gun and Maverick. Your field elevation is as needed. You’ve got three individuals occupying intersection just in front of Sears, marked by laser.”
“Copy all, Guardian. Tally three targets. Thunder-One-One Flight in from the east.”
A pair of fighter jets rocketed ahead of the ’copters. The twin-engine, straight-wing aircraft, nicknamed “Warthogs,” were equipped with both heavy-duty rotary cannons and six Maverick missiles each, the better to provide close air support for troops on the ground. Hardy figured the Hogs were their best bet at taking out the aliens.
They were built to take out tanks, for Pete’s sake.
“Thunder-One-One Flight, you are cleared hot!”
The jets came in low for a strafing run. Powerful 30mm autocannons unleashed a barrage of firepower on the alien trio, spraying more than four thousand rounds a minute. Precision-guided Maverick air-to-surface missiles followed the explosive rounds. Each missile carried a three-hundred-pound warhead.
Hardy felt sorry for Smallville.
Superman spotted the Warthogs as they began firing. He dived out of the way of the air strike, but was tagged anyway. An armor-piercing shell, made of depleted uranium, failed to break his skin, but sent him crashing through the front of a hardware store. The property damage hurt even worse than the ammo—this was his hometown that was being wrecked. He knew these people and their businesses.
His father had shopped in this store.
Faora dodged the shells and missiles, but her lumbering comrade, Nam-Ek, didn’t even try to get out of the line of the fire. Standing like an alien goliath in the middle of the intersection, he took the full brunt of the attack.
Anti-tank missiles slammed into the armored giant, hurling him down the length of the street. He skidded to a halt some thirty feet back.
Well, that’s one down, Hardy thought, watching from the cockpit of his chopper. At least we got the big guy.
“Thunder-One-One Flight,” he said into the radio. “Good hit. Request immediate reattack.”
“Guardian copy,” the pilot of the lead A-10 replied. “We’ll be back in one minute.”
The Warthogs circled around for a second pass. Their first attack had inflicted serious damage. Smoking craters pitted the intersection. Charred rubble was strewn everywhere. Water gushed from blasted hydrants and water mains. Broken glass had spilled onto the street and sidewalks. Abandoned cars had been reduced to burning heaps of metal.
“Flight in,” the pilot reported. “Coming from the east.”
The Warthogs screamed in for another run, ready to let loose their devastating firepower once again.
But this time Nam-Ek was ready for them. Climbing to his feet, he leapt to meet the oncoming aircraft. The giant Kryptonian shot through the air and collided with the cockpit of the lead jet. Superman heard its pilot cry out in alarm.
“Thunder, jink! Target off the nose!”
Nam-Ek clung to the front of the aircraft. A mammoth fist smashed into the cockpit. Superman watched in dismay as the A-10 spiraled out of control, taking the Kryptoian with it. The spinning jet crashed into the street, drilling into the pavement.
Only a single heartbeat could be heard beneath the wreckage. Superman knew it wasn’t the pilot’s.
“Guardian, Thunder-One-Two,” the pilot of the second jet reported, his shrill voice unable to hide his shock. “Lead is down! I repeat, lead is down!”
Faora looked eager to bring down an enemy of her own. Flames rose from the burning wreckage as she flung herself through the fire at the remaining Warthog, only to be intercepted in midair by Superman. He clipped her with his shoulder, sending them both tumbling down through the elevated sign of the pancake house and into the dining area of the restaurant.
Chairs and tables went flying as the battling Kryptonians struck like twin cannonballs, leaving a ragged hole in the ceiling. Dust and debris rained down. Superman spotted Pete Ross, of all people, hiding behind the checkout counter. He remembered his mom saying that Pete was the manager here.
To his relief, he didn’t see any other customers or employees. He guessed that they had escaped out the back when all hell broke loose, leaving Pete to hold down the fort. Superman wished he had cleared out, too.
But Faora didn’t care about innocent bystanders. Recovering quickly from their crash landing, she assailed Superman with a flurry of jabs and kicks to his vital areas. Her vicious hands and feet blurred as they lashed out at his knees, neck, and solar plexus. It was like being beaten up by a schoolyard bully again, except this time he could actually feel it.
“You’re weak, Son of El,” she sneered. “Unsure of yourself. But I am not.”
A spinning kick knocked Superman’s legs out from under him. She stood over him, gloating.
“The fact that you possess a sense of morality—and we don’t—gives us an evolutionary advantage. And if history has proven anything—”
She grabbed onto him and hurled him through two full blocks of solid brick and concrete buildings. Only the reinforced steel door of the Kansas National Bank’s main vault arrested his momentum. Dangling electrical cables spewed sparks. Superman braced himself against the dented steel door as he caught his breath.
“—it’s that evolution always wins.”
Her mocking voice rang out as she and Nam-Ek dropped through the roof of the bank. Nam-Ek remained unscratched by the crash that had destroyed the downed A-10. His lumbering tread crushed fallen chunks of masonry to powder. Faora grinned sadistically through her visor.
Outside in the street, army helicopters touched down in three designated landing zones. Uniformed figures swarmed out of the Little Birds, fanning out to evacuate the endangered civilians. The soldiers kicked open doors and climbed through busted shop windows. They hustled trembling families out into the street and toward the waiting choppers, where door gunners manned M2130 chain guns and GAU-19 Gatling guns.
Faora and Nam-Ek converged on Superman, just like the bullies who had ganged up on him on these very streets when he was growing up. But there was a big difference this time around.
He didn’t need to hold back anymore.
Like a missile, he shot past Nam-Ek and powered into Faora, driving her out of the bank and into a garbage truck, tearing a hole in its side. A second later, he flung her out of the gap into the imposing stone façade of the bank. The impact cracked the solid masonry.
He took a different route out of the ruined truck. Defying gravity, he shot straight through the roof and into the contested airspace above downtown Smallville. Army choppers shared the sky with him. He heard Colonel Hardy barking orders to the troops below.
“Check fire! All players, ensure clear lines of fire before engaging!”
Superman wasn’t worried about the soldiers’ bullets. He zoomed down from the sky to strike Faora squarely with both fists. The collision rattled her, but she fought back furiously. They traded dozens of blows, each of which would pulp an ordinary human. Thinking on his feet, Superman deliberately targeted her helmet, which was starting to sputter and spark like Zod’s had.
Good, he thought. I can work with that.
Nam-Ek burst through the front of the bank to join the fight, even as the Special Forces opened fire on all three Kryptonians. Snipers took up positions on nearby rooftops and joined in the attack on the alien combatants. The choppers blasted away with their airborne artillery. A symphony of percussive gunfire drowned out the thunderous blows of Superman and his foes.