Lois crossed her fingers, wishing him luck, only to be distracted by a sudden explosion outside the plane. Her head pivoted toward the open ramp at the end of the hold. Through the gap, she saw one of their F-35 escorts blown apart by white-hot blasts of plasma.
The crippled fighter came apart before her eyes. A fireball erupted in the sky where the plane had been.
What—?
Her eyes widened in shock and recognition as the Kryptonian scout ship from the Arctic descended from above, its cannons blazing. Another volley of blasts tore apart the last remaining F-35, leaving the C-17 on its own.
Lois gulped as the ancient UFO swept in toward the defenseless cargo plane.
This doesn’t make any sense, she thought. I thought Clark had inherited that ship! What was it doing here— and why was it attacking them?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Zod piloted the captured scout ship. Despite its age, the venerable craft handled well, and its weapons proved more than sufficient to dispose of the primitive human aircraft that were harassing the Black Zero.
Having eliminated the jet fighters first, he turned his attention to the lumbering aircraft they had been guarding. He eyed the freighter suspiciously, wondering what the human pilots had died to protect. It was hard to imagine that any Terran weapon could pose a significant threat to the Black Zero, but it was best not to take chances— especially now that the gravity field had been disabled.
That had to be Kal-El’s doing, he thought darkly. If only he was in my sights instead.
“Target that aircraft,” he ordered the ship.
“Targeting, sir.”
A tactical overlay appeared upon the viewport as the weapon systems acquired the plane. Whatever the humans hoped to accomplish, they would soon be reduced to atoms.
Along with their future.
From the aft of the cargo bay, Lois saw the Kryptonian scout ship coming in for the kill. Having already watched the alien ship wipe out two of the jet fighters, she held little hope for the defenseless cargo plane.
Unless…
Her prayers were answered as an unmistakable blue-and-red figure came streaking down from the sky. Hope restored Lois’s spirits.
It’s about time, she thought. This looks like a job for Superman.
Superman slammed into the scout ship only seconds before it could fire on the C-17. He breached the hull, invading the bridge even as Zod rose from the pilot’s seat in surprise.
But he didn’t give the genocidal general a moment to recover from the attack. Out for blood, and determined not to let Zod hurt anyone else, he lunged at his father’s murderer, driving him back through a bulkhead and onto the floor. His fingers closed around Zod’s throat as he pinned him to the tiles. After what he had just seen of the damage inflicted on Metropolis, he figured the kid gloves were off.
“It’s over, Zod,” he said grimly. “I’m sending you back where you belong!”
Holding onto his enemy with one hand, he began tearing apart the craft’s lustrous interior panels and neural networks. Part of him regretted trashing his Kryptonian legacy like this, but he couldn’t risk Zod turning the scout ship and its technology against Earth again. Without the Genesis Chamber, Zod couldn’t use the missing Codex to spawn hordes of Kryptonian conquerors.
As he understood it, the exiled fanatics would sooner die off than breed the old-fashioned way.
Caught in Superman’s grasp, Zod fought to halt the destruction.
“You fool!” he ranted. “The Codex is inside you!”
Superman froze, caught off-guard by the revelation.
Is this some sort of trick? he wondered.
“All you need is the Genesis Chamber!” Zod insisted, half-pleading, half-threatening. He railed at Superman, frantic to get through to him. “If you destroy this ship, you destroy Krypton!”
“That’s what I’m banking on!” Superman said.
Heat rays shot from his eyes, incinerating a molded control module that was rooted to the ceiling. The bridge pitched beneath them as the ship went into a tailspin.
Zod’s face went pale as he felt the ship—and the Genesis Chamber—plummeting toward doom. An agonized cry tore itself from his throat.
“NO!!!”
The scout ship whirled past the C-17, barely missing the plane, before crashing into a skyscraper. Lois watched in horror from the back of the cargo hold as the Kryptonian ship ploughed through the building and kept on going, scraping against nearby high-rises and sending avalanches of glass and steel and stone into the streets below.
Peering out the open loading ramp, she saw that the Daily Planet building, with its trademark globe, was still standing, but for how much longer?
She was starting to wonder if there was going to be anything left of Metropolis before Zod and his troops were stopped.
Down on the street, Perry and his colleagues gaped at the aerial combat being waged overhead. They ducked for cover as a spiraling Kryptonian ship, which looked suspiciously like the one Lois had described in her article, took out two blocks of buildings before slamming into the streets far too close for comfort.
Lombard and Jenny both looked to Perry for leadership, but he figured all they could now was hunker down and hope for a miracle.
A lone C-17 had survived the alien ship’s attack. Perry tracked the cargo plane as it angled toward Zod’s mothership for reasons unknown. He offered a silent prayer for whatever brave souls were aboard that plane, taking the fight to the enemy.
Give ’em hell, Perry thought.
Explosions ripped through the bridge and Genesis Chamber, throwing Superman and Zod apart. Dormant creches crumbled to ash. Amniotic fluid boiled over, bursting the reservoir. Ripped umbilici bled into the chamber. Gouts of plasma sprayed from severed conduits.
Thunderous impacts battered the hull as the ship crashed to Earth. Flames roared through the Fortress, engulfing the two men in a fiery hell.
The escape pod arced away from the Black Zero, on an intercept course with the worrisome human aircraft. Inside the pod, Faora waited until she was within range of the plane, counting down the last few yards impatiently.
Almost… almost…
Now!
She tore open the pod’s entry hatch and cast it outside, then climbed out of the interior cavity, gripping the ragged doorframe. A foul Earthly wind blew past her as she leapt from pod toward the human’s aircraft.
Beware, humans, she thought. Your end is upon you.
Dr. Hamilton wedged himself beneath the space capsule, still trying to reach the broken coupling. Lois anxiously observed his progress, torn between the technical difficulties in the cargo hold and the apocalyptic battles outside the plane. The scientist muttered as his outstretched fingers brushed against the dangling fibers.
“Almost got it—”
Faora burst through the roof of the hold, tearing a gap in the C-17’s fuselage. Lois gasped as she recognized Zod’s pitiless lieutenant, whose explosive entrance caused the plane to rock wildly. The flight crew fought to keep them level, but the jolt sent Lois tumbling backward out the aft landing ramp.