Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization (24 page)

“I have to go,” he said.

She didn’t want him to, and it seemed as if he didn’t want to leave her, either. He was more than just a story to her now. She felt a connection between them—and an attraction—that was stronger than gravity. They gazed at each other for a long moment, neither saying what they were feeling.

Maybe it was just the adrenaline rush, but she had never wanted to kiss anyone more than she wanted to kiss Superman—no,
Clark
—right this very minute.

But the moment passed, washed away by the tide of events, and he took to the sky. She watched in wonder as he flew toward Smallville, faster than the eye could follow. Within seconds, he was out of sight.

She wondered if she would ever get used to that.

A siren wailed in the distance. Turning around, she spotted a sheriff’s vehicle, its gumball light spinning, speeding toward the crash site. She ran toward the road, waving her arms to flag the car down.

Jor-El had given her a mission. She knew what she had to do next.

D
usty barked furiously at the front door. Martha shut off her vacuum cleaner and crossed the living room to see what had the collie so agitated. Worry lines deepened around her eyes and mouth. Her brow furrowed. What if the government had come looking for Clark? Or someone worse was?

She locked Dusty inside and stepped out onto the front porch. A smoky odor alerted her to a fire somewhere in the vicinity. High-pitched squeals heralded the arrival of two exotic aircraft that bore an unmistakable resemblance to the alien space capsule hidden in the barn. The ships descended out of a sunny sky and landed on the yard in front of the farmhouse.

She stepped down from the porch, ready to face their occupants.

Martha had been dreading a moment like this for over thirty years, afraid that Clark’s alien kin would show up to reclaim him, but now that it was finally happening, she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Except protect her son, of course.

Four Kryptonians in armored suits, black capes, and helmets exited the ships. Unearthly and intimidating, they resembled futuristic gods of war. One of the intruders was a giant who towered over his companions, while another was shaped like a woman. The strangers spread out and surrounded her, but Martha didn’t bother trying to flee. If they were even half as fast and strong as Clark, she wouldn’t get far.

The leader came forward. She recognized his voice from the broadcast that had panicked the world. A transparent helmet protected his head. A black cape fluttered in the wind.

“The craft he arrived in,” Zod demanded. “Where is it?”

She didn’t like his tone.

“Go to hell,” she said, not knowing if he’d understand the reference.

He scowled behind the shimmering visor of his helmet, then nodded at the statuesque female soldier accompanying him.

“Faora,” he said curtly.

The alien amazon grabbed Martha by the throat and lifted her off the ground with one hand. Martha’s feet dangled in the air as fingers that felt like bands of steel locked onto her throat. A strangled gasp escaped her lips.

“You raised him,” the woman said coldly. “You know what he’s capable of. Now imagine that kind of power in the hands of someone who could not care less about you.”

With that, she hurled Martha to the ground.

I won’t tell you anything,
Martha thought angrily.
You’re
nothing
like my son!

But Zod had already lost interest in her. He scanned the farm with eyes that might be able to see as far and deep as Clark’s. Martha’s heart sank as he squinted at the old threshing barn, which had been converted into a tool shed. He pointed at the building.

“There,” he said.

* * *

Faora leapt fifty feet into the air, arcing across the farm to crash through the roof of the barn and past its floor as well. Landing in the musty basement, she yanked off the tarp concealing the capsule. Her gloved fingers dug into the blackened hull and she ripped off the canopy. Impatient eyes scanned the interior of the starcraft. Then she snarled in disappointment.

“The Codex isn’t here.”

Zod yanked Martha from the ground and flung her across the yard. She hit the grass hard enough to knock the breath from her. Her whole body felt bruised and sore. She would be lucky if she hadn’t broken any bones.

“Where has he hidden it?” he demanded.

Martha wasn’t sure what a “Codex” was. Maybe that spiked black key they’d found in the space capsule? Last she knew, Clark had taken it with him to the Arctic.

She decided to play dumb.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“
Don’t lie to me
!” he bellowed, losing his temper. An aging John Deere tractor was parked beside the barn. Zod irritably swatted it aside with the back of his hand as he marched toward her. Eight thousand pounds of rusty green metal crashed into the corner of the house. Wooden timbers splintered and a section of roof crumbled. Dusty barked frantically inside, but Zod paid no heed to the frightened animal.

He glared furiously at Martha.

“WHERE IS THE CODEX?”

I wouldn’t tell you for all the tea in China,
she thought.

He reached for her again, but before he could grab hold, a sonic boom thundered above the farm, rattling the decrepit windmill. Zod and his cronies turned their eyes upward, searching for the source of the boom. Lying on the ground, Martha spotted a red-and-blue blur streaking down from the sky.

Clark?

* * *

With the impact of a locomotive, Superman slammed into Zod at hypersonic speed. The force of the blow sent the Zod bouncing across the rural landscape. Superman zoomed after him, determined to carry the fight as far from the Kent farm—as far from his mother—as possible.

They crashed through a grain elevator on the outskirts of Smallville without even slowing down. A cascade of wheat poured from the breached concrete silo, while the heat of their passage ignited the highly combustible grain dust, triggering a chain of explosions that blew off the roof. A tremendous fireball shot into the sky, even as the warring Kryptonians kept on hurtling through the air, leaving the burning facility behind.

Momentum sent them sailing through a 7-Eleven at the edge of the main commercial strip. Glass shattered as they tore in through one wall and out the other. Terrified customers ran screaming into the street, spilling their Slurpees onto the pavement. The roof of the convenience store caved in. Sparks sprayed from broken neon lights.

A gas station was the next victim of their headlong trajectory, which had traversed dozens of miles in less than a minute. The filling station exploded into flames as Superman and Zod barreled through the pumps, ripping them from their foundations. Thick black smoke rose from the inferno. A gassy odor leaked into the air. Debris rained down from sky.

Panicked men, women, and children ran for cover, seeking the dubious safety of the surrounding shops and businesses. Old men fled their benches. Tires squealed as drivers hit the gas, speeding away from the war zone that the downtown had become. A siren wailed from the fire station, as though a tornado was approaching. People hid in barber shops and beauty salons, as well as the bank, drug store, and gym.

The combatants finally came to a stop in the middle of Main Street. Superman was the first to rise to his feet. Anger was written all over his face. He raised his fists.

“You think you can threaten my mother?”

Zod staggered to his feet, shaken and off-balance. Burning gasoline blazed across his cape and he yanked it angrily from his shoulders. His force-helmet was cracked and sputtering, deformed by its collision with Superman’s fists. Unable to maintain its integrity, it began to dematerialize.

Zod blinked as he tried to bring his vision into focus. He stared at his hands in bewilderment.

Superman could guess what he was seeing—the same shifting electromagnetic spectrum that had overwhelmed Clark as a small child, the world ablaze with disorienting colors, the deafening cacophony of a million amplified sounds.

Finally Zod’s helmet dissolved in a shower of sparks, leaving his face and lungs fully exposed to Earth’s atmosphere. Gasping, he reeled away. He threw his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to muffle the sonic barrage. He choked on his words as he glared furiously at his foe.

“What have you done to me?” he demanded, but his words carried little of the usual command.

“Found your Achilles heel,” Superman said. “My parents taught me to hone my senses, Zod. Focus on just the things I
wanted
to see, and tune out everything else.”

He advanced on his enemy. It was time to finish this, before anyone else got hurt.

“But without your helmet, you can’t focus. You’re getting
everything
. And it’s too much, isn’t it?”

A dropship flared in overhead, coming to Zod’s rescue. Plasma cannons fired at Superman, knocking him backward into a parked delivery truck, which crumpled when he hit it. Momentarily stunned, he pulled himself out of the demolished truck even as the ship touched down in the street. One of Zod’s lieutenants rushed out and hurriedly dragged his general to safety.

Forget it,
Superman thought, determined to stop them from getting away. He started toward the ship, only to be blocked by Faora and another soldier, who suddenly leapt into the street before him.

Superman gaped at the sight of the woman’s comrade, who was at least nine feet tall. An opaque helmet concealed the giant’s features. Wide in the chest, with fists like anvils, he put any human bodybuilder to shame. He overheard Faora address the brute as Nam-Ek. They looked as if they were spoiling for a fight.

Smack dab in the middle of Smallville.

Superman was acutely conscious of his surroundings, and of the countless innocent lives at risk. He scanned the downtown area with his X-ray vision, noting dozens of scared and helpless people taking cover in the nearby buildings. Parents clutched their crying children. Clerks and customers cowered behind shelves and counters while calling for help on their cell phones.

Doors and windows slammed shut and were locked as quickly as possible. Gun owners sought out their weapons, never imagining just how futile they would be in the face of the Kryptonian threat. Sobs, curses, and desperate prayers reached Superman’s ears.

But he heard something else as well—the whirr of approaching helicopters.

S
ix AH-6 gunships swept in from the east, ferrying Special Forces troops. Spinning rotors sliced through the afternoon sky. The smoke and flames rising up from the small Kansas town and its surrounding farmlands were visible from the cockpit of Colonel Nate Hardy’s own “Little Bird.”

His blood boiled at the rampant destruction. Before joining the army, he had grown up in a rural community much like Smallville. He took this unprovoked attack personally.

“All players,” he barked over the radio. “This is Guardian. I am Airborne Mission Commander. Stand by for words. I have previously encountered and observed the beings we are about to engage at close proximity. They possess technology and capabilities well beyond our own. In addition, at least one of these beings is capable of flight. They are extremely dangerous and we have been authorized by executive order to use deadly force.”

He hoped that he’d gotten his message across—that the Kryptonians were significantly more dangerous than any human combatants. But how could even highly trained Special Forces personnel really grasp what they might be up against here?

Hardy had seen Superman fly, witnessed it with his own two eyes. And even now, he could hardly believe it.

Who knew what these other aliens were capable of?

His radio crackled as the lead gunship called in.

“Roger, Guardian. This is Gunslinger 06. Sitrep, Over.”

“Gunslinger 06, request you put troops down in LZs One, Two, and Three. This operation is non-permissive.”

His order made it clear that they were flying into a hostile environment, presumably under enemy control. This was not how he had ever thought of Kansas before.