Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Clark opened his eyes. To his surprise, he was no longer aboard the Black Zero. Instead he glimpsed a clear blue sky beyond the front porch of his childhood home back in Smallville. He sat up and looked around. Everything was just as he remembered it—the barn, the silo, the cornfields. His old swing still hung from a tree branch in the front yard.

The farmhouse was good as new, not at all as rundown as the last time he’d seen it. The warm spring air smelled of freshly cut grass and fertilizer. Laundry hung on a clothesline.

“Hello, Kal.”

He turned around to see Zod standing behind him.

“Or do you prefer Clark?” he continued. “That’s the name they gave you, isn’t it?”

Clark jumped to his feet. He took a closer look at his surroundings, noticing again how out-of-date they were. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“You can access my memories?”

“To an extent,” Zod admitted. “Apparently, your unconscious decided these surroundings might put you at ease.”

But Clark wasn’t feeling at ease. “Where’s Lois?”

“She’s safe,” Zod said. “I’ll take you to her soon enough. But I thought you might like some answers first.”

That might have sounded reasonable, if not for the evidence of history. So far Zod had given Clark little reason to trust him.

“Why don’t you start with why you gave Earth an ultimatum?” he suggested.

“We didn’t have time for diplomacy,” Zod said. “The survival of our race depended on finding you.”

Clark didn’t understand.

“I was told I was the only survivor.”

“And yet I’m standing here today because of your father’s ingenuity.”

Jor-El? Clark was caught off-guard. “You knew him?”

Zod nodded solemnly. A note of what sounded like genuine sorrow entered his voice.

“We were friends—until our beliefs drove a wedge between us. I was Krypton’s military leader. My officers and I attempted a coup. We were sentenced to the Phantom Zone, a subspace dimension that exists alongside our own. Your father had developed a projector capable opening a gateway into the Zone. And since capital punishment was deemed inhumane on Krypton,” Zod said with a bitter edge, “we were shunted into the Zone aboard this prison barge. Our bodies were kept in somatic fugue while our minds were supposedly ‘reconditioned.’”

He chuckled bitterly.

“But the destruction of our world damaged the projector and a handful of us were awoken prematurely…”

“System Failure” messages pulsed across display orbs in the cryostasis containment chamber, where the Kryptonian prisoners served out their sentences in a honeycomb of individual cells. One of the cells folded down from its niche, releasing the prisoner inside. Mobility returned to his body as the preservative gel wore off. His face twitched as he fought his way up from endless dreaming.

His fists clenched.

Zod awoke violently, sitting up straight inside the hold of the Black Zero. His plain black skinsuit clung to his reanimated body. He glanced around in confusion, surprised to find himself alert once again. He had never expected to wake from cryosleep.

What’s happened? Why have I been freed?

As his vision came into focus, the first thing he was saw was Faora, standing before him. Tears streaked her ivory cheeks. That alone was almost enough to make Zod think he was still dreaming. He had never seen Faora cry before. He hadn’t thought her capable of it.

“Krypton’s gone,” she said.

He had no reason to doubt her, but he clambered from his cell and staggered toward the nearest viewport to see for himself. His heart sank as he beheld nothing but a desolate debris field—strewn with planetary rubble— where Krypton had once been. Flecks of iridescent green glinted amidst the drifting asteroids, which were all that was left of the world that Zod has sworn to protect.

Jor-El had been right all along.

“We were adrift… destined to float amidst the ruins of our planet until we starved.” Zod’s voice caught in his throat. He looked away for a moment, overcome by the memory. The illusory Kansas farmhouse was very different from the Kryptonian prison barge that had escaped from the Phantom Zone.

Clark figured there had to be more to the story.

“How did you find your way to Earth?” he asked.

“We took a shortcut,” Zod said, “just like you did. We managed to retrofit the Phantom projector into a hyperdrive. Your father made a similar modification to the ship that brought you here.”

Zod and his officers stood upon the dark cavernous bridge of the Black Zero. No longer a prison, the ship had become an ark, carrying the last survivors of Krypton, save for one other.

The mood was tense. Having only recently escaped the Phantom Zone, the soldiers were understandably nervous about activating the projector again. Zod understood their concerns, but saw no other option. There was nothing left for them here, orbiting the wreckage of their lost world. None of Rao’s other satellites could be made habitable, even if they had access to World Engines, which they did not.

If the Kryptonian race was to have a future, it would have to be forged elsewhere, around another star.

Faora and the others took their places in the acceleration couches. Zod signaled Commander Gor— one of the other reanimates—to activate the phantom drive. The man slid a command key into an active port.

All at once, the universe vanished from the viewport, to be replaced by a maelstrom of unnatural lights that didn’t belong to any spectrum Zod knew. The colors hurt his eyes, and he heard some of his weaker soldiers react in fear, but he refused to look away, gazing steadily into the Zone.

A moment of turbulence shook the ship, and Zod’s stomach turned over, before the Black Zero completed the transition and exited into normal space. In theory, they could use the phantom drive to cross countless light-years in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise. The entire galaxy was now open to them.

And so the instrument of their damnation became their salvation.

But the galaxy proved a cold and unwelcoming place. Years passed as they traversed the cosmos, looking for a new home—and perhaps the treasure Jor-El had stolen from them. In desperation, they sought out the old colonial outposts, searching for signs of life.

One such outpost was located on an icy planet of frozen black sand and windswept wastes. It looked unpromising from orbit, after the Black Zero materialized above it, returning to normal space, but Zod insisted on leading an expedition to the surface in the hope that some remnant of the lost colony had survived.

Located at the outer rim of its solar system, treacherously far from a cooling white dwarf, the planet was too cold to support life under ordinary circumstances. Endless night and icy winter reigned over the barren world. Its harsh environment required Zod and the others to don protective hardsuits as they trekked across the frozen black desert.

He caught a reflection of his face in the visor of Faora’s helmet, and was shocked at how much their bleak odyssey had aged him. His hair was going gray at the temples, while his face was more worn and drawn than he remembered.

Howling winds had carved rocky outcroppings into jagged, twisted formations. A midnight sun—small and faint in the sky—provided only the dimmest glimmers of light. Zod and the landing party needed to rely on searchlights to explore the ruins.

All they found was death. The skeletons of long-dead colonists littered the crumbling structures, which were being eaten away by the relentless winds. Cut off from Krypton after space exploration became a discarded luxury, the abandoned outpost had withered and died, perhaps even before Krypton had. Zod and his followers found no long-lost brothers and sisters.

They were still alone.

Yet the expedition still yielded some benefits. Work crews from the Black Zero salvaged everything they could from the dead outpost—armor, weapons, even a massive World Engine only somewhat smaller than the Black Zero. The towering mechanism had apparently been left idle after the colonists lost hope, but Zod dreamed of a day when it might finally fulfill its intended purpose on a far more suitable planet.

Thus, in an impressive feat of engineering, worthy of their genetic heritage, his people married the exiled prison barge to the World Engine, creating a vast hybrid dreadnought even larger than the ship that had carried them here. Reduced to scavengers, Zod’s soldiers stripped the bones of the forgotten outpost before they resumed their quest for a new beginning. The Black Zero searched the cosmos, homeless and without direction, until one day they received a signal from across the galaxy…

Zod waited impatiently upon the bridge while Tor-An and the others attempted to track the signal to its source. His heart raced with anticipation. In all of their years of weary wandering, he had never forgotten the miniature starcraft that had escaped Krypton before its destruction, carrying Jor-El’s barbaric progeny—and their race’s best hope for survival.

Could it be that the stolen Codex had finally been found?

Finally Tor-An isolated the signal. A three-dimensional star chart, hovering above the control cylinder, zeroed in on the third planet of a distant solar system. Magnification revealed a watery blue world orbiting a bright yellow star. A pulsing icon pinpointed a location near the planet’s northern pole. The image zoomed again, and they saw a rocky island surrounded by icy seas.

“Then we detected a distress beacon, which you triggered when you accessed the ancient scout ship.”

Dusk began to fall over the cornfields. Clark listened intently as Zod concluded his tale. He drew nearer, his mien and manner serious, and looked Clark over, as if taking his measure.

“You led us here, Kal,” he said. “And now you have it within your power to save the rest of our race, as well.”

“How?” Clark asked. He sympathized with the trials Zod and his people had endured, but suspected there was a catch. What exactly do you want from me?

“On Krypton,” Zod explained, “the genetic template of every being yet to be born was encoded in the Registry of Citizens. Your father stole the registry’s Codex, just before the end. He stored it in the capsule that brought you here.”

This was news to Clark.

“For what purpose?” he asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Zod responded. “So that Krypton could live again… on Earth.”

Clark was stunned by Zod’s bold statement. He wanted to think that the other Kryptonians were simply seeking refuge, as would any displaced immigrants. But he feared that Zod had something far more ambitious in mind.

He was about to demand a fuller explanation when an unexpected sight caught his eye, distracting him.

A foreign object dropped from the sky, looking like a shooting star. Far larger than the compact starcraft that had brought him to Earth decades ago, the object struck the rolling farmland less than a quarter-mile away. The impact shook the ground for miles around, almost throwing Clark off-balance. A tremendous plume of debris was thrown into the air, rising higher than a tornado. A billowing cloud of dust obscured the crash site at first, but as the cloud settled, the object rose from a smoking crater.

Clark stared in shock, unable to believe his eyes.

The World Engine towered above the blasted landscape. The colossal machine was supported by three huge legs the size of skyscrapers. Lights pulsed along the engine’s armored carapace as it powered up. Clark identified it as the ancient device Zod had salvaged on the ice planet.

But what was it doing on Earth?

“For thirty-three years,” Zod said, “you’ve hidden yourself amongst mankind. But you can’t really believe that’s all your father intended for you. He knew that Earth, more than any other world we’d ever discovered, was a fitting home for us. He knew there was a Genesis Chamber on the scout ship and he wanted you to use it. He sent you here to revive our race.”

Clark wasn’t so sure. Why hadn’t Jor-El said so himself?

“Where is the Codex, Kal?”

Not so fast, Clark thought. “If Krypton lives again, what happens to Earth?”

As if in answer, the World Engine fired a titanic pulse of energy that spread outward across the wide Kansas plains, clearing away everything in its path. Acres of wheat and corn were flattened by the blast. Trees and telephone poles toppled. The blast swept over the Kent farm, instantly obliterating the farmhouse, barns, and silo. Caught in the midst of the disaster, Clark was momentarily blinded by a tidal wave of dust, ash, dirt, rock, and splinters.

In a heartbeat, his childhood home was wiped from the face of the Earth.

The shock wave passed and Superman found himself standing upon a barren plain that had been stripped clean by the World Engine’s power. His earthly clothing had been erased, as well, replaced by a forbidding black-and-silver version of the uniform he wore as Superman.

A cold silver “S” was inscribed on the chest of a matte-black skinsuit similar to the ones sported by Zod and his troops. A long black cape hung from his shoulders.

Quakes shook the scoured ground beneath him. Fissures tore open the exposed bedrock. Red-hot lava welled up from below, spewing smoke and flames. Through the haze, Superman saw that the surface beneath his feet was no longer composed of rock or soil, but was instead a bed of human skulls. A heap of charred bones, with empty sockets and death’s-head grimaces, lifted him above the coursing magma. A hot volcanic wind lifted his jet-black cape.

“A foundation has to be built upon something,” Zod said. “Even your father recognized that.”

“No!” Superman ripped the black cape from his shoulders. “I can’t be a part of this.”

He rejected Zod’s nightmare scenario, which flickered and began to lose integrity. The scorched wasteland and skulls evaporated as the holographic environment collapsed. Superman found himself bound to an examination table in a sterile science ward somewhere within the Black Zero. No longer black and silver, his suit had reverted to its usual colors.

A bright red “S” shone against a field of gold.

Zod stood before him, accompanied by a gaunt Kryptonian male. His pale skin, sunken eyes, and hollow cheeks made him look more like a ghoul than a soldier. He wore a dark burgundy lab coat over a black skinsuit. Superman wondered what the man had done to be exiled to the Phantom Zone.

“Your parents are gone,” Zod said. “Mine as well— along with my children, everyone I’ve ever loved. For decades, the only thing that kept me going was the hope that one day I’d be able to rekindle our race. Are you really going to extinguish that hope for the sake of these people who cast you out? Who were willing to hand you over without hesitation?”

He drew closer to the table and its captive.

“You’re an alien to them,” he said grimly. “They would not show you such concern. They did not show you such concern.”

That much was true. Superman had been disappointed when the authorities had surrendered him to Zod, but he couldn’t blame them for being frightened. The Kryptonians were an even bigger threat than General Swanwick and the White House feared, and, to be honest, they’d had little reason to trust an alien who’d kept his existence a secret for his entire life. What else were they supposed to have done?

And then there was Lois…

“You’re asking me to betray them,” Superman said. “I can’t.”

“You already have,” Zod declared. “Why do you think we accessed your memories?”

Smallville, Superman realized. He knows about the farm… and Mom.

“You still need the scout ship,” he said, desperate to keep Zod away from his home. The apocalyptic nightmare he had just witnessed, in which the heartland was reduced to bones and ashes, was still fresh in his mind. He couldn’t let that doomsday scenario play out in real life.

“We’ve known where it was since we first entered the system,” Zod stated confidently. He turned to his cadaverous associate. “Continue examining him, Jax-Ur. I want to know precisely how this world’s ecosphere has affected him. How he can fly.”

The scientist nodded. He regarded Clark with pitiless curiosity, clearly intrigued by the challenge.

Zod began to exit the laboratory. Then paused and looked back at Superman. He contemplated the prisoner.

“Back on Krypton,” he said, “in the era of the warring states, if a foe died a noble death, custom dictated that the victor raise his enemy’s child as his own.” A flicker of guilt played across his face. “Your father acquitted himself with honor, Kal. I would gladly keep that custom alive.”

What?

Superman instantly grasped the implications behind what Zod was saying. His fists clenched at his sides and he strained against his bonds. He glared furiously at Zod.

“You killed him.”

“I did,” Zod confessed with uncharacteristic remorse. “And not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. But if I had to do it again, I would. The stakes were that high. They still are.” His face and voice hardened. “I have a duty to my people. And I won’t allow anyone to prevent me from carrying it out.”

Superman tried to break free from the table, but for the first time in his life, his strength met its match. The bonds refused to budge, so that he could only watch helplessly as Zod departed the lab, leaving him to Jax-Ur’s questionable mercy.

The Kryptonian scientist set about his work.