Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER SIX

Lara lingered in the Citadel’s armory, where Jor-El’s battle-scarred armor now hung in tribute to his memory. Dents, scratches, and scorch marks testified to his last, heroic efforts on behalf of their departed child. She intended to carry the memory of his sacrifice for as long a time as remained to her. It struck her as cosmically unjust that this tribute—along with the rest of Krypton—would soon be ashes.

It’s not fair, she thought. We should have grown old together.

Her finger traced the crest embossed upon the damaged breastplate. Although scarred, the sinuous glyph was still legible, reminding her of Kal-El’s heritage—and his future beyond the stars.

Hope, she thought. As long as he lives, there is always hope.

She had lost her ability to track her son’s starcraft once its phantom drives had activated. The drives warped both space and time, taking the tiny ship beyond the scope of her instruments. By the time it reached its destination on the other side of the galaxy, millennia would have passed from her perspective.

That ice age she had glimpsed would be ancient history long before Kal-El arrived at his new home. And those primitive savages should have progressed considerably.

Will they accept you, my son… she wondered. Or will you always be alone?

Another tremor shook the Citadel, reminding her that her own time was short. She turned away from the armory and sought out the upper terrace. She had draped a fur-lined cloak over her shoulders, despite the heat of the evening. Lara found that she was often cold these days, regardless of the temperature. Grief and solitude brought little warmth.

She stepped out onto the terrace, which had also been marked by the battle against Zod and his terrorists. Kelor had started to coordinate the necessary repairs, but Lara had not seen the point. The damage inflicted by the war was nothing compared to what was upon them now.

An apocalyptic vista stretched as far as the eye could see as she gazed out upon the end of her world. Volcanic eruptions, spewing radioactive green magma, tore apart the landscape. Kandor’s distant towers toppled as the capital was flattened by never-ending quakes. A pyroclastic cloud large enough to engulf an entire city surged across the veldt, setting the grasslands ablaze. Panicked wildlife stampeded for their lives, but there was nowhere to run—all of Krypton was ripped asunder by cataclysmic convulsions.

Herds of frantic Rondors tumbled headlong into gaping chasms that cracked open the surface of the planet. Desperate birds took flight, only to burst into flame as blasts of super-heated air ignited their wings. Artificial ponds and reservoirs boiled over, sending scalding plumes of steam high into the dark night sky. Lara watched stoically as the devastation spread toward the Citadel, which was already being rocked to its foundations.

Bioengineered masonry that had withstood the passage of centuries broke away and tumbled down the sides of crumbling granite cliffs. Avalanches spilled havoc and death on the burning natural preserve below. Clouds of ash and smoke blotted out the moons’ light.

“Lady Lara.” Kelor joined her on the terrace. “Shouldn’t you find refuge?”

Lara valued the robot’s concern, but she shook her head sadly

“There is no refuge, Kelor,” she said, then she looked out again. “Jor-El was right. This is the end.” She turned her gaze upward, away from the catastrophe, toward the stars that lay beyond the storm. Her words were a prayer.

“Build a better world than ours, Kal.”

A nuclear volcano, eradicating Kandor in an instant, sent a tidal wave of heat and sound screaming toward the Citadel, which was instantly reduced to atoms by the ferocious blast. No eyes survived to witness the destruction.

Not a single relic endured.

Krypton itself soon followed. Vast tectonic plates buckled, venting mountainous sheets of glowing ejecta into the upper atmosphere and beyond. Continents crumbled and seas boiled over, as the planet’s contaminated core built to a critical mass. A series of global detonations overcame the tremendous gravity that held the planet together.

And then Krypton blew apart in a final, apocalyptic paroxysm that could be seen from light-years away.

Doomsday had come.

The blast-wave from the planet’s destruction extended out into the surrounding solar system. What remained of the atmosphere spread in all directions, buffeting the Phantom Zone projector and sending it spinning end over end. Krypton’s moons were knocked loose from their orbits, becoming cosmic orphans. Lifeless satellites without a world to call their own.

Sparks flared from the projector. Space-time rippled around it.

Light-years and millennia of relativistic time away, a forgotten starcraft re-entered the universe.

Following a preprogrammed course, it sped past a large ringed gas giant toward the local system’s inner planets, which were warmed by the radiance of a shining yellow star. Although many times smaller than Rao, the young sun burned much hotter. It was still in the prime of its existence, which would last for another five billion years or so.

The rocketing vessel passed through an asteroid belt, successfully avoiding any collisions with the orbiting space debris. Then it arrived at the third planet from the sun—a medium-sized blue world distinguished by two ice caps, expansive oceans, and several continents, as well as an atmosphere conducive to organic life.

Electromagnetic signals, radiating from the planet’s surface, indicated the presence of a rudimentary degree of technology

The planet’s gravitational pull was significantly lighter than Krypton’s, but proved sufficient to capture the approaching starcraft. Ceramic heat shields boiled away as the ship entered the atmosphere, blazing through the upper reaches like a falling star.

It hurtled above a sizable landmass—at present enveloped in darkness—located in the planet’s northern hemisphere, then descended toward the wide central plains found in the mid-western region of the continent.

Elements of the terrain below registered on the craft’s sensors as it searched for a suitable landing site. Winding rivers of fresh water cut through vast stretches of undulating prairies. Population centers dotted the surface. Primitive radar transmissions bounced off the ship’s protective plating.

The craft slowed as it dropped lower in the night sky. The light of a single moon shone down on fields of cultivated plants. The rush of its passage spun the sails of a modest wooden windmill.

Finally the capsule came in for a landing, bearing an alien gift…