C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F I V E
Six 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.
“Roger that, Guardian.”
The gunships weren’t the only birds under Hardy’s command. His radio crackled once more as the pilot of an A-10 Thunderbolt fighter jet contacted him for orders.
“Guardian, Thunder-One-One flight. Checking in and stand-by for A/O update.”
Hardy scoped out the scene below, spotting Superman, Faora-Ul, and a hulking Kryptonian bruiser. They were facing off in the middle of the town’s main drag. He couldn’t see any civilians, but they hadn’t had the time to evacuate. So he assumed they were taking shelter in the modest commercial buildings that lined the street. A two-story Sears department store made a workable landmark.
“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.
All-out war had come to Smallville.
* * *
Observing the battle from above, Hardy received word from Sergeant Rick Vance, the ground commander.
“Guardian, this is Badger 01,” Vance reported. “We’ve engaged targets. Negative BDA! We’re not even plinking the paint off them!”
Hardy’s own eyes confirmed Vance’s assessment. Despite receiving enough firepower to take out a small army, the three aliens were still standing—and fighting amongst themselves. Superman’s colorful uniform was easily distinguishable from the intimidating black capes and armor of the other two. And from what Hardy could see, he was barely holding his own.
But he was doing a better job fighting Zod’s people than anyone else was. Hardy watched as Superman ducked beneath the giant’s armored fist, while jabbing his elbow in the visor of the woman’s helmet. She staggered backward, affected more by Superman’s strike than by the blistering hail of gunfire targeting all three of them. Then she lunged at him again, murder in her eyes.
They sure don’t seem to be on the same side.
Maybe that reporter was right? Maybe Superman wasn’t the enemy?
Hardy made a judgment call.
“All players,” he ordered. “Do not target the guy in blue! He is friendly. Repeat: friendly!”
Impossibly, the female Kryptonian seemed to hear his command. She turned her face to the sky, spotting Hardy’s helicopter. She nodded at the giant, who turned away from Superman long enough to pick up an abandoned UPS truck. He hefted the heavy vehicle with no effort whatsoever, and hurled it at the hovering ’copters.
The big brown truck sailed through the air, almost nailing a chopper, which pulled up and out of the way with only a second to spare.
“We’re breaking right!” the pilot shouted over the radio. “Breaking right!”
The airborne truck flew straight at the helicopter that was carrying Hardy. The Little Bird banked sharply to one side, but the truck grazed them anyway, sending the chopper out of control. A door gunner tumbled out of the Little Bird, into the empty air.
The dislodged soldier fell toward the battle-scarred street dozens of feet below.
“Fallen angel!” the pilot barked into radio. “Fallen angel!”
The man was about to splatter all over the sidewalk when Superman intercepted him. Zipping through the air, he scooped up the endangered soldier before he hit the ground. Then the Kryptonian flew off, carrying the man to safety.
Thank God, Hardy thought.
But the fallen gunner might have been the lucky one, because the wounded ’copter was going down.
“Hold on!” Hardy shouted to his crew. “We’re auto-rotating! Brace for impact!” Racing against time, he fired off one last radio communication. “All players, Guardian’s going off the net—”
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X
The chopper crashed into the parking lot in front of Sears. Superman wanted to check on Hardy and his crew, but knew that he had to deal with Faora and Nam-Ek first. Nobody would be safe as long as Zod’s ruthless lieutenants were on the rampage.
After leaving the rescued gunner on a rooftop, Superman dropped down on Nam-Ek from above and grabbed hold of the silent giant. As far as he could tell, he had one tactical advantage over the other Kryptonians—flight—and he intended to make the most of it.
He launched himself high into the sky, dragging Nam-Ek along with him. Before the startled Kryptonian even knew what was happening, they were hundreds of feet above the ground. Then Superman let go of the giant and hammered him with a haymaker that sent Nam-Ek somersaulting through the air. He crashed to earth several blocks away from Main Street, landing on a railroad spur at the edge of town. Slamming into a group of train cars, he knocked them off the tracks. His armor scraped against the iron rails as he slid to a stop.
That got Nam-Ek clear of downtown, if only for a moment.
But what about Faora?
* * *
Miraculously, Hardy survived the crash landing. Bruised and battered, he struggled to extricate himself from the crushed cockpit, which had hit the ground in the parking lot in front of the department store.
Sergeant Vance and his men rushed to secure the downed chopper. Before they reached his location, however, gunfire sounded nearby, and Hardy guessed that he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
A sudden thump proved he was right.
Faora-Ul leapt into the parking lot, landing amidst a sea of empty cars. She smirked maliciously as her eyes locked on him.
He was still trapped inside the wreckage.
She seemed to recognize him from their brief confrontation at the NORTHCOM airfield, where he’d objected to the abduction of Lois Lane. She stalked toward him, casually flinging parked vehicles aside.
Vance and his ground troops tried and failed to halt her advance. Automatic weapons fire bounced harmlessly off her Kryptonian armor as she confidently made her way toward the broken Little Bird. Losing ground, the soldiers fell back behind the empty cars and trucks, using them for cover, but she easily flipped the vehicles out of her way, one after another, exposing the men and forcing them to scramble away. A Ford pickup landed upside down on top of a crumpled station wagon.
With gunfire proving ineffectual, the men unloaded on her with grenades. The devices exploded against her, packing enough punch to take out a platoon of hostiles, but she shrugged them off as though they were nothing but a cloud of annoying gnats. The blasts and shrapnel didn’t even knick her armor.
She was coming for him.
Hardy wrestled an MP5 submachine gun into place and opened fire on her from the cockpit. He doubted that it would do anything more than slow her down, if that, but he’d be damned if he didn’t go down fighting. He emptied his clip, then reached for his sidearm.
The M9 semiautomatic was even less effective than the MP5, but he kept blasting away, even as she grabbed him by the neck and yanked him violently from the trashed ’copter. She lifted him above the ground with one hand.
“Do your worst!?
?? Hardy spat at her.
Her fingers tightened around his throat.
“Be quiet, soldier,” she responded. “A good death is its own reward—”
A serrated black blade was sheathed at her hip. She drew it out with clear intent to gut him. Just snapping his neck was not good enough, it seemed—she wanted to spill human blood. Or maybe she was hoping Hardy would beg for his life.
Like hell, he thought defiantly. Get it over with, you alien bitch.
She drew back the knife and he braced himself for the death blow. Then a blue-red blur slammed into her, loosing her grip and propelling her across the parking lot.
Hardy fell to the ground. Gasping in surprise, he saw Superman take the fight to Faora. He grabbed her flickering helmet with his bare hands and ripped it off her.
The effect came quickly. Faora shrieked and dropped to her knees on the pulverized blacktop, clutching her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. The icy beauty of her face was contorted by agony. It was as it she was being barraged with flash-bang grenades. Sensory overload incapacitated her.
“You feel that, Faora?” Superman said. “We’re not on your ship anymore. We’re on my world.”
Forcing her eyes open, she tried to focus them on her assailant. Tears streamed down her face as she struggled to rise. Her hands flailed blindly before her, as though she could barely see.
“Savor it while you can,” she hissed. “You won’t win. For every human life you save, we’ll kill a million more.” She raised her voice until it was loud enough for Hardy and all his men to hear. “In a few days’ time, they will all be dead.”
A chill ran down Hardy’s spine. There was no question as to the Kryptonians’ intentions now. He knew a declaration of war when he heard one. Faora was talking genocide.
Before Superman could reply, a railway boxcar hurtled through the air like an immense steel javelin. The flying car slammed into him, knocking him through the front of Sears. The back of the boxcar jutted from the shattered wall, looking surreally out of place.
Hardy blinked in surprise.