(c)1920 Jerry Siegler, (c)1966 Gene Roddeberry, (c) 2005 Carolyn Gates
In loving memory of Christopher Reeve and Gene Roddenberry, may they soar the skies for all eternity.
Supertrek
Metropolis, April 30th, 2005, 8:00 p.m.
It was happening again. There was a bomb inside the building where The Daily Planet provided its stories. People rushed out by the dozens, some frantically, others as calmly as they could. People worried sick and full of questions. What was going on? Who planted the bomb? Why did they plant the bomb? What motives did they have. And most importantly of all, where was Superman?
Lois Lane-Kent knew where he was. He was outside of the building, somewhere in a telephone booth, changing into his uniform, being prepared to diffuse the bomb. Somehow, he always knew when there was madness and mayhem. Somehow he always knew where and when to stop the mayhem before things got worse. Superman...one of Planet Earth's most beloved heroes, her husband. As the staff of the Daily Planet gathered outside in a mass cluster, Lois stood out in the front of the crowd, her mouth agape in wonder. "Oh, hurry, honey, I just know you can diffuse this thing before things get worse!"
Civilians not working for the Daily Planet gathered around asking questions and wondering, as they always did when Superman was going to come around, as he always did at times like this.
"It's a bomb!"
"A bomb? Inside the Daily Planet?"
"Who would put a bomb in there?"
"Is it the work of Bin Laden?"
"A bomb? No problem at all. Superman will diffuse it in the wink of an eye."
Reporters gathered around and shared the same concern. None knew who planted the bomb or why. The tension mounted...the worry heightened, then suddenly, at approximately 9:00 p.m...a blazing red and blue streak illuminted the night sky above. Looking closely, a tiny red cape could be seen.
He had arrived at last.
"SUPERMAN!" the crowd chorused.
Clark Kent, alias Cal-Il of Krypton, alias one of the world's most cherished superheroes, Superman, careened with almost no effort at all to the fiftieth floor of the Daily Planet. He had no time to waste. He stopped and hovered at the window of the fiftieth floor, where his desk, where he worked as his alter ego, Clark Kent, could be seen. He located the bomb, and noticed, with the help of X-Ray vision, that it had somehow been strategically planted within the woodwork of his desk! "Somebody's going to get a real boot in the behind for this," he said to himself as he used his eye lasers to cut open a hole to get through the window. He slipped into the building and very carefully, once again using his eye lasers, cut a hole into the woodwork of his desk to take out the bomb.
It was a very sophisticated bomb, a bomb unlike any he'd ever seen before. Very carefully he examined it. It looked like a palm-sized, silvery-blue hockey puck. Seemingly harmless to the naked eye, but never to be underestimated. Sleek and quiet, it displayed its time-counter. Three days, two hours, forty six minutes and seventy nine seconds. Superman used his X-Ray vision to see the proper way to diffuse the bomb. Usually, it could be done by pulling just the right wire or by removing just the right chemical. But his X-Ray vision looked inside and found technology of a kind he himself had never seen in his entire lifetime...! This technology, he thought, this construction...it's all computer chips and what appears to be tiny central processing units and motherboards, layers and layers of them...usually, bombs are made of wires and chemicals, but this looks like a mini-computer. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the technology was from...well, a century far distant!
Suddenly, he heard a ding from the nearby elevator. He heard muttering, muttering from gruff male and female voices. It sounded like gibberish, what little he heard, yet it almost sounded like...another language...!
"Hey!" he shouted and reached out with one hand. Too late, the elevator door had closed. There was supposed to be no one in the building, no one was supposed to be on the fiftieth floor but him. Maybe the people had something to do with the bomb. He very carefully set the bomb down on the desk, flying outside the window, hoping he could locate them and interrogate them in time. He used X-Ray vision to locate the elevator and the people inside, hovering at the fiftieth floor with everyone watching in awe. The people inside appeared to be three males and three females. Yet... much to his surprise...
...None looked like average earthlings.
They were dressed in some sort of stiff, silvery-black armor. Each had dark, brownish olive skin. The females' hair was thick and dark and hung like lion's manes. The mens' hair was the same, and each had foreheads that resembled horseshoe crabs. The men had thin mustaches and goatees. Each was carrying a curious-looking pistol.
"Extraterrestrials!" he exclaimed.
He sailed down to the bottom floor of the Daily Planet, where his adversaries were about to arrive. He hurled himself through the front door, and just when the elevator door opened, he boldly shouted, "Hold it right there!"
The mysterious extraterrestrials saw him...he had never seen anything like them before in his lifetime, yet strangely enough, they seemed to know him as if he had been their longtime enemy.
"It's him, Commander Klad!" shouted one of the females. "We must beam up to the ships now!"
They stood out in front of a baffled Superman. "What in the name of Krypton are you talking about?" he demanded.
The commander pulled out what appeared to be some sort of walkie-talkie, a chunky yet sophisticated cellular phone-type device. He spoke in his alien language. "Jo'i Chu!" he said. Suddenly, strange, mysterious beams descended down, seemingly, right through the ceiling above, from out of...heaven only knew where. Then, the mysterious extraterrestrials seemed to simply disappear into thin air...!
Superman's jaw hit the floor.
Suddenly, seconds later, another beam did the same. Afterwards, a man appeared from out of thin air, it seemed. He looked like an Earthling man, yet Superman wasn't too sure. He was dressed in tight black pants, a gold shirt that looked like a uniform, with a mysterious delta emblazoned on the left breast. The beam dissolved. "Superman! It's you! Thank God I've found you. Those aliens you're looking for, they're the ones that planted the bomb inside the Daily Planet."
Superman was suddenly just as full of questions as the rest of the awe-struck crowd outside. "Who are you? Who are those aliens? What are those aliens? Why did they plant the bomb inside the Daily Planet? What is all this? How did you simply appear out of nowhere? How did the aliens...?"
"No time to explain," replied the man in gold, "But I can help you find the aliens, because they're the only ones who know how to diffuse the bomb. No one in this century would know how to di it. Even me and my crew wouldn't know. Only the commander within that band of aliens would."
"What in blue blazes!"
"But I know how to seek them, and I know how to retrieve them to help you diffuse the bomb."
The mysterious man in gold grasped him by the forearms urgently.
"Do you trust me, Superman?"
"I-It seems I don't have a choice," Superman replied, perplexed.
Lois managed to push her way inside the building. She and most of the crowd noticed the strange extraterrestrials, the mysterious beams, and the arrival of the mysterious man.
"Superman!" she called out. "Who's he?"
The man whipped out his own communication device and said, "Kirk to Enterprise, Kirk to Enterprise, two to beam up."
"Aye, sir," replied a voice with a Scottish accent inside the communicator.
Superman yelped as two beams came from out of nowhere, and he and the mysterious man suddenly vanished from sight.