Last Son of Krypton, Part 1
Disclaimer: all character are property of their respective owners.
Spoilers: general spoilers for Superman.
Author Note: as with Batman, my version of the Superman mythos draw from several sources.
A.N. 2: revised by JediKnight, from TtH.
Kryptonopolis, Planet Krypton capital.
Twenty-Five years ago.
Jor-El, member of the Kryptonian High Science Council, strode silently through the corridors of the building, noticing through the windows that the signs of fighting in the streets were starting to get repaired. The final battle of the Civil War had been fought in those same streets, a desperate gambit to bring an end to nearly five years of strife. He shook his head, it had been sheer carnage on the streets, the urban combat having taken its toll on both attacker and defender.
Maybe now things would become more normal, and he could step down and go back to science, he still had that prototype of a hyperdrive-equipped spaceship in his basement gathering dust, well, not exactly, he tinkered with it when the weight of being in the council become too big, so he could disconnect from the government problems.
His thoughts turned to the origins of this war. Everything could be traced to a single moment, Kandor's destruction. With the planet in turmoil after the destruction of the planetary capital, it was only a matter of time until some incident happened. And the spark had been, or at least that was what had seemed st the time, an ugly rumor about government officials hoarding supplies, and it had snowballed from there, eventually becoming what had been known as The Riots.
The wife of his old friend Zod, Faora, a career officer in the Peacekeepers, was sent to try to reestablish order, but she was killed in the fighting. Zod had changed afterwards, he had become colder, maybe even more arrogant than he had been, and his over-controlling side, a trait that he had kept under tight control for decades, had become more pronounced. Despite everything, he seemed to be keeping himself together well... until he attempted a coup to take over the government.
The coup had partially failed, leaving Zod in control of a substantial part of the armed forces and Krypton territory. And as usually happens in those cases, a civil war ensued. Both sides were too evenly matched to quickly prevail, so the result was a grinding carnage unlike anything that Krypton had seen since the near-mythical Age of Strife.
To finally end this, the Council armed forces had set an ambush, leaving Kryptonopolis, the new capital, apparently exposed, and so they had caught Zod himself, his top lieutenants and his best troops in a trap. The fight hadn't ended yet, of course. Jor-El suspected that it would be years before the last holdouts of Zod loyalists were dealt with, but finally Krypton had an opportunity to regain a sense of normality.
He finally reached the door of the Chamber of Execution, where Zod and his top lieutenants were being driven just now. Before opening the black crystalline door, he adjusted the black robes, emblazoned with the crest of his House, the House of El, in stark white, that served as the traditional robes of office for the member of the Council charged with the role of High Executioner. He sighed, his mind for a moment going back to the happy days before the War, it was almost impossible to reconcile the relatively happy, even if a bit grim, Zod from then, to the impassive tyrant who had presided over the atrocities that had transpired in the last years.
He opened the door, and closed it behind him as he took into the chamber, a perfect spherical dome, made of black crystal, on which exact center was the platform where the prisoners to be banished into the Phantom Zone had to stand. He decided to wait before going into the control area of the projector, he wanted to have a good look at Zod before he had to execute his sentence.
A couple of milicycles later the door opened and the guards drove Zod and his top lieutenants to the platform. He had been changed by the years too. He still had the same lean body, a fact that belied that he was physically stronger that men far bigger than him, but he had replaced his old scarlet uniform, complete with the archaic cap, with a black bodysuit. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was that he hadn't seen him in years, but he seemed thinner than before. His formerly clean-shaven face was now sporting a trim goatee, but it was his eyes what gave Jor-El pause. Zod had always been intense, but that intensity had given way to something that he couldn't well identify.
'Hunger.' He realized, so intent in looking at Zod's face that he missed a guard slipping something inside Zod's bodysuit, 'That crazed look make him look like a hungry predator.'
He knew that he had likewise changed, but not so much. His tall and powerful frame still looked impressive, and under the robes of office, be it the black robes of the Executioner or the white robes of Councilor, he still wore a green bodysuit emblazoned with a starburst. Although he had got rid of the red adulthood headband, an archaic affectation like Zod's old cap, when he became a member of the council. The pressures of office had made his raven-black hair become salt and pepper, which he had let grow to shoulder-length hair, as well as a short beard.
Zod's lieutenants, Ursa-Lar and Ul-Non stood to his side. Ursa, Zod's lover, was a tall, slim woman with black, slicked back hair, cold gray eyes and clad in a tight black bodysuit that didn't leave much to imagination. Ul-Non was a veritable giant, with unruly black hair, and empty blue eyes. Once upon a time, he had been a bright scientist, a good friend of both brothers El and Zod, but some kind of accident shortly before Kandor had left him as a mute brute. Zor-El, Jor-El's brother had blamed him for the accident, and looking back he couldn't say that he was wrong. He had been reckless and if he hadn't pressured Non...
He shook his head, dismissing that train of thoughts. While he could have been responsible for the initial accident, Zod was responsible for him still being in that state. And that, reflected Jor-El, was another sign of how much his old friend had changed. In the old times, Zod and would have tried to make Ul-Non to go back to what he had been.
"So you have come at the end." Zod said with that cultured accent of him, one of the few affectations that he had kept from the young, brash officer that Jor-El had known so long ago. "What are you going to do? Trying to make me see the error of my ways before sending me to the Phantom Zone?"
"No, Zod. That time passed when you ordered the slaughter in Northern Urrika." Jor-El said, standing before the console that controlled the Projector. "You and you cohorts, Ursa and Ul-Non, will be sent to the Phantom Zone for that and many other atrocities."
"A necessary evil, Jor-El, to keep order." Zod said, his voice full with disdain, "Long before Kandor, Urrika had always been a pain in the backside for the Council."
"Evil indeed, but necessary?" Jor-El said, looking at him, "Blessed Rao, Zod. You ordered everybody killed, men, women, children and my reports say that that Ursa herself killed many of them with her bare hands."
"So?" Zod said with a shrug, "A necessary evil, to keep discipline. There were no rebellions against my rule afterwards."
Jor-El stood there momentarily paralyzed by the sheer gall of Zod. He closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick prayer for the soul of his old friend. He went behind the console, and started to read the charges levelled against the trio. It was a grisly list, full of blood and carnage.
The three war criminals stood in the podium while Jor-El read the list. Zod and Ursa looked bored, while Non, his face filled with childish curiosity, entertained himself poking with his finger into the force-field that was keeping them in place.
"The accused have been found guilty of these crimes, and doomed to banishment to the Phantom Zone." Jor-El said, in a solemn tone, before activating the projector. A blinding light enveloped the trio, but before their essences were incased in a crystalline matrix to survive the dimensional transition, Zod had time to say a few last words.
"Heed my words, Jor-El! This is not the end! You'll kneel…" his last words lost as he was enveloped in crystal and sent into the Zone.
Jor-El sighed again while stepping down from the podium toward the door, followed by the guards, their steps resonating hollowly into the now empty chamber. Before leaving the chamber, he allowed himself a last look at the now empty platform.
'Goodbye, old friend. May Rao help you to find peace.' He thought, before turning and leaving the chamber.
The guards went back to their tasks, leaving Jor-El walking back through the same corridors that he had gone before. As he reached the door, a small tremor shook the building, making Jor-El purse his lips.
'Now this. The news that I have for the Council can't wait.' Jor-El thought, before walking out, toward his hovercar.
He drove it home, as always disconnecting the automated navigation, to enjoy one of the few bits of freedom that he had now. It was considered bad form to go to the Council still clad in the Executioner garb and he wanted to talk with Lara before presenting his data to the Council.
Jor-El and Lara's residence. Some distance from Kryptonopolis.
"It was as we feared, isn't it?" Lara said, after kissing her husband.
"Yes, my love, he is still unrepentant. I can't believe that Zod had changed so much..." Jor-El started to say as he removed the black robes.
"Not so much changed as unleashed some part of him that were under tight control before. You knew about his arrogance, his ruthlessness and his tendency to micromanage everything. Without Faora to ground him, his dark side was without any check." Lara interrupted, with a sad smile, "And in turn Zod served to ground Faora, who was quite the mean, cold bitch."
"You have always been a better judge of character than me, Lara." Jor-El said, while putting the white robes on.
Lara didn't answer to that, instead smiling fondly when she saw him checking that the white robes were correctly set. It was one of his nervous tics; he had made the same gesture before their wedding.
"I think that cousin Gor won't have any motive for complains this time." Lara said, which drew a chuckle from Jor-El. Lara's cousin, Gor-Van, was one of his 'esteemed colleagues' who always raised a fuzz about presenting 'the proper image of a member of the High Science Council' even on the middle of the War.
"Oh, he'll find a motive, he always does." Jor-El said, "If it not my robes, it'll be my beard, or that I don't wear the adulthood headband..."
"Ignoring the fact that he hadn't worn it since his adulthood ceremony." Lara commented, before looking at the chronometer, "Well, if we keep criticizing my cousin's defects you are going to arrive late to the Council."
"Damn. You are right." Jor-El said, kissing his wife again and heading to the door, "Tell hello to Kal for me, dear."
"Just be careful, Jor." Lara said
Kryptonopolis. Council Chamber
"This is no fantasy, my fellow Councilors." Jor-El said pointing to the values in the holo-screen, "According to the data collected by my own instruments, the pressure on Krypton's core is five times what it was six years ago..."
"Are you sure that it is not an instrument error?" One of the Councilors, Vond-Ah, former colleague of Jor-El, and thus fully aware of the towering reputation of Jor-El in the field of science, asked.
"Positive, unfortunately. I checked and rechecked." Jor-El answered, nodding with a sad smile, "The problem is that we don't know what that means, but even in the best case, it could be a big hassle, and in the worst, well it would be the worst catastrophe in Krypton history."
"Can you explain what would be the best case?" other of the councilors, his brother father-in-law specifically, asked. "Not all of us are as well versed in planetology as you, Jor-El."
"Of course, In-Zee. The best case would be that it's the result of a temporary anomaly caused by some shifting in the inner core of our planet. If that's the case, the pressure will be released in a series of planetquakes of an intensity of about 9 or 9'5 in the Ric-Em scale, over the next months." Jor-El explained.
"That's the best case? A series of planetquakes as devastating as the ones in the Sondar island last year?" Gor-Van said, "I shudder to think what would be the worst case."
"The worst case, Gor-Van, would be that the pressure is an indication of a runaway nuclear reaction in the planet's core. This would mean that the pressure would rise, and rise, until an explosive release." Jor-El said, ominously "In other words until Krypton explodes." But then Jor-El smiled "But that is only the worst case. I don't think that it will come to that, but to know it with certainty, I need access to the data collected by the automated stations of the Institute of Planetology, which, as you know, was located in Zod territory until the last offensive."
"You could have done that without having to make this announcement to the Council, Jor-El." Dax-Ur said snidely, "I wonder why. We all know of your old friendship with..."
"Careful, Dax-Ur, if you go down that road, considering who your brother was." Jor-El replied in a bristling tone, reminding the unpleasant astrophysicst that his brother, Jax-Ur, had been one of the first prisoners sent to the Phantom Zone, "And the why is very simple, my esteemed colleagues. Once that I have the data, I'll need a few days to see what conclusions I can arrive at from it, days that we may not have to prepare if the worst comes."
"An excellent exposition, Jor-El." The Head of the Council said, who then asked to the Council "Does anybody has an objection?"
Dax-Ur looked to his closer allies in the Council, but this time it seemed that nobody wanted to join him. This didn't pass unnoticed by the most politically savvy of the Council members. Dax had been trying for some time to gather support for his faction, but this could supose a serious setback for his ambitions.
"Brainiac, do you have the data?" The Head of the Council then said, turning to the screen with the five red points joined by lines that were the symbol of the Brain InterActive Construct. It was the most advanced product of Krypton research into AI, although there were rumors that the Coluans, in one of their infrequents interactions with Krypton, had provided a substantial part of its source code. Anyway, it had become an indispensable advisor to all incarnations of Krypton's High Science Council since its creation, many years ago.
"Unfortunately the Institute uses an outdated computer system that is proving problematic to integrate in my network." The inflectionless voice of the AI said, "If I devote a more substantial part of my processing power to this, I should have the data available next day. Is this acceptable?"
"Yes, it should be." Jor-El said, with a smile that he didn't feel. He hadn't dared to communicate the Council that he had a bad feeling about the data, but he consoled himself that it would only be a short delay. "Even in the worst case we should have a few months."
The discussion moved to other matters, before the meeting was adjourned, and Jor-El stayed back for a moment, to look over Krypton's landscape from the Council Chamber's window, placed at the top of Kryptonopolis tallest building, the gleaming crystalline spire of the High Science Council tower.
Before the destruction of Kandor, the Council had seldom reunited here, as the move of the capital from Kandor to Kryptonopolis had been dragging well beyond its planned date since the creation of this city. A disadvantage of Kryptonian longevity was that people could become very set on their ways.
Shaking his head, he closed the window and exited the chamber. He really wanted to leave the politicking behind for today, and spend a relaxing evening with his wife and son.
TO BE CONTINUED...