Good morning! Another chapter for all y'all!
Chapter 33: The Black Zero
Lois did her best to ignore the blaster pressed between her shoulder blades, keeping her eyes trained on the unconscious Kal slumped over the shoulder of an enormous Kryptonian warrior marching ahead of her. Her heart was drumming in her ears and it'd be lying to say that she wasn't scared by the whole situation - in all honesty, she was terrified. This was nothing like reporting from the front lines of a war, though now that she got the chance to think about it, that was exactly what she was doing. And this time she might not come out alive.
"Where are you taking us?" Lois asked, her voice wavering only a little. The Kryptonian warriors stayed mute, but her escort stopped to press a button in the dark wall to her left, causing a panel to retract with a low hiss to reveal a doorway. Obeying the jab in her backside, she followed Kal's bearer into the room beyond and was led to what looked eerily similar to an examination table.
"Lay down," her guard commanded tersely and Lois reluctantly obeyed, hard restraints suddenly wrapping around her wrists and ankles to hold her in place on the platform.
"What the hell?" she muttered, twisting her hands in an attempt to free them, but it was to no avail. As Lois looked around the room which she was quickly realizing was a medical bay of sorts, she watched as Kal was deposited on a similar table nearby, still painfully unconscious as he was restrained as well.
A thin, balding Kryptonian dressed in flowing robes instead of armor entered the room, meeting Lois' questioning gaze with a sneer of disgust before saying something to the escorts in their alien language. They nodded wordlessly as he moved to retrieve something behind Lois, moving back into her field of vision holding what looked a bit like a laurel crown, except it seemed to be made of a silvery-bronze coral with small buds growing inward in a pattern of little dots.
"What is that?" she asked, panic rising in her throat as he stepped closer, "What are you doing?"
"It's a mindscanner, human," the Kryptonian scientist frowned, "Now hold still - the process should be quick and relatively painless."
She shrank back as far as her restraint would allow as he lifted the scanner onto her head, arranging the buds around her skull and Lois swore she could feel them burrowing into her temples as the Kryptonian pressed a button somewhere. She caught a final glimpse of him fitting Kal with a similar mindscanner before darkness enveloped her.
She blinked, opening her eyes to find herself back in her apartment in Metropolis, standing by the window in the living room overlooking the street. For a brief moment, Lois wondered if it'd all been some sort of insane dream and General Zod and the dark Kryptonian ship had never appeared to take Clark away. She didn't have long to ponder the possibility before she was suddenly swept into another scene which she instantly recognized as a memory.
It was the eighth floor of the Daily Planet building, at her desk back when she still worked as a stringer, then the memory changed again to reveal Lois and her sister back in college in Minnesota. The memories came thick and fast, leaving her confused and overwhelmed before other emotions took hold.
Anger, excitement, sadness, loneliness, joy, fear, accompanied by scenes of her mom's funeral, dad at the army base, various houses she'd lived in growing up, moving and moving again, farther back into her past as the whirling vortex of memories returned to more recent times. Most of her adult life had been spent in Metropolis, the place she'd come to consider her home, its skyscrapers and coffee shops and apartment complexes a hub of news in the making - perfect for her beloved job. But Lois could hardly concentrate on any of it with the dull throb starting to build in the back of her head.
She blinked again, and found herself back on Zod's ship. An experimental wiggle proved that the restraints around her ankles and wrists were gone, but her frowning escort was still there and immediately directed her to get up. Lois obeyed and once again a blaster was shoved into her back as she was directed out of the room, but not without glancing back to see Kal still hooked up to the mindscanner, eyes closed as if he were only asleep - though she couldn't help but notice that he looked visibly distressed.
Her guard led her down another series of weaving halls and darkened rooms before she opened another door and unceremoniously shoved her hostage inside. Lois stumbled and almost cried out as her knees hit the hard floor, the female escort's lip lifting in disgust before she turned away, the door closing as she left.
Not wanting to dwell on whatever they'd done to her to cause the splitting headache that was now ringing in her ears, and knowing that Clark and Darcie probably wouldn't survive long in this place, Lois' army brat streak kicked in as she immediately began taking stock of her cell. She needed a plan - something foolproof and doable that would get all of them off of Zod's dark ship, or at least buy some time until one of her rescuers managed to free her.
The small space her captor had shut her in was dark, lit only by a faint ambient light from somewhere in the ceiling and a small key-port glowing a bright electric blue. Lois stood up, wincing a little as she moved towards it when she remembered that she'd seen the shape of the hole before. Her hand moved to her left pocket and she removed the small stick Clark had given her in the dropship. Its shield-shaped insignia matched up perfectly with the port.
Lois moved to insert the Key only for it to be automatically sucked in most of its length by some unseen magnetic force, and she hesitantly pressed it down completely. The port hummed in response, but… nothing happened. The door didn't open, no complex screens full of alien text appeared on the walls, and Clark didn't suddenly appear. Lois looked around, searching her cell for a hint at what the Key had done when the man suddenly appeared.
"Where did you come from?" she questioned sharply, struggling to keep the fear out of her voice and warily stepped away from him till her back pressed against the wall. The man only smiled kindly, his brown eyes crinkling at the edges - just like Clark's had when he'd explained the insignia on his chest.
"I came from the Command Key, Miss Lane," he answered in a soft baritone. "Thanks to you, I am uploading to the ship's mainframe as we speak."
Lois eyed the hologram suspiciously, wondering if it was just a construct created by Zod's men to toy with her, plus the fact that he knew her name was more than a little unnerving. "Who are you?"
"I am Jor-El - Kal's father," he replied evenly. Well, that explained the similarity.
"Can you help us?" she asked quickly, and he nodded in response.
"I designed this ship. I can modify its atmospheric composition to human compatibility - and I can destroy it. We can stop them. We can send them back to the Phantom Zone."
"How?"
"I can teach you," he replied calmly, "Will you help me?"
Lois did not hesitate to agree, and Jor-El smiled, summoning a hologram of a small, pod-like starship between his palms.
"This is the craft my son arrived in," he explained, "It is powered by a phantom drive - an engine of sorts that propels itself through space using astronomical singularities generated in its core. Due to the gravitational fluctuations caused by such singularities, portals to the Phantom Zone can be opened and closed, allowing the engine to travel at near-light speed. The Black Zero was modified to use the same technology."
The hologram in his hands shimmered and changed to show the menacing dark shape of General Zod's ship as Jor-El continued, "If two such phantom drives were to come in contact during operation, the resulting portal would be powerful enough to pull both ships and any nearby constructs through it, along with their passengers. That is how we will stop Zod's madness."
Lois blinked, taking the information in before speaking up, "So we just crash Clark's ship into Zod's? And they'll… disappear?"
"There are a few more risks and complications to it, but yes - they would no longer be a threat to Earth and its people," Jor-El nodded, "The phantom drives are essential in this plan."
Lois allowed herself a small smile of hopeful relief, squaring her shoulders for the task ahead.
"Teach me how to do it."
V*V*V*V*V*V*V
The moment Zod's captives had been marched off the bridge and the door hissed shut behind them, the weight pinning Jaora to the cold floor suddenly let up.
She was on her feet in an instant, ignoring the wave of nausea that washed over her due to the sudden movement as she bared her teeth and curled her fists in a very clear threat directed at her captors. The soldiers ignored her, stepping back out of range of her fists to let their General deal with the lone warrior-refugee.
"My sincere apologies on behalf of the state of our atmospherics," Zod stated simply as Jaora spun around to face him, fists still cocked in a defensive position. He dismissed the threat with a slow shake of his head, "I may have told you a falsehood when I said that our ship's air was modeled after Krypton's - the elemental components are the same, though at a larger intensity, and I will admit that the environment is a little challenging even for my soldiers. It was a test of sorts, to examine your's and Kal-El's reaction to such a sudden change, though I hadn't imagined that it would affect him so severely-"
"What were you testing for?" Jaora snapped, stopping the General before he could ramble any further. Zod bristled slightly at the interruption, but patiently ignored it as he continued.
"Evolution. The intention was to discover just how much Terran atmospherics affected the Kryptonian body and what sort of changes may have developed. If they are significant, we may have to make some modifications to the operation of the Genesis Chamber to ensure genetic purity during the reproduction process."
Jaora's eyes widened ever-so-slightly at that, and she shook her head once, then twice as if to clear it as she glared at Zod, "I don't follow - none of that explains why the fu-... why you would threaten an entire planet just to find Kal. And while we're on the topic, what do you intend to do with him and Miss Lane?"
"Kal and the human will not be harmed," Zod assured her, "We only want what rightfully belongs to Krypton. So that our world may live again."
"So what is it that you are looking for?" Jaora asked, hiding a quiet cough as she did. The General may have revealed that the pain caused by the heavy air was only an experiment, but that didn't make it hurt any less. Zod glanced briefly in her direction, his expression neutral, showing neither concern nor disgust at her weakness - if anything, he seemed dangerously contemplative. It was a look Jaora had quickly become familiar with while growing up, and she knew that it meant she had better listen hard.
"Many cycles ago," Zod began, his gaze drifting out the bridge's wide window to the little blue-and-green planet beyond, "I was Krypton's primary military leader and Kal's father was its foremost scientist. Our similar circles of influence meant that we met often, though we rarely agreed on much except the fact that our planet was dying. We both had our ways of combating the issue - Jor-El preferred the slow process of appealing to the ruling Council, whereas I took a more direct and effective approach.
"In return for my efforts to protect our civilization and save Krypton from certain death, I and my fellow officers were sentenced to imprisonment in an astronomical singularity simply known as the Phantom Zone. Not long after, the cataclysmic destruction of our world freed us, though as a result our ship was set adrift in the ravages of space. We were destined to float among the ruins of our beloved planet until we starved."
"That still doesn't explain how you got here," Jaora pointed out. Zod glanced over his shoulder to glare in her direction as he paced before the window.
"My soldiers managed to retrofit the Black Zero's phantom projector - the machine that generated the astronomical singularity - into a hyperdrive, thus making the instrument of our damnation our salvation. We sought out the old colonial outposts from the Era of Exploration, searching in vain for signs of life. Cut off from Krypton, most had withered and died long ago. We salvaged what we could: armor, weapons, and even a World Engine. For cycles, I and my company sought for even a glimmer of hope, yet found nothing but degenerate and hopeless dead ends. Finally, we detected a distress beacon which you and Kal had triggered when you accessed the ancient scout ship - it was your discovery that led us here."
Jaora shook her head, trying not to wince at the pounding headache it caused her. "Get to the point - what is it that are you looking for? We might be able to help you."
"On Krypton, the genetic template for every Kryptonian yet to be born is encoded in the Registry of Citizens," Zod explained, "Before my trial, I managed to discover that perhaps Jor-El had in fact saved our world when I had failed. He stole the Registry's Codex and stored it in the capsule that ensured the survival of his son - not only did he save Kal-El, but countless future generations as well."
"Why?" Jaora questioned.
A passionate smile lifted Zod's features and his dark eyes were alight with hope as he told her, "So that Krypton may live again, on Earth. And now it is within our power to save what remains of our dying race - all I require from you to achieve this is the location where Kal-El has hidden the Codex."
Her chest felt as if it was growing heavier by the second, and it was definitely getting much harder to breathe now, but Jaora forced herself to remain steady as she asked her last question, "You plan to rebuild Krypton on Earth. How? There are so many ecological differences and challenges you would have to overcome with the atmospherics alone - something would have to change very drastically for you to succeed…"
She trailed off, realization sweeping over her. Something would have to change: Earth would have to change... and likely not for the better. The General seemed to hesitate for a moment before he answered her question slowly, apparently having come to the same conclusion.
"A foundation has to be built on something."
And that something would be the ashes of the planet below.
The planet, Jaora realized, she called home - and so did billions of innocents.
Death and the concept of causing it had never struck her as something to be especially concerned about. It was a part of life and happened to everyone eventually, and killing simply hurried it on a little bit. Though, if she was perfectly honest with herself, not everyone was deserving of an untimely death - 'what goes around, comes around', or as her Teacher used to say, 'innocence to innocents, and murder to murderers'. Yes, there were far too many 'murderers' walking unchallenged on Earth and it would do the universe a world of good to get rid of them - but whatever that number may be, there were far more 'innocents' to outweigh it, and they by no means deserved what Zod had in mind.
The foundation of a new Krypton built on the bones of both those deserving of death and undeserving - it was a blessing to very few and a curse to many more. That was why Jaora shook her head.
"A few lives for the sake of many - that I can understand, and maybe even encourage. But what you're proposing is genocide," she protested, seething quietly in the General's direction, "That is wrong. I can't be a part of it."
"Then what can you be a part of?" Zod shot back, his expression grim.
"I want Krypton revived just as much as you do," Jaora insisted, "But at the price of billions of innocent lives? You can't do this - I won't let you."
Zod paused at that, seemingly caught off guard by such a blatant and outright refusal of his plan to save his race from extinction. If anything, Jaora-El would benefit from the rebuilding of this world and would finally be reunited with the people of her birth - and yet she chose to side with the degenerate, incompetent natives. She was deluded and confused, as one would be if they had grown up among such 'humans', but she would see the truth when the time came, when the humans were gone and Krypton could thrive again.
"There is nothing that can be done. You will have to watch them suffer, but it will not be long before you realize that I am doing this for your own good and for the good of Krypton," Zod assured her, signaling two of his soldiers standing to attention nearby. "Take her away."
Jaora-El was instantly on guard, though she was still weakened by the effects of the heavy atmospherics and could do nothing more than struggle when the two lieutenants pinned her arms behind her back and began dragging her towards the cell block on the far end of the ship.
Dru watched them go with a quiet frown. The warrior-refugee would have to be kept out of the way until the terraforming process was complete, and possibly even watched for some time after to ensure that she did not hamper the rebuilding of Krypton in her grief for the humans. It was of little consequence - Dru only had to locate the Codex and soon his purpose would be well on its way to being fulfilled.
Fun Fact: the prison ship isn't actually named Black Zero.
Well, it is in English, but due to the descriptive nature of the Kryptonian language it's better translated as 'dark nothingness' or more poetically, Void.
The phrase is 'hunæn nɛmzɑn' (hoo-naeh-n nem-zah-n) in MoS/Schreyer Kryptonian, with 'hunæn' meaning black, darkness, lack/absence of light, and 'nɛmzɑn' meaning lack/absence/missing, nothing, or just having generally negative connotations associated with loss (the letter z is typically negative, and n is the same to a lesser degree).