Low gravity worlds and the increase in mobility that comes with them is something Zod is used to, but he did not factor in the boost this yellow sun would give him. He can barely control his first jump, and even his third, that precipitates him in front of the approaching human forces, is a little less precise than the general would wish for.

However, an impact cracking the ground beneath him has the advantage of getting him instant attention. Two of the vehicles slew into each other as the whole cavalcade comes to a hasty stop.

Zod waits until this 'general' Swanwick stumbles out of one of them, the soldier who tried to protect Kal's woman at his side.

"Your presence here achieves nothing but to irritate me," the Kryptonian general informs them. "Go away!"

"You got what you wanted," Swanwick argues back. "Why are you still here?"

There is really no reason to account for his actions to the humans, but for the sake of resolving this with the minimum amount of mess, Zod indulges them. "This is the area where Kal-El's escape pod came down. We will retrieve it – and my chief scientist is curious about how it may have interacted with the environment."

"What about the people who live here?" the soldier demands to know. "What's happening to them?"

For his display of protectiveness, the Kryptonian general indulges him, too. "My chief scientist is talking to them."

That draws the human general's attention, too, even if his worries seem more along the lines of secrets exposed than people endangered. "About what?"

Patience thinning, Zod gives him a curt, "Whatever satisfies his curiosity. Now. Go. Away!"

The soldier opens his mouth to argue further, but while the Kryptonian general approves of his tenacity, the humans' disregard for his orders is getting old. "I will not repeat myself a third time – remove yourselves before I do it for you!"

Blank stares all around. It's like the humans think he must be joking.

Zod makes half a step towards his human counterpart and the soldier immediately brings up his weapon to point it at the Kryptonian's head.

"Oh, no, you won't!" the human growls.

Just as well. The Kryptonian general grabs the weapon and the hands that hold it, and a split-second later he has the human pinned flat on the ground by a boot on his hip, both of the human's wrists in one hand and pulled up until all of the easy slack is gone, and the gun crushed into a ball, dropped contemptuously at Swanwick's feet. Then he waits for human reaction times to catch up.

The soldier under Zod's boot is the first to react, cursing, writhing and kicking uselessly while the human general stares in disbelief. The Kryptonian general raises his occupied hand a little higher and the cursing cuts off with a gasp.

"Well?" Zod snaps at the shocked humans, intent on nipping the disrespect in the bud that his earlier indulgence apparently engendered. "If I tear him in halves, will you take the hint and send the rest of your forces away?"

It takes another second but then Swanwick finally comes to grasps with the situation. "No! Stop! Stop! Let him go and we will pull back."

The Kryptonian general finds his lips curling back in contempt. That is even more presumptuous than demanding an accounting was.

"You will pull back and get all of your forces surrounding this area out of my sight," Zod informs the humans. "If I find any left, I will remove them in whatever way I see fit. If you send in any more, I will consider them a hostile act, instead of a mere annoyance, and react accordingly. Did I make myself clear?!"

The Kryptonian general lets his eyes drift upwards at that, to the faint glint of his ship in orbit, and the human general swallows heavily at the reminder of the vast technological gap between their species.

"Yes, General," Swanwick bites out resentfully.

Zod couldn't care less about what the human thinks of him. Looking down he goes on, "This one I will keep. He reacted decisively to a threat, he convinced you to do as I say, and he has proven the will to protect other humans which should motivate him to clear up any further misunderstandings as quickly as possible. Therefore, he might actually prove useful as a … liaison."

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The retreating humans eyed the Kryptonian general with a mix of fear and anger on their faces; the soldier he has kept is pure defiance.

Zod waits until all of the vehicles, including the flyers, have turned around and started to move away before he sets the human upright again.

The man's stance is off, handicapped by the soft tissue damage the Kryptonian can see around the shoulder joints; it is still no less belligerent than the tone when the man snarls, "You're holding the whole planet hostage, so what do you want me for? Private toy or just another lab rat for your scientists?"

The words make little sense in context and Zod ignores them. He keeps watching the retreating vehicles, curious about how the humans are going to interpret 'out of my sight.'

It's only when the human soldier tries to get the Kryptonian's attention by escalating invectives that Zod cuts him off. "You want to protect your people?"

That gets the glare in return that such an inane question deserves.

"Then you will keep them from annoying me further for as long as we are here," the Kryptonian explains reasonably, "and we will be gone soon enough."

"How long?" the human demands to know, but Zod couldn't answer that precisely if he wanted to, with the Els and their boundless curiosity involved.

"As long as it takes," he gives back shortly.

The Kryptonian general allows the human forces five minutes to comply with their orders and then starts checking the perimeter. He finds some unmoving stragglers almost immediately.

"Your general is either unwilling or unable to comply with our agreement," he remarks to the human soldier.

"What's that supposed to meeeeeea…?" starts out defiantly but ends as a startled shout, when Zod takes a good hold of the man and jumps.

The Kryptonian moves cautiously, mindful of the fragility of human bones, and finds that when he takes care to control his fall, he can almost … hover. Setting the discovery aside for later study, Zod puts down the soldier on a walkway bridging the top of a row of squat towers.

Hollow towers, filled with some sort of agricultural produce. The Kryptonian general ignores the oddity and turns to instruct the human. "There are three armed men on the last tower in this row, facing the landing place of my shuttle. Send them on their way before I do it."

The human soldier stares at him skeptically but then starts to move along the spindly steel construct. The man gets more agitated when he finds that there are indeed some soldiers set up as Zod told him, with long weapons of an unusual type and assorted instruments aimed at the Kent farm. A sniper's nest, if the Kryptonian general had to guess.

Keeping his distance but naturally well within earshot, Zod is gratified to hear that his new liaison takes offense at seeing Swanwick's orders disobeyed. At least this man, it seems, expected the human general to stay true to his word.

When the other humans not only deny receiving any orders to retreat, but refuse to acknowledge Colonel Hardy's authority to send them off, the Kryptonian general has heard enough, though.

The flimsy platform, that the humans have positioned themselves on, nearly shakes itself loose from the tower when Zod lands on it.

"You would do well to listen to the colonel," the Kryptonian general thunders – maybe Zod should remember the name, if only to distinguish his human from the rest – "as the new liaison between your forces and mine, he speaks not only for General Swanwick, he speaks for me!"

With his boot planted on the foremost of the weapons, the Kryptonian general is pinning one man's arms to the platform. Another is obscured by Hardy standing between them, but the last one starts to raise his weapon.

Zod smirks at him and stomps. The whole platform drops.

The distance to the ground is enough to kill humans, if the Kryptonian is to judge, and it is tempting to just pick up Hardy and let the rest fall to their deaths. But letting the word spread has its own advantages ….

Zod catches the platform just above the ground and shakes off the humans.

"Run!" the general snaps at the surplus soldiers, and finally finds himself obeyed with the alacrity he is used to observe.