Chapter 23: The Enemy s Preparation
General Zod was back in America, pushing his way back towards Smallville. The quest to locate Kal-El had begun. Capturing his earthly mother would get his attention quick enough. Trying to find him any other way would prove futile; he actually hid among these weak willed people of Earth. He was embarrassed of his true nature. He wanted so much to live among these insects, that he was denying his true Kryptonian legacy.
He was now flying over a large field of corn husks when a loud, high pitched squeal nearly startled him out of the sky. Within the tone, a feminine voice made echoed through his ears. "Zod... that is your name, isn't it?"
"Who is this?" Zod stopped flying and hovered in place. "How dare you, an insignificant life form, address me in this manner!"
"I mean you no harm; on the contrary, I admire what you are trying to do. I, too, want to see Superman die for the crimes he's committed against this planet."
"You are a fool! I do not wish to kill my fellow Kryptonian. How dare you speak ill of someone of my own kind. I shall find you, and punish you for your insolence. I will not have any harm before Superman; he will bow before me and together, we will rule this planet."
"I meant no offense towards your people, my lord. All I want is to serve you. I want to help you, no matter what your goals are."
Zod was growing tired of this conversation. He had indulged this life form for longer than he should have. "Show yourself, and I shall make your death as painless as possible. You have nothing of value to offer me that would persuade me to spare your life."
"I beg for your indulgence for just a little longer, my lord," the voice replied. "I do have something of great value to offer you. I wish to present it to you in person."
"Very well, I will hear what you have to offer, but if I am not impressed, I shall tear you limb from limb."
"I am directly beneath you, at the very edge of this corn field." The high squealing disappeared in his ears stopped and the voice disappeared. His patience was already thin, having been delayed in his quest. This Earth woman better have something of great value to give him for this distraction.
General Zod followed the directions down towards the end of this farm land. A woman dressed in black stood there, waiting. Just by the look of her, he could see that she was different from other women of this earth. She had a beauty that would drive, even a Kryptonian, wild. There was fear in her eyes; something that he did not fault her with, but there was something more there as well. Her eyes revealed treachery. She had a motive to what she was doing, and she needed his help for something. Even though he hated being used as a pawn for someone else's amusement, he had to admire her audacity. There was something about this woman that he liked.
General Zod landed in front of her with his arms folded in front of him. Despite how much he liked her, he demanded respect. If there was no proper respect on her part, than everything else about her did not matter. "You may address me, from this point on, as General Zod ... if you value your life."
"General," Mercy greeted him as she knelt down on one knee.
She had just scored some points in her favor for kneeling before him. "For an Earth woman, you are very beautiful, but that will not spare you my wrath if you fail to give me something of value."
"Understood, General," she replied, standing on her feet again. "You are looking for Superman … I know how to get him to come to you."
"You waist my time, woman. I already know how to get his attention."
"I know everything about him; my former boss was a very intelligent man. Superman has a secret identity; he goes by the name Clark Kent. He works at the daily planet, and is in love with a woman named Lois Lane."
"Interesting that you were able to find all this out, but I have already located his earth mother. If you truly knew everything about Kryptonian, you would know that we value family more than anything else," General Zod replied.
"Superman has grown up here on earth, perhaps he sees himself more human than Kryptonian. All I know is that he and Lois Lane have been virtually inseparable."
"You dare insult me, even when I am standing right here and can kill you instantly? " His patience for the woman was waning. Even though he knew that she was right, it was still insulting to hear coming from the mouth of and Earthling. "We're finished here, you have nothing of value."
Mercy smiled, still showing no signs of fear even when she was flirting with her own death. She had something else in mind. She was using doing what the earth people called 'beating around the bush'. She had something of more value, and she was saving it if all else failed. Well, he was going to force her to tell him everything, whether she intended to or not.
"There's more. I know the reason you didn't succeed against him last time. Your strength comes from the radiation of the yellow sun, and he's been on this planet far longer than you, my lord. If you will spare my life and allow me to help you, I can not only offer you Superman on a silver platter, but I can increase your strength to its fullest potential in an instant. "
Zod was confused by this 'silver platter' but he understood enough to get the gist of what she was saying. She was offering him a way to acquire full strength, without having to wait years for it to come to him naturally. His instinct about this woman was correct; there was something special about her. "Answer me this: why are you willing to do this for me? What will you get out of this?"
"I'm attracted to powerful men," Mercy replied, posing seductively for the Kryptonian. "Powerful men should be making the rules on this planet, and there's none as powerful as you."
General Zod smiled; he liked what he was seeing. She was easy on the eyes, but had the heart of a viper. "You have caught my attention, and if you pull through with this, then I will make you queen, and you shall rule by my side."
Carl Hammer sat around the large round table, listening to his college's opinions. As Secretary of Defense, he was charged with the responsibility to help keep this country safe. While everyone was busy worrying about Iran getting nukes, something more pressing was on his mind. His worries lie with the recent invasion of two aliens who clearly did not have peaceful attention. Why wasn't this the number one priority at this meeting? They had at least a year or two before Iran would get their hands on nukes, but this alien threat was the here and now; how come no one realized it yet?
General Lane had come to him about a plan to saturate the planet with Kryptonite dust; he named it Operation Dust Cloud. The plan was ingenious, and he had pressed the President of the United States to launch this operation. At first, the President was against it. He, like most Americans, had put his faith into Superman. Carl knew that it was a mistake; the people of this country needed to depend upon their government for protection, not an alien vigilante who seemed more interested in privatizing world peace. National security should not be left in the hands of any one individual.
When the two new aliens started causing chaos around the world, POTUS finally came to his senses and gave permission to launch Operation Dust Cloud. Since then, very little mention of the alien menaces were made. Could it be that most of his colleagues still clung to hope, that Superman could stop this threat? Even if he was able to this time, who was to say that a bigger threat did not come down the road? Would he be successful then? What would happen if he ever failed?
As he sulked, sitting in his chair and listening to everyone talk about Iran, the meeting came to an abrupt end when they heard the sound of an explosion. "What was that?"
A siren echoed through the war room, and everyone leaped out of their chairs in alarm. There were few still present who was there when the siren last sounded at the Pentagon on September eleventh. Those few could still remember the fear that they felt on that day, the day that America was attacked. "The Pentagon is under attack!" A soldier screamed, running into the war room. "Evacuate the premise!"
Brainiac was attacked immediately upon nearing the Pentagon. He was not surprised by this, nor was he worried. The humans could throw anything they wanted at him, but their efforts would only result in their deaths. Dozens of military soldiers were standing in his way, shooting their annoying automatic weapons at him; the bullets only bounced off him, harmlessly.
He fired the lasers in his eyes, and a handful of soldiers were immediately incinerated into ash. He repeated the attack, killing several more. The one thing he admired about these ignorant fools was that they were not afraid to die defending the Pentagon. Retreat was not in their vocabulary. These soldiers were men of valor, but they were about to be destroyed none-the-less.
A large armored vehicle entered the fight, firing its giant canon in his direction. An explosion erupted just in front of him as the shockwave jumped at him, followed by a wall of flames. Neither had done him any arm, and he could almost read the horrific expressions on the soldiers as he emerged, unscathed, by the attack.
Brainiac pointed his right palm at the armored vehicle and unleashed a white beam at it. The tank started to cave in on itself until it erupted in flames. The explosion caused a group of soldiers to scatter, who had not expected it to be taken out so easy.
The sound of the sky ripping echoed all around him. He looked up to the sky to see a military jet scouting the action from the sky. After assessing the situation, it made a full circle and made another pass. This time, scouting was not on the agenda. It fired two rockets at him, and the next thing he knew, he was in the middle of a fire storm.
In retaliation, the android fired beams from his eyes, clipping one of its wings. Flames rose from where the wing once was as it spiraled out of control. Crossing the lake, the flaming jet crashed into the top of the Washington Monument like a missile. A giant explosion rocked D.C., as flames engulfed the top of the monument. Cracks formed all around it, and within seconds, the entire monument crumbled to the ground.
As Brainiac neared the Pentagon building, the military soldiers found a way to circle around him. After everything he had done, the soldiers were ignorant enough to try something this foolish? The Earthlings were acting as if they had him trapped; in actuality, they had done nothing but forfeited their lives to him.
He stretched his arms out and two coils lunged out of each wrist. The metal coils made quick work of the soldiers, by quickly disarming them, then disposing them. His advanced robotic brain allowed him to control all four coils at the same time. While one would break the neck of one soldier with a hard slap, another would wrap itself around another soldier and electrocute them. His brain was capable of focusing on up to eight different tasks simultaneously.
Down to two more soldiers, one of his coils swung the corpse of another and used it, as a weapon, to kill them. Free to commence to his target, he retracted the coils and approached the building. With a solid punch, the stone wall shattered upon impact. Dust from the shattered stones and bricks hovered around the hole as he entered the highly restricted building. Once inside, he was greeted with a rocket launcher attack from a single military soldier.
Brainiac fired a series of sonic waves from his forehead, causing the rocket to explode half-way between them, and throwing the flames of the explosion back at the soldier. The cries of soldier filled the hallway as the flames engulfed the poor soldier. Leaving the soldier to his torturous death, the android pressed on and plowed through another wall. He continued to plow deeper and deeper into the Pentagon towards the war room.
The War Room was quickly flooded with heavily armed military soldiers as the room was evacuated. The building was rumbling almost as if a wrecking ball was having its way with it. The rumbling was getting closer, and Carl knew that this was very bad. Never has any attacker gotten this deep into the Pentagon. This was clearly more than just a terrorist attack; it was an alien attack.
A handful of soldiers were ushering he and the other officials out the War room like cattle. As the rumblings got louder and more violent, the soldiers were starting urging them to go faster. They knew, as Carl did, that the War Room was where the intruder was heading.
A wall at the far end of the War Room shattered, throwing large pieces of debris into the room. The soldiers wasted no times in unleashing all of their fire power. The soldiers, who were guiding the leaders of the Pentagon out of the room, went to their comrades to help in the attack. Carl was nearing the exit when he saw those brave men being tossed around the room as if they were nothing more than paper dolls. He reached the exit, and gave one final look back at the action. It was the robotic alien that was attacking them.
Seeing this monstrosity decimate some of the Militaries best warriors brought a sudden realization to his mind: Operation Dust Cloud would probably not work on this type of enemy. General lane had to be informed of this development. There was probably one weapon that the U.S. had at their disposal that might work against an alien android.
Brainiac destroyed every last soldier in the War Room. They died trying to protect the leaders of this country, but they were never his target from the start. Everything he wanted was in this very room.
He made his way to the main terminal. He hovered his right hand over the main terminal. His finger tips detached from his hand and penetrated the terminal, giving him full control of this nation's mainframe. Using his mind, he raced through all the top secret information that this country protected. Most of it, he could care less about, but it did not take him long to find what he was coming for.
"Ah, there they are! The activation codes!" He had found the right system that contained the codes to every nuclear missiles and bombs in the United States. From there, he was able to hack into the systems of other countries, and acquire their codes. Within ten minutes, he had control of every nuclear weapon in the world.