Chapter 25: Operation Dust Cloud

"You have another thing coming if you think I'm going to let you hurt her!" Perry White raged as he recklessly charged to stand between Lois and General Zod. It was a foolish act, he knew, but he could not just stand by and watch him kill her; he rather die.

Zod stopped him with the palm of his hand and pushed the old man back, sending him flying into a cubical wall, which collapsed upon impact. Perry remained motionless on the floor, but his chest continued its pattern of rising and lowering. He was still alive... for the moment. "Chief!" Lois tried to run to his aid, only to find the Kryptonian general's hand at her throat.

She gasped as he began to apply pressure on her throat. Zod was amazed how fragile these humans were. They were ever easier to injure and kill than he thought. "So where is your savior, Earth woman? You are about to die, and there is no sign of him."

"Go… to… hell!" she managed to get out of her mouth as he slowly increased the strength in his strangle hold on her.

Lucy's face was drenched from her tears. She wanted to approach General Zod, but Jimmy was doing everything he could to hold her back and keep her safe. All she could do was plead for mercy. "Please stop it!"

The General was having too much fun to stop. He had never actually tortured anyone before. Having always been on the front line of the war against the armies of Apokolypse, it was either kill or be killed; there was no time for slow kills. Neither was their time to contemplate on the death of his enemies. All he had to worry about making sure the enemy was dead and then move on to find another. This was the first time he got to watch the life slowly drain away from his victim, and it was scary how good it felt.

"Zod, care to take this outside?" A voice came from outside through the open window.

He looked outside the window to see Superman hovering in front of the window with his arms folded in front of him. He could read it in his face: he was not happy about his treatment towards his woman. With a grin on his face, he released his hold on Lois; as much as he enjoyed watching the life slip away from her eyes, but killing her would not get Superman's obedience. "Kal-El, you got my message. Good, let us talk, outside."

Zod leaped towards the window and it shattered upon his impact. He flew outside the newly created hole where he came face-to-face with the younger Kryptonian. The two men stared at each other, waiting to see who would blink first. "You wanted my attention, you have it."

"It is a rare occasion when I am wrong, but I am an honorable man, and I am willing to admit that I've erred. I've allowed my personal feelings for your Father to get the best of me. You should know that I no longer seek to punish you for your father's actions. We are the last of our kind; we should be working together in preparation for the armies of Apokolyps."

Superman was surprise to hear him say that. He was expecting another brutal fight in a futile attempt to kill him. Last time, Zod could not be reasoned with; his thirst for revenge had turned him into a ravaging animal. Deep down in his gut, he knew that this rouge Kryptonian could not be trusted, but what was he trying to accomplish?

"What's your game, Zod? You cannot possibly expect me to believe that you have had a change of heart this quickly?"

"You shall refer to me as General Zod," he said, clearly struggling to keep his anger in check. "We both know that Darkseid is on his way here. Only together can we destroy him."

"I agree; we should work together rather than against, but something tells me that your price is too high."

General Zod spun around to face away Superman. They continued their discussion high above the ground. He could already sense the final outcome of this discussion would be. He could feel the son of Jor-El's rejection. For his own sake, Kal-El had better give careful thought to this opportunity that was being presented to him. "The only price is something that all systems must pay to survive in harsh and cruel galaxy: unity. The people of the Earth must be united if they are to survive what's coming."

Superman curled up his right eyebrow. "And I supposed you are the one to do it?"

"Who else is qualified? I have had countless number of victories against the armies of Apocolypse. It is only logical that I be the one to unite the people of this world under my rule and you by my side."

"You speak with wisdom, but these words are still coming from the mouth of a snake. Yes, it would be better if this world was united when the dark lord comes, but no one-man has a right to force that upon the people. Yes, there is imperfection, and yes, there is oppression. The people of Earth are not perfect, but they have a right to live and to believe whatever they want, none-the-less. They need to learn for themselves how to accomplish unity without giving up their free will to do it. We have no right to take away their right to chose their own destiny. We cannot do the work for them; all we can do is to be an example for others to follow."

Zod turned again to face the son of Jor-El. To him, each word was equally distasteful as the last. Jor-El's son had no understanding of what Darkseid was capable of. The Dark lord will utterly destroy him, and this planet; the humans are too weak to be made into slaves. Instead of wasting his time and resources, he would just blow the planet up and go find another system to ravage; he would not bother fighting Superman when all he had to do was destroy the planet with him on it. If the people could muster an army to challenge him, then the people could be saved as slaves. Of course, Zod had no intentions of allowing Darkseid to win.

"You are a fool, Kal-El. Free-will will doom you and this planet. I will not have that; I will have my army to stand against Apokolyps. I would prefer that you join me, but I will destroy you if I have to."

"You are insane, Zod. This has never been about the well being of the people of this planet. For you, this is about power, plain and simple. I'd say that you'd sacrifice every person on this planet to win your war against Darkseid."

General Zod grinned. "It's their job to surrender their lives to me, and mine to do with them as I see fit to accomplish victory."

"Then it is a good thing that the people on this planet will never have to worry about you leading them."

As expected, his offer was rejected. There was a part of General Zod that wanted him to reject his offer; now that it has been, he was going to enjoy making the son of Jor-El suffer. "So be it."

General Zod attacked swiftly with heat beams shooting from his eyes. Not expecting the speed in which he attacked, Superman found himself thrown back into the wall of a skyscraper. Not giving him the chance to recover, the Kryptonian general clasped his hands together and flew at him like a speeding missile. His clasped fists came crashing into his chest and the impact sent both of them crashing through the wall of the skyscraper.

The phone rang on Lana's desk, interrupting her thoughts. When the caller ID displayed the phone number for S.T.A.R. Labs, her foul mood quickly vanished. She was aggressively at the receiver as if it was trying to escape from a predator "Lana Lang?"

"Miss Lang, I'm Professor Hamilton of S.T.A.R Labs; I understand you've been trying to get a hold of me."

"Oh, thank God! Yes, thank you for getting back to me; we have an emergency on our hands, and seeing that you have worked with Superman, I'm hoping you'll be able to help."

"Miss Lane, I—"

Before he could deny his partnership with Superman, she had to get him to realize the severity of the situation. She understood and even expected his reluctance to divulge anything he might know about Superman. "He's in grave danger, Professor. I can't go into great detail, but the world is about to be saturated with Kryptonite dust. Is there a way to stop it?"

"Wait, slow down," The professor said; she could sense the hesitation in his voice. "Okay, what's this about Kryptonite dust?"

"Large stockpiles of Kryptonite meteorites are going to be detonated, resulting in a large cloud of Kryptonite dust to form in the air. The wind should spread the dust to all every corner of the planet. There's no way to stop the destination, so is there a way to destroy the dust before it really saturates the planet, itself."

"Hmmm" The Professor was mulling everything she said in his mind. It sounded like he was willing to help, but unsure as to how. "There may be something I can do, but it will come at the cost the city's solar generator."

"Professor, you'll have to trust me; we have to help him, anyway we can."

"I agree. I should be able to reverse the—"

The phone abruptly went silent. The office was still getting power; it was only the phone the ceased to work. "Hello?"

When no reply came, she hung up the phone. Her confusion was amplified when solid-steel shields slid down each window, blocking out the sun. She began to wonder if a security feature had malfunctioned when a steel door slid shut in front of her only way out of the office. With all forms of outside light blocked all the ceiling lights turned on automatically.

This problem could not have come at a worse time; Clark was in grave danger from the dust cloud that was about to spread through the atmosphere. She had to find a way to get out of this office and reestablish contact with Professor Hamilton. She reached for her intercom to try to contact her secretary, but all power to it was also cut off. To make matters worse, her computer screen now displayed the blue screen of death. Everything in her office was going on a fritz for some reason, but it quickly became clear when a full-sized holographic image of Lex Luthor appeared in the center of the room.

"Miss Lang?"

The disconnected tone beeped over the receiver. Hanging up the phone, Professor Hamilton's mind immediately went into overdrive. He recognized Lana Lang as the CEO of Lexcorp, a corporation with a very dark history. Up to this point, he would not have given anyone from Lexcorp the time of day when it came to Superman. Superman trusted him with all of his secrets, making the professor the most knowledgeable man on Superman in the world. He knew his anatomy and how his cells processed sunlight; he knew everything about him except his secret identity.

Professor Hamilton did not take that trust lightly. The two of them had taken great care to make sure that this friendship remained secret; who knew what would happen to him if they found out. That was also why he was very reluctant when Miss Lang first called him. Did she know all of this when calling him? His first impression made him think that she wasn't. She merely seemed desperate to find a solution to a problem.

If everything she said was true, then she had a good right to be concerned. He had no idea who was ultimately responsible for this Kryptonite dust plan, but there was plenty to be worried about that no one seemed to realize. If this planet became saturated by Kryptonite dust, not only will Superman die, but he estimated more than fifty percent of humans around the world will die over a period of a year. He had to treat this news as fact.

Professor Hamilton went to work on his computer, pulling up a Doppler radar image of the United States. There was no sign of the dust cloud yet; he still had time to prepare. From what he knew about Kryptonite, the only way to stop a cloud of it was to overwhelm it with an extensive blast of radiation from their sun. Luckily, Superman and made the Solar Generator a last resort tool disperse the stored energy as a solar radiation. He believed that an evil was coming that he might not be able to stop, and this tool would help him in his greatest time of need. It was only meant to be for emergencies, because it would result in rendering the solar generation permanently useless.

This was not the emergency that Superman was expecting, but if someone was about to saturate the planet with this dust, then he had no choice. The first sight of this cloud on the radar, and he would use the solar panels, on the outskirts of Metropolis, to burn the Kryptonite in the sky.

He stood up from his desk, and made his way for the solar generator. Somehow, he knew that he did not have much time. Fortunately, setting the Solar Generator would not take very long.

General Lane looked down from the military chopper at the giant stockpile of Kryptonite meteorites. He wanted to be here as they detonated the meteorites all around the world. With the incidents around the world, and the attack on the Pentagon, he had no more lingering doubt that he was doing the right thing. This dust would properly dispose of Superman and the Kryptonian; as for the android, he had a dozen soft bombs on the way. The soft bombs may destroy any electrical devices in a good portion of Metropolis, but that all could be fixed once they had peace.

When the helicopter landed, General Lane climbed out of the passenger cabin where he was greeted by one of his soldier. "General, we are ready for detonation, but we may have a problem."

"I don't want to hear it, soldier. There'll be no more delays. Detonate the stockpiles."

"Sir, I really think—"

General Lane shrugged him off as he entered the temporary bunker that was made to protect him and his men from the explosion. He stormed into the bunker, hoping his foul mood would have the same effect on the rest of his men than the soldier who had greeted him. Everyone stood at attention as he entered the bunker. "Is every one clear?"

"Yes, sir! We're ready at any time, but—"

"Is that the detonator?"

"Yes sir, but I—"

General Lane brushed the young man aside, and walked up to the button. "No more delays. Fire in the hole!" The general slapped down on the detonator button before anyone else could protest.