Last Son of Krypton

  CHAPTER 1

  THE DYING PLANET

  CHAPTER 2

  A SPACESHIP TOO SMALL

  CHAPTER 3

  ESCAPE!

  CHAPTER 4

  A NEW HOME

  CHAPTER 5

  SUPERPOWERS

  “Our world is doomed!” said Jor-El. He faced a group of leaders and scientists on his home planet of Krypton. He spoke with anger, not in fear.

  “The fate of this planet, and everyone on it, rests in your hands,” Jor-El continued. “Earthquakes have rocked Krypton for many months. Tidal waves have flooded our coastlines. Volcanoes have erupted at the edges of our cities. If we do not act now, everything we have worked for will be destroyed!”

  Behind the group of scientists stood a strange, metal figure. The figure, a supercomputer in the shape of a man, stepped forward. His metal head and glowing eyes towered above Jor-El.

  “This is nonsense, Jor-El,” said the supercomputer. “Krypton has revolved around her red sun for millions of years. Our planet will continue to revolve for a million more. Safely and peacefully.”

  “Not according to my research,” said Jor-El.

  “Your research is wrong,” said Brainiac calmly. “My brain has been going over your figures for the past several weeks. And the answer I come up with is this: Krypton is simply going through a phase. In a few months, the volcanic activity will stop.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Jor-El.

  Brainiac’s eyes glowed brightly. “Have I ever been wrong before?” he asked.

  Jor-El was silent.

  “I am not wrong this time, either,” said Brainiac.

  As the metal man spoke, the crowd nodded. They were calmed by his words.

  “With all due respect, there is always a first time for being wrong,” warned Jor-El. “The pressure inside our planet is growing. This is not simply a phase. This is the entire destruction of our world. We must leave Krypton before it explodes!”

  Someone in the chamber cried out in alarm. A murmur of panic passed through the crowd. Brainiac raised his hands.

  “Jor-El fills you with fear,” Brainiac said. “He controls you by frightening you.”

  “No!” said Jor-El. “I do not seek power. I only seek the safety of my fellow citizens.”

  “If you care for their safety, then you will keep silent,” said Brainiac. The lights in his metal skull were blinking angrily.

  Another figure stood up. It was Vond-a, leader of the science council. She stepped onto the floor and stood between Jor-El and the robot.

  “I agree with Brainiac,” she said. “Your words will only panic the good people of Krypton, Jor-El. If Brainiac’s supercomputer brain tells him that the planet is safe, then it is safe.”

  Jor-El knew it was useless to argue. He had been warning the scientists for weeks.

  The scientists never listened. Now, Jor-El bowed his head. He said, “I will obey the decision of the council.” Quietly, he left the chamber.

  Brainiac watched Jor-El walk away. Dark thoughts hummed through the supercomputer’s brain. Jor-El is right, he thought to himself. Krypton will explode. But these fools must never know. An evil smile crossed Brainiac’s face. Jor-El must be silenced.

  Miles away, Jor-El stepped out of his flyer pod. He entered his living chambers. His wife, Lara, greeted him nervously.

  “Did the council listen to you, Jor-El?” she asked.

  Jor-El shook his head. “They listened to Brainiac instead,” he said. “He doesn’t understand the danger we’re in. Something must be wrong with his programming.”

  Suddenly, the house shook. Several windows on the floor above them shattered.

  “Another earthquake,” said Lara.

  The shaking stopped as quickly as it began. “I’ve been tracking quakes all over Krypton,” she added. “They’re growing stronger. There are more of them. Your calculations are right, Jor-El.”

  The couple hurried to their lab. “There’s no comfort in being right,” Jor-El said. “Especially when it means our world will be destroyed.”

  Jor-El checked his monitors. “I’m afraid it’s worse than I thought, Lara,” he said. “Krypton’s core is heating up. The pressure is growing faster than I predicted.”

  “What does that mean?” Lara asked.

  “Krypton will explode in a matter of days, possibly even hours,” he said.

  “What about our son?” Lara gasped.

  Jor-El nodded. “We must get him at once and bring him to the launch port,” he said.

  Lara rushed down the stairs to the nursery. Before she entered the room, she smiled. She could hear their infant son cooing happily in his crib.

  “Kal-El,” she called.

  The baby boy turned at the sound of his mother’s voice. A wide grin stretched across his face. He held out his arms, wanting to be picked up.

  “Oh, Kal-El,” whispered Lara. She held the child tightly to her chest. “What a good boy you are.”

  Lara quickly grabbed some red and blue blankets to wrap the baby in. Then she hurried to the launch port to join her husband.

  The port was at the top of their living quarters. A wide, open window showed a view of the entire city.

  Lara entered the port. She saw Jor-El working on the model of a transport rocket ship. She hugged the baby even tighter.

  “I had hoped that we would have time to build larger transports,” said Jor-El. “They could have safely carried our people to another planet. To a new home.”

  “Now,” he added, “this small model can carry only one.” Jor-El looked down at his smiling son. The baby wrapped a tiny hand around his father’s finger.

  Another quake rocked the building. A light fell from the ceiling and crashed at Lara’s feet. The baby cried out. “Jor-El, we must hurry,” Lara said.

  Jor-El checked the control panel for the rocket launcher. Lara placed the baby’s blankets inside the ship. She made a warm, inviting nest to hold her son. Then she stared at the boy as he sat on a nearby table. “You have no idea how important you are, do you?” she said. “Kal-El, you are Krypton’s last hope.”

  Another crash echoed throughout the building. Lara quickly scooped up her son.

  “That wasn’t an earthquake,” said Jor-El.

  “It came from downstairs,” said Lara.

  Jor-El switched on a video monitor. The monitor was connected to a camera built into their front door. As soon as the monitor blinked on, Lara grabbed her husband’s arm.

  Vond-a, the head of the science council, stood outside their living quarters. Standing with her was a squad of security troopers, fully armed.

  “Jor-El!” she shouted. “Open the door! Your family is under arrest!”

  Outside Jor-El’s and Lara’s living quarters, the troopers were startled by a new noise.

  A fiery object flew across the sky.

  “Is that a meteor?” asked one of the troopers.

  “No meteors were predicted at this time,” replied Vond-a. Just then, another tremor rocked the planet. The troopers were thrown off their feet.

  Miles above them, the flaming object flew out of Krypton’s atmosphere. The council leader was correct. It was not a meteor. It was a spaceship. And inside the ship was the supercomputer Brainiac.

  It would be a shame if I stayed behind and was destroyed, thought Brainiac. My super brain is worth more than a million of those puny humans.

  He set his ship’s controls to take him to a distant galaxy called the Milky Way. “The advanced knowledge of Krypton shall survive in me. With that knowledge, I will conquer another world,” he thought.

  Brainiac’s ship streaked through Krypton’s sky. Meanwhile, Jor-El checked the controls of the smaller ship in his launch port.

/>   “It’s almost ready,” he said to Lara.

  His wife was saying good-bye to their infant son. The baby lay inside the ship. He was wrapped in a cocoon of red and blue blankets.

  “Be good, Kal-El,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears. “You will find a new home, a safe place far away from here.”

  A loud crash sounded below. The security troopers had knocked down the front door.

  Jor-El pressed a remote control. The doors of the small ship closed with a hissing sound. The lock clicked. Then a loud humming filled the room.

  As the humming grew louder, the ship lifted into the air. Little Kal-El was unaware of what was happening to him.

  Kal-El rested in his soft blankets. He was secure inside the unbreakable walls of his father’s creation.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Jor-El said, turning to his wife. “We will always be a part of Kal-El.”

  Lara gazed at the rising ship. “We will never forget you, my son,” she said.

  “There they are!” A trooper was standing at the door of the port.

  He pointed into the room at Jor-El and Lara. The rest of the squad gathered behind him. They drew weapons and marched into the room.

  “Move away from the controls, Jor-El!” commanded Vond-a.

  “Don’t, Jor-El!” shouted Lara.

  “Stay out of this, Lara,” said Vond-a. “Your husband is a danger to the planet of Krypton.”

  “You are the danger to Krypton!” cried Lara. “My husband was only trying to save us. And now he is trying to save —”

  “Quiet, Lara,” said her husband.

  The council leader looked around at Jor-El’s scientific equipment. “What is going on here?” she asked. “And what is that ship doing?” She pointed at the object floating high above the floor.

  The troopers aimed their blasters at the small craft. “It is obviously some kind of weapon,” said Vond-a. “Shoot it down.”

  “No!” Lara screamed. Jor-El threw himself in front of the troopers.

  A bright light filled the room.

  The small ship flashed out of the room. It flew with such force that everyone inside the launch room was hurled against the walls. Outside, the ship streaked through the sky. It looked like a shooting star.

  Faster and faster, the ship raced above the surface of the planet. It rose above the vast cities. It rushed past the highest clouds. Within seconds, it was speeding past Krypton’s three moons.

  Gazing into the sky, Jor-El and Lara followed the trail of their vanishing son. They held onto each other. A powerful quake shook the city. The walls were torn away from their building. The rays of the planet’s red sun filled the launch room, turning it the color of blood.

  “Good-bye, Kal-El,” Jor-El whispered.

  As Krypton’s greatest scientist had predicted, the huge planet exploded. Continents were ripped apart by volcanic force. The oceans evaporated. The sky itself caught on fire. A billion lives were lost in a second. But one small life sailed swiftly away to another planet.

  It was a summer day in Kansas. A yellow sun floated in the blue, hazy sky. The hot sun beat down on the fields around the town of Smallville.

  On a farm outside of town, Jonathan Kent stared at the rows and rows of corn. He was sitting in the cab of his combine. He had been driving up and down the rows of corn for hours.

  He had farmed these fields for many years. He wondered how many more years he would be driving this combine.

  His cell phone rang. Jonathan pulled it from his belt. “What is it, Martha?” he said.

  “How did you know it was me?” asked his wife on the other end.

  “Who else would it be?” Jonathan said with a smile. “You’re the only one who ever calls me on this thing.”

  “You could at least be polite and say hello,” said Martha Kent.

  “What was that?” yelled Jonathan.

  A fiery ball rushed past the cab of the combine. It missed hitting Jonathan by just a few feet.

  “Jonathan, are you all right?” yelled Martha’s voice from the phone.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I think I just saw a meteor.”

  “It’s a meteor all right,” said Martha. “I can see it from the kitchen window.”

  The combine was thrown into the air. Jonathan braced himself against the cab’s door. Martha screamed. Cows in a nearby meadow tipped over. From the edge of the field, smoke and flames could be seen.

  “Whatever it was,” Jonathan said to himself, “I think it just landed.”

  A few minutes later, Martha joined her husband in the field. They walked carefully toward the rising smoke. The meteor had dug a huge crater in the soil.

  When they came near the edge of the crater, the Kents stopped.

  “Maybe we should call the police,” said Martha. “Or a science teacher from the junior college.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Jonathan.

  He took off his glasses and wiped them with a rag. “That doesn’t look like a meteor to me,” Jonathan added.

  “What’s it supposed to look like?” asked Martha.

  “A rock, Martha. A big ugly rock. But this is smooth and shiny.” Jonathan took a step forward. “Oww,” he groaned.

  “Careful,” said his wife. “You got banged up in that combine.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he said.

  The object was smooth and shiny, as Jonathan had said. It did not look like a rock from outer space. It looked more like a piece from an airplane.

  The object wasn’t burning. The smoke came from a few cornstalks that had caught fire from the crash. The farmer bent down to get a closer look.

  “Don’t touch it!” cried Martha.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Martha,” he said. “I just want to —”

  “What was that?” cried Martha.

  Soon, a hissing sound filled the crater. A metal panel on top of the strange object began to open up. Martha and Jonathan both froze.

  Two tiny hands rose up from the opening. A small head covered in dark hair peeked over the edge.

  Martha ran down into the crater. “It’s a baby!” she said.

  “It’s a little boy,” said Jonathan, stunned.

  A toddler looked up at them from the shiny object. A wide grin stretched across his happy face. He held out his arms, wanting to be picked up.

  “Where did you come from, little man?” asked Jonathan.

  “A baby!” repeated Martha.

  “Yes, I can see that, Martha,” he said.

  “We always wanted to have a baby of our own,” she said.

  “He doesn’t belong to us,” Jonathan pointed out.

  Martha reached out and lifted the toddler into her arms. “I don’t think his family is from around here,” she said. “Unless you see someone else falling from the sky.”

  “Oh, Martha,” said her husband.

  Martha Kent stared happily at the little boy. He smiled and grabbed at her hair. “I think we’ll call you Clark,” she said. “I’ve always liked that name.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “We can’t do this, Martha,” he said.

  Martha stuck out her chin. “We’re only going to take care of Clark until someone else comes looking for him,” she said.

  Martha looked up at the sky and then back at her husband. “But somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen. Do you?” she asked.

  Jonathan put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. The new family walked away from the crater and headed toward their house.

  Late that night, Jonathan and Martha hitched the strange object to the back of their combine. No one else saw them drag it into their barn. Then Jonathan began to dig a hole in the center of the barn’s dirt floor.

  “I don’t want any nosy reporters looking for this thing,” said Jonathan. “They’d never leave us alone.”

  Martha agreed. She was also worried that Clark might be taken away from them.

  While Jonathan kept digging, Martha carefully searched the inside of the me
tal ship. She looked for clues about the strange baby. There were no photos, no toys, and no clothes.

  “Look at this,” Martha cried.

  Her hand touched a bundle of red and blue blankets. She pulled them out and examined them closely.

  “I wonder if these are from Clark’s home,” she said.

  Once Jonathan buried the ship, they returned to the house. Martha walked upstairs and tucked the blankets deep inside a clothes chest in her bedroom.

  “Clark may need these some day,” she said to herself.

  Over the next few days, Clark was a happy toddler. He enjoyed his new home. He was interested in the cows, the tractor, and the dogs. But most of the time, Clark stayed close by Martha. Something in her tender voice was comforting to him.

  When Martha worked in the garden, Clark sat next to her. He dug his fists into the dirt. Martha would brush off a carrot or peapod and hand it to him. Then the boy would hungrily stuff it into his mouth.

  That summer in Kansas was one of the hottest on record. Martha worked in the garden in the afternoons, when the sun was behind the big barn.

  Clark didn’t seem to mind the heat. The little boy didn’t sweat. His skin didn’t burn. In fact, Clark was happiest when sitting outside in the hot yellow rays of the sun.

  Clark looked up at the weather vane on top of the house. It was spinning wildly. Martha noticed it too.

  “Jonathan,” she yelled. “I think we’re in for a storm.”

  Jonathan was fixing some equipment in the barn. He didn’t hear his wife’s voice.

  Martha stood up from the garden. She stretched her back. She was about to grab her buckets of carrots when she stopped.

  Off to the southwest, the sky had grown greenish-black. Dangerous clouds drifted toward them. In the middle of the dark clouds, a gray cloud was spinning. It spun like the weather vane. Martha watched as a tongue of twisting air dropped from the sky.

  As soon as the twister touched the ground, the tongue changed color. Now it was dark brown, the color of the dirt it was scooping up into its deadly funnel.

  “Jonathan!” screamed Martha. “A twister! There’s a twister!”

  The whirling storm was heading toward the farm. Martha reached down and grabbed Clark’s arm. She pulled him along behind her. They raced toward the storm shelter at the side of the house.