Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization by Greg Cox Read Free Book Online

patriotism and honor. “Abort the launch!”
    Then Jor-El was upon him. He pressed the heated muzzle of his rife against Zod, forcing him to his knees. But, as Zod had suspected, he balked at executing the friend of his youth. Instead he merely shouted urgently in Lara’s direction.
    “Finish it!”
    Her graceful fingers played across the illuminated control screen. The starcraft’s thrusters flared even more brightly, forcing them to look away. Victory—and the Codex—were slipping away from him.
    “NO!!!”
    Unlike Jor-El, he had been trained to kill. Moving quickly, while their attention was on the starcraft, he drew a concealed dagger from his boot and drove it into Jor-El’s chest, just below his armored breastplate. The carbonized bone blade penetrated Jor-El’s skinsuit, piercing the fragile skin and organs beneath.
    Jor-El cried out and collapsed to the floor. His rifle slipped from his fingers.
    Zod lunged for the fallen weapon, praying there was still time to halt the launch. Leaving his dagger lodged in his friend’s chest, he snatched the weapon as he rolled across the floor and scrambled into firing position. He took aim at the departing starcraft...
    But he was too late. With a sudden burst of ignition, the capsule blasted off at an angle that took it toward the open ceiling of the observatory. He fired desperately, but the plasma burst fell short of its target, which rocketed beyond the roof and into the dusky red sky.
    Frustrated, Zod wheeled around to glare at Jor-El, who lay bleeding upon the floor. His wound was mortal, of course, but a smile played upon the dying scientist’s face as he watched the starcraft escape the Citadel. Proud eyes tracked the ship’s ascent.
    Then they clouded over. Eyes that had once probed the secrets of the universe saw only oblivion.
    “Jor-El!”
    Lara rushed to his side. She cradled his lifeless body in her arms, sobbing inconsolably. Zod felt a twinge of sympathy for the woman, who had just lost both her husband and her child, but forced it aside in order to focus on the crisis at hand.
    “Your son, Lara.” He spit out the obscenity. “Where have you sent him?”
    Tear-filled eyes met his, but they were hard, as well. Her defiant voice held neither fear nor regret.
    “Beyond your reach,” she replied, her words filled with irony.
    We’ll see about that, he thought. But as he loomed over the forms of the grieving widow and her dead mate, he was briefly transfixed by the sight of Jor-El’s corpse. Remorse threatened to unman him, as the awful weight of this particular killing settled onto his shoulders.
    But he shook it off and wiped the blood from his blade. Gathering his soldiers, he moved quickly out of the observatory, leaving Lara alone with her grief.
    Let her mourn for both of us, he thought. For Krypton’s future still depends on me, and if I fail, we all will suffer.
    He had to find a way to abort Jor-El’s unholy enterprise. Zod raced back to the battle-scarred terrace, where he found Faora and the others staring up in confusion at the ascending starcraft. It was gaining altitude by the instant, trailing a vaporous white contrail as it flew toward space. Within moments it would achieve escape velocity and exit Krypton’s atmosphere altogether.
    If that occurred, the Codex would truly be beyond his reach, just as Lara had foretold.
    “We have to retrieve that ship!” he shouted. “Shoot it down!” Doing so might destroy the object of his desire, but even that was better than letting it vanish into the depths of space. He would have to hope that Jor-El had shielded the Codex sufficiently.
    Tor-An relayed the command to a hovering gunship. Zod watched anxiously, wishing that he could personally man the weapons controls as the craft turned and accelerated. It was almost within firing range when a coruscating particle beam blew the craft apart.
    What the —?
    Flaming wreckage rained down on the Citadel, forcing Zod and the others to dive for