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

hands... but you’ll damn us to a black hole for eternity.” He spit upon the floor. “Jor-El was right. You’re a pack of fools. Every last one of you!”
    Apparently Lor-Em had heard enough. He signaled the master jailer to carry out the sentence. Cryostasis cells, composed of shimmering force fields, rose from the floor, encasing each of the conspirators in an individual sarcophagus.
    Preservative gel began to fill the cells, spurring the condemned rebels to panic. Tor-An pounded uselessly at the translucent walls of his sarcophagus, while Faora screamed in rage. Nam-Ek required a larger cell than the others, but even his mammoth fists were unable to break through the rectangular force field that contained him.
    Zod wheeled about to confront Lara while he still had the chance. He hadn’t forgotten her role in banishing the Codex to space, nor the child to which she had obscenely given birth...
    “And you!” he snarled. “You believe your son is safe, but—” He took a menacing step toward her, but the energized walls of his cells held him back, even when he shoved against them with all his strength and fury. “—I will find him! I will reclaim what you’ve taken from us.”
    She flinched at the vehemence of his words. Her hand went to her chest, which bore the emblem of the House of El.
    The gel rose to choke him, stinging his eyes and throat, but he shouted over the screams of his fellow prisoners. He would not be silenced—not by the Council, and not by the accusing eyes of Jor-El’s beautiful partner in crime.
    “I WILL FIND HIM, LARA! I WILL FIND HIM!”
    The gel rose past the level of his face, filling the cell completely. He clenched his jaws, stubbornly fighting the effects of the gel, but it was a lost cause. It invaded his nose and lungs. An icy numbness spread through his body, while his senses dimmed. Unable to speak any longer, he could only stare at the translucent gel obscuring his vision.
    His world went dark.
    His last conscious thought was that he would never again set eyes on his beloved Krypton.
    * * *
    Within seconds, it was over.
    Lara watched as the petrifying gel congealed, revealing the rebels, frozen within their cells—as immobile as statues. They were preserved in various states of fear and anger. A look of utter malice contorted Zod’s rigid features. His unmoving eyes glared balefully at his captors.
    Lara shuddered. She derived little comfort from the awful spectacle that was unfolding before her. Banishing the renegades would not restore her husband or son to her, nor ease her fears regarding Kal-El’s uncertain future. She could only pray that the Zone would prevent Zod from carrying out his dreadful threats. The rebel leader had already murdered the love of her life.
    She didn’t want him in the same universe as her son.
    The next stage of the process began. With the prisoners secure in their solid-energy cells, the circular platform on which they stood lifted off from the floor, moving toward the prison barge that hung above the Council. An airlock opened in the underside of the Black Zero’s plated black hull. Craning her head back, Lara glimpsed the gloomy hibernation bay that was waiting for the new prisoners. Empty niches would hold the cryostasis cells, perhaps for all eternity.
    Honest executions might have been kinder, Lara thought.
    She shivered, and drew her crimson cloak more tightly about her. Had her own crimes been exposed, she could have easily found herself in a cell of her own, facing the same endless purgatory.
    There but for the grace of Rao...
    The levitating platform approached the open airlock. Robotic loading arms received the frozen prisoners. Zod was the last of the rebels to be loaded aboard the Black Zero. The airlock door shut, sealing the prisoners from view, while the transport platform descended to its original position on the floor of the amphitheater.
    It’s almost over, Lara thought. He’s almost gone.
    A ceremonial klaxon blared,