The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [165]
Weapons fire pummeled the last Sapphire Guards, powerful enough to breach their armor. After a flurry of noise, silence descended again.
Zor-El bowed his head. “How many did we lose?” He listened as names were called out, soldiers checking bodies and counting smears of smoke and burned flesh on the ground.
“Fifteen,” said Gal-Eth.
“That’s fifteen too many.” Zor-El looked ahead of him at the government palace. General Zod would be inside. All of them had their weapons drawn as they pushed into the imposing building.
But as the victorious rebels marched into Zod’s throne room, Zor-El saw his brother holding Lara, paying no attention to the faint shouts of the three prisoners trapped inside their small dome.
CHAPTER 79
Despite their exhaustion, Zor-El and his rebels spent many hours interviewing the prisoners who had been herded into separate containment domes. They winnowed out the armored Sapphire Guards and the remaining Ring of Strength members, keeping them under a separate prison dome as the most dangerous captives.
Other hapless citizens insisted they had meant only to help in the wake of the Kandor disaster. They had come under Zod’s spell, plunging one step after another down a slippery slope. Artisans, builders, civil engineers, people of all classes had just wanted to do the right thing.
In the aftermath, the people of Kryptonopolis reviled General Zod’s actions. Torn blue armbands littered the ground, still showing Zod’s family crest. Soldiers discarded the military uniforms the General had forced them to wear; they piled the garments in great mounds in the Square of Hope and set them alight in large bonfires. All of the former city leaders who had bent their knees and submitted to Zod abdicated in shame.
Inside the throne room Zod, Aethyr, and Nam-Ek remained trapped in their hemispherical bubble, irate and totally helpless. In addition to Koll-Em, two Ring members had been killed during the fighting. Jor-El spoke on No-Ton’s behalf, explaining how the man had alerted him to the Rao-beam attack on Borga City and how he had subtly resisted the General in numerous ways. The remaining twelve were placed in restraints and brought forward, heads bowed, so they could observe their General in his total defeat.
Before any sort of trial could begin, however, before the Ring members could plead their cases, beg for mercy, or snarl justifications, Jor-El and Lara made a chilling discovery.
Inside the government palace, Lara turned in slow circles, studying the architecture of Zod’s primary office. Looking at the intersection of walls and using her artist’s spatial perception, she realized that something was wrong. “This wall isn’t where it’s supposed to be, Jor-El. See this load-bearing column here?” She stepped around the weathered statue of Jax-Ur’s kneeling victim and studied the perfectly interlocking wall blocks. “He’s hidden something behind here. There must be a latch or a lock.”
Already dreading what they might find, Jor-El tested the panel, listened for sounds of resonance, then returned to Zod’s desk. With his arrogant confidence, the General would not have worried about being discovered in his own office. He would have made the controls easily accessible.
Inside one of the drawer panels, Jor-El located a small set of crystals, one of which caused the stone-block wall to slide aside to reveal a staircase that led down to a deep vault. He and Lara looked at each other, neither convinced that they wanted to see what Zod had hidden, but both knowing they had to go down there.
Though she was in the last few weeks of her pregnancy, Lara still moved with an agility that allowed her to keep up with him. At the bottom, they found a dimly lit set of chambers with thick walls and numerous alcoves,