The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [187]
Jor-El and Lara held each other tightly. He caressed her face, her amber hair so beautiful as it danced around her eyes, her cheeks. “How I wish I could have had more time with you.”
Her tears were gone now as she faced him in their last moments. “The time we had was filled with as much joy as I could have asked for. I have no regrets. I love you.”
His blue eyes were clear, and even with all of Krypton in uproar around them, he saw only Lara, only her face. “I love you.” She seemed to glow in the red sunlight filtered through the sheen of his tears. He wanted this moment to last forever.
He leaned forward to kiss her, shutting out even the catastrophe with their love. They closed their eyes, and the world ended around them.
CHAPTER 90
The lone crystal-studded ship sailed off into space, escaping Krypton’s atmosphere and leaving the dying planet behind. Inside the small vessel, a single baby, warm and protected in the blankets his parents had given him, blinked his innocent blue eyes.
The crystals around him contained all the memories and knowledge of Krypton, though Kal-El didn’t know it yet. He had few experiences, but they were sharp and bright in his hungry mind. Through circular observation panels, the boy could watch. Though he did not understand what he saw, the spectacle would be forever burned into his memory.
With its core now gone, Krypton became a red and brown sphere laced with cracks of fire, like a partially extinguished ember. It began to collapse slowly, even gracefully, drawn together by the invisible hand of gravity, the empty rind of a fruit being crushed inward.
When all of the infalling mass slammed together at the center, the shock waves set up an equal but opposite reaction. The mortally wounded world began to rebound. Broken shards of continents and the flying remnants of oceans tore apart what remained of the gauzy atmosphere.
Krypton exploded with a flash of red and a flare of emerald green. Fragments hurtled outward in all directions.
Even as Kal-El’s ship raced onward, the vessel’s hull resounded with hundreds of impacts. The automated systems compensated, taking evasive action, increasing speed. The remnants of the baby’s dead planet cooled into a handful of strewn glitter in the icy void of space.
The alien stardrive activated, accelerating beyond lightspeed, rippling space and drawing much of the planet’s debris into a vortex behind it.
The ship raced away until Rao was no more than a very bright star in the firmament. Safe and alone, the last son of Krypton sailed toward a blue planet orbiting an average yellow star.
Earth.
Kal-El’s new home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Destroying a world is not an easy job (although my wife tells me I do have a “high celestial body count” in my novels). Among the many people who helped me with The Last Days of Krypton, I would like to thank in particular Paul Levitz, John Nee, and Steve Korté at DC Comics, all of whom immediately saw the potential in this project as soon as I suggested it. Chris Cerasi at DC and Mauro DiPreta at HarperEntertainment did a terrific job as tag-team editors, using their expertise from both the comics and literary sides to help me polish this book into its final form. My agent, John Silbersack at Trident Media Group, ran interference through the various contracts and licensing challenges. At WordFire, Inc., the team of Diane Jones, Louis Moesta, and Catherine Sidor assisted greatly with the preparation, development, and proofreading of the manuscript, and my wife, Rebecca Moesta, did what she always does…which is far more than I could possibly list here.
About the Author
One of today’s most popular sf writers, KEVIN J. ANDERSON is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning Dune prequels (coauthored with Brian Herbert) and numerous Star Wars novels,