Title: Family Reunion
Author: Mr. Beeto
Rating: PG-13
Beta: htbthomas and
Shado Librarian Summary: AU Twist on Donner/Singer Movieverse: Tie the three films together into a cohesive whole, and provide a more credible and interesting reason for Superman to have returned to Krypton.
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Author’s Notes: Thanks again to the beta team of
htbthomas and
Shado Librarian, a.k.a.
dandello.
Chapter 40 – Search Party Thursday, October 5, 2006 3:20PM EDT Lieutenant General Sam Lane marched in step with Lieutenant General Michael Maples, his counterpart from the Defense Intelligence Agency, as the two reported to a large secure conference room. They were there for an emergency briefing called after reviewing the intelligence gathered by his daughter, Lois, and forwarded to the Pentagon by her editor. Sam had never been prouder of his willful firstborn.
Unfortunately, Lois had put herself in grave danger collecting the information, and his responsibilities didn’t allow him to personally assume charge of her rescue. He had reluctantly delegated that task of expediting her rescue to his capable chief of staff, Colonel Tom Jacobs, who had a well-deserved reputation for achieving the impossible. It was a skill he’d need, given the EMP damage all branches in the region had suffered. Sam had confidence in his subordinate, but still worried and prayed for his daughter.
Sam struggled to push his worries aside as they walked into the conference room, which was used exclusively for secure video conferences. Under normal circumstances, they would have traveled to the White House to brief the President there, but the timeline was too short to allow for transit time. The video conference had been quickly arranged, and the split screen at the far end of the room already showed the Vice President, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commander of the Northern Command. The presidential seal was displayed in the remaining box, a placeholder for the president who had not yet joined the conference.
Opposite the screen was a large U-shaped conference table, and the Secretary of Defense, Dan Ross, was conspicuously seated in the center of the “U”, intently studying the screen on his laptop and chatting quietly to the NSA director seated beside him. General Maples claimed the empty seat on the opposite side of Secretary Ross and Sam chose a seat further down the table. Secretary Ross glanced over and offered a brief greeting to the two generals before returning his attention to his laptop.
Shortly after their arrival, the President’s chief of staff appeared in place of the presidential seal, and called for everyone’s attention. “People, if I could have your attention,” he stated authoritatively. “We're about ready to begin… Here’s the President of the United States.”
After the President was introduced, he immediately got to the point. “All right, people. I’ve reviewed the messages from this
Daily Planet reporter. Since you’ve insisted on this briefing, I assume we’re taking it seriously.”
“We believe that the intelligence is credible and represents a clear and present danger to the United States,” Secretary Ross stated confidently.
“Are you sure it’s not just some gimmick by the
Planet to jump their reporter to the front of the line to be rescued?” the President pressed.
“Mister President, we have additional facts that support the conclusions provided by Lois Lane,” General Maples replied insistently. “In fact, the evidence convincingly supports her assertions.”
“What are these additional facts?” the President asked somberly.
“At two fifty this afternoon, the radar from the Harry S. Truman Carrier Battle Group recorded what we believe to be a missile launch from the coordinates that Miss Lane identified for Lex Luthor’s yacht, approximately seventy-five miles offshore from Metropolis. The Truman was two hundred miles from Norfolk at the time, and two hundred seventy miles from Luthor’s apparent location.”
“He fired a missile at us?” the President asked incredulously.
“No, sir, not at us,” General Maples informed him. “It was fired in the other direction and splashed down approximately eighteen miles west of the firing point. The Eastern Seaboard was hit by a high energy EMP approximately one minute after the missile splashed down, and we do not believe that to be a coincidence. I’m sure everyone here recalls that the EMP from twenty-five September was also linked to Lex Luthor and the robbery of Superman’s Arctic Fortress.
“We’re also finding something disturbing at the missile’s ground zero. Radar satellite imaging had detected a large landmass below the Atlantic Ocean with multiple plateaus rising through the surface. The plateaus are penetrating the ocean surface at approximately quarter-mile intervals, centered around ground zero.”
“There’s a big difference between finding an undiscovered archipelago and a growing a new continent,” the president pointed out.
“We’ve compared the new images with those from NASA’s ocean mapping project, sir,” General Maples replied seriously. “This land mass isn’t ‘undiscovered’ – it’s new. As for the dispersion… consider the analogy of reforestation. When they replant a clear-cut forest, they don’t put all the seeds in the same hole. The spread them out, and as the trees grow and expand, they fill in the gaps. That may be what we’re seeing here. The peaks are appearing at regularly spread intervals around ground zero and expanding. The land mass already covers an area fifteen miles across. If we extrapolate from the splashdown time, it would mean that Luthor’s continent would crash into the East coast in just over two and a half hours.”
“Dear God,” the President muttered quietly.
“We also think this growing landmass is responsible for the earthquake that’s struck Metropolis,” General Maples added. “The city’s not in a seismic zone, and it seems unlikely that some natural geological process would have caused a five point seven quake so soon after Luthor planted his seed crystal offshore.”
“We believe these events confirm the intelligence Lois Lane provided – that Luthor is using stolen Kryptonian technology to create a new continent, which he hopes will destroy North America,” Secretary Ross asserted. “It’s the only explanation that fits the data.”
“How do we stop it?” the President asked.
“We could hope for Superman to pull off a miracle,” Secretary Ross replied seriously. “However, given that the intelligence from Miss Lane also warned of kryptonite, we can’t rely on that. We’ll need to take control of the situation ourselves, and General Matthews from NORTHCOM
(1) is implementing our response.”
“Sir, we believe the solution is at sea,” General Matthews replied somberly. “It’s either aboard Luthor’s ship or on the new land mass. He has to be controlling it somehow and we need to take that control away from him. That means we’ll need to take him alive and we already have teams en route to do precisely that, once they get the go-ahead. E.T.A. to Luthor’s ship is approximately thirty minutes.”
“They have the go-ahead,” the President declared. “I want all of the necessary resources deployed to stop that bastard, and that means everything… Well, Gentlemen, it sounds like we have a lot of work to do, so let’s get to it. And keep me apprised of our progress.”
-o-o-o-
Lois inched forward along the corridor, hugging the wall and holding the gun in front of her, pointed up, with both hands firmly on the grip, as she strained her hearing for any sound from Luthor’s men. The path brought her across a closed door along the side of the hallway, and she nudged it open, carefully listening for any sounds of life as she snuck through the doorway. She quietly pulled the door shut behind her and inspected her surroundings, finding herself in a small lounge with circular couches centered around a small table and with a large screen television at the far end of the room. She also noticed another door adjacent to the one she’d entered through, and she cautiously pushed it open. She discovered a large walk-in closet, and another door in the opposite side of the closet. Along the counter between the doors, she found a dozen Styrofoam heads with wigs of various colors and lengths – all of them
men’s wigs.
Luthor’s stateroom, Lois thought.
The absolute last
place I ever wanted to be. She crossed the closet to the opposite door, and pulled it open just enough to reveal the bedroom on the opposite side. As she was pulling the door shut, she suddenly heard voices from the room behind her, and quickly reversed direction, quietly rushing through the door into the bedroom, and pulling it nearly shut behind her, leaving only the slightest crack to spy through.
“Why do you have to hover over me?” Kitty complained. “I
told you I’d start at this end after putting Tala away.”
“
Somebody has to make sure you pull your weight instead of hiding in here with that damn dog,” Stanford snapped. “Now get a move on it. The boss said he wanted the prisoners locked up before they get back.”
“Wouldn’t it be quicker to split up, and work together from opposite ends?” Kitty asked irritably. “You know, divide and conquer?”
“That’s precisely why we
have to stick together,” Stanford insistent impatiently. “If we split up, it’ll be too easy for them to pick us off.”
“Lex said the kids couldn’t hurt us if we had the kryptonite with us,” Kitty countered.
“And what about the mother? You saw what she did to Reilly, and I’m pretty sure she has his gun now.”
“
What? He never said anything about that,” Kitty argued petulantly.
“But he didn’t have his gun with him when they left,” Stanford pointed out. “When was the last time you saw him go
anywhere unarmed? He probably sleeps with the damn thing.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Come on, get your ass in gear!” Stanford demanded. “You wanted to drop the dog off here, so put the dog down and let’s go!”
Lois heard a canine whine a moment later, followed by the slam of a door and muffled voices as the Stanford and Kitty continued their arguing. Lois cautiously emerged from her hiding spot, reentering the closet and crossing to the opposite door, where she was met by the anxious Pomeranian. The dog yipped and Lois grabbed the nearest thing she could get her hands on, throwing Luthor’s long curly wig in front of the animal to distract her. The Pomeranian sniffed at the wig, and after catching Luthor’s scent, she growled angrily and attacked it, shaking it back and forth ferociously.
Lois suppressed a chuckle and thought,
So you don’t like that madman either? Good girl. Lois grabbed the rest of the wigs and threw them to the floor, afterwards stepping over the distracted dog and quietly pulling the door shut behind her. She pulled the outer door open slightly and caught the continuing argument as her pursuers walked down the hall. She strained her hearing to catch their words.
“Do you ever
shut up?” Stanford complained.
“I speak my mind,” Kitty replied defiantly.
“Well, you’re going to give us away,” Stanford complained. “Try, just for once, to keep your mouth shut and follow the plan.”
“Oh, and what
is the plan, genius?”
“We’ll start at the top deck and systematically work our way down,” Stanford declared. After a moment, he adamantly added, “
Quietly… Why on Earth has the boss put up with you this long?”
Lois chanced a peek out the hallway and saw the pair turn the corner at the end of the hall. Kitty’s heels continued to clack against the deck, growing fainter as they moved farther away. Lois smiled and thought,
So the two stooges went that-a-way… And from the sound of it, Luthor and the other losers made a side trip, leaving just those two aboard. She stepped into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her, and began walking in the opposite direction. However, she came to an abrupt stop after only a few steps. She looked back down the hallway in the direction Stanford and Kitty had gone and thought,
Better the devil you know… She reversed course and walked briskly after the pair, taking care to keep her footsteps silent and stay out of sight while listening for them.
-o-o-o-
Thursday, October 5, 2006 3:40PM EDT Richard checked his instruments as he piloted his plane towards the coordinates Lois had provided and he reflected that Jack Wilde could give her a run for the money in the ‘Scariest Driver’ category. As promised, Jack had maneuvered his Harley around the stopped cars, at times sending pedestrians on the sidewalk scurrying out his way, and once reaching the on ramp to the Clinton Expressway, he sped along the shoulder at ninety miles an hour.
Richard counted at least two instances of Metropolis’ Finest shouting after them, but Jack never slowed down. For a time, Richard had seriously doubted their survival. However, the frightening trip had delivered him to his front door in an unbelievable twelve minutes. It had only taken an additional two minutes to collect his Beretta pistol from the closet safe and ferry the plane out into the river for takeoff. Once in the air, he’d immediately contacted the Coast Guard, but received only a vague promise from the skeptical radio operator that they’d send a search party ‘as soon as possible.’ Richard’s protests had produced an equally vague explanation that they had received numerous calls since the EMP.
Perry had better news when Richard called him to report in, and he was relieved to learn that the kids were safe and that his uncle had gotten through to Lois’ father. However, the message Lois had sent with the kids was horrifying, and Richard prayed that Superman would be able to stop the sociopath. If he failed, his family’s rescue would be for naught.
Richard noticed he was getting close to the target area, though the coordinate resolution still left a large search area. He dove to a low altitude of one thousand feet, and banked his plane in a wide turn to the left, leaving the side window facing the ocean and he scanned the surface for a large yacht. Finally, after ten minutes of searching, he found a likely match, and lowered his altitude for a closer look. He scrutinized the stern of the ship through a pair of binoculars, and made out a blurry “Alexander.”
That’s got to be it, Richard thought.
He again circled the ship, and came in for a landing in the rough seas directly behind it, shutting off the engines and coasting to a stop approximately five hundred yards behind the yacht. He again focused the binoculars on the stern, and confirmed the name: “Alexander the Great.”
Richard pulled the satellite phone from his seat’s side pouch and dialed his uncle. Perry answered on the second ring. “Richard?” Perry answered.
“I found the ship,” Richard reported. “Any news from Lois’ dad?”
“I tried calling a little while ago, and ‘the general is unavailable’,” Perry informed him. “When I pressed the operator for information on their rescue plan, I was told that he couldn’t comment on ongoing military operations.”
“You would have thought that Sam would try a little harder to get someone out here for his daughter,” Richard complained.
“Richard, for all we know he
has, and
that’s the military operation Sergeant Dumbass was referring to,” Perry countered.
“We don’t know that, Uncle Perry,” Richard argued.
“Richard, remember what we talked about earlier,” Perry said insistently. “Don’t get yourself killed. Just sit tight and wait for the cavalry.”
Richard sighed irritably and said, “That’s what I
am doing.”
“Make sure you keep on doing that,” Perry replied. “Richard, they have the coordinates. I’m sure they’ll be there soon.”
“The
coordinates! I almost forgot,” Richard said urgently. “Hold on, I can get you something a little more precise that what Lois gave us.” He quickly turned the plane’s navigational instruments back on.
“What was wrong with those coordinates? They were good enough for you to find the ship.”
“The resolution was only down to the nearest minute, and when you account for rounding, that can still mean a search area of several square miles,” Richard explained. “Including the seconds drastically narrows that down… Have you got a pen?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“It’s 38°56'02" North by 73°35'14" West,” Richard declared.
“Got it. I’ll call it in to the Pentagon,” Perry declared. “You sit tight and
wait for them.”
“I know, you’ve made your point,” Richard complained. “Repeatedly.”
“Good. I’ll call you back when I hear something.”
After ending the call, Richard continued to scan Luthor’s ship through his binoculars. However, after a few minutes, his attention was interrupted by several loud sonic booms, followed by the roar of jet engines. He opened the side door of the plane, and peeked up under the wing in time to see a group of fighters circling overhead.
Oh, please God, tell me that they’re not going to try to sink the ship, Richard thought anxiously.
Not yet. Not when Lois is still aboard. Richard ducked back inside the plane, reemerging a moment later and tying a rope around the wing strut. He then retreated back inside, leaving the door open as he climbed back into the pilot’s seat. He started the engine, and the plane sped forward towards the yacht. When the plane was fifty feet from the stern, Richard made an abrupt ninety degree turn and killed the engine, sending the plane coasting sideways towards the ship.
The starboard wing just missed colliding with the back of the vessel and passed harmlessly along the port side of the ship as Richard grabbed the rope and leapt out the door of the plane, landing awkwardly on one of the two permanent swim ladders off the rear deck. He climbed up onto the ship and tied the rope to the swim ladder. With the aircraft securely moored, Richard pulled out his pistol and quietly slipped inside the ship as he began the search for his fiancée.