Thanks so much for your comments, everyone.
Mona and Jenni, I went back and added a word or two to my version to indicate that he does indeed have a beard.
Hi Terry. Thanks for your very insightful comments. I think that you'll be pleased to see more of Ultrawoman in future parts. The LOTR parallel with the ring is hard to avoid, but I don't think it'll end up being the weapon of the evil lord Sauron.
Maria, thanks for the comments, as always. The reference to 'the other man' was just a way to avoid repeating 'Clark' and 'Kal El' in that passage. There was no additional person. As for the number of people in the rescue, my thinking is that there is so much ground to cover and so many leads to look into, that the forces probably break up into very small groups to search and then if they find something, call for more help. In this case, there wasn't time to call for additional soldiers before getting Clark out. That's why only two went in after him.
Thanks for your comments, Carol. I have been hoping throughout this to capture the idea that wars, even just ones, are awful things. They put good people in terrible situations. I'm very glad taht that is coming across and that the secondary characters are coming off as sympathetic and interesting.
I will be posting more soon everyone. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment!