After Nightfall: The Return of Superman
Chapter 3 – Swarm
“What do you think this is about?” Lois asked as she leaned in close to her husband. They had been in the process of getting out the door this morning when they’d gotten a call from the Planet. EPRAD had called an early morning news conference and Perry wanted the two of them to cover it.
“I don’t know,” Clark replied. “I’ve been trying to listen for people talking, but the only voices I can pick up are from the reporters around us. By the way, none of them know what this is about either. If there’s anyone here who knows what's going on, they aren't talking about it.”
“Can you see who’s inside the building?” Lois asked.
“I hadn’t thought to look,” Clark answered. “Give me a second.”
She saw Clark pull his glasses down and stare intently in the direction of the building. After a moment, he lifted his glasses back into place. “There are a lot of military people in there. Is that normal for EPRAD?”
“No,” she said flatly. “The only times that’s happened before have been for military launches and… Nightfall.”
“Military launches?” Clark replied in a puzzled voice. “I didn’t think EPRAD had launch capability for any kind of satellite.”
“It doesn't,” she replied. “That’s what has me worried. But I have no idea what else this could be about. I can’t believe that there could be another Nightfall-like asteroid. Last time they said that it was a once-in-a-million years type of event.”
“I remember reading that in the Nightfall coverage,” Clark said. “So why do you think we’re here?”
“I don’t know. But it can’t be good.”
At that moment, a door opened and a group of men came out of the building. There were four in all. Two of them wore military uniforms and the other two were in business suits. As soon as she saw the men in the suits, the word 'scientists' popped into her head. They all headed directly to the podium. “I don’t recognize any of them,” Lois told Clark. “I think the ones in suits are scientists.”
“Why do you say that,” Clark asked.
“I don’t know. Something about the way they dress… or maybe the way they move. I may be wrong, but as soon as I saw them, that's what came to mind.”
The men climbed the few steps to the podium and went to the cluster of microphones. The military officer with the general’s stars stepped up to address the crowd. “Thank you for coming,” he opened. “I’m General Isaacson. The scientists at EPRAD have discovered a cloud of asteroids heading for the Earth. They're approaching from the direction of the Sun, and will be here in approximately two days. Since we have no intercept option, we will be working in conjunction with EPRAD scientists to determine the places most in danger and will be evacuating those towns and cities. We will all take questions at the end of this briefing, but for now I’ll turn you over to Dr. Aames who will handle the scientific briefing. Dr. Aames.”
The general stepped aside as Dr. Aames approached the microphone cluster. “Now I remember him,” Lois said. “I should have recognized him immediately. He’s head of the EPRAD Anderson Center. He was the main guy that handled most of the Nightfall briefings.”
Before Clark could respond, Dr. Aames began to speak. “Good morning. Approximately twelve hours ago, we picked up something unusual in the direction of the Sun during a normal sweep of our near-Earth space radar. Our instruments detected what appeared to be some sort of cloud moving at high speed on a course that will intercept the Earth. Since that time, we have been studying it with both optical and electronic sensors. The cloud consists of many thousands of – for lack of a better term – rocks. The largest are up to several hundred meters across and the smallest are too small for our instruments to measure. They are traveling in a group at a velocity of approximately one hundred kilometers per second. Due to the high velocity of these asteroids, those that penetrate the atmosphere will do an enormous amount of damage. We are still developing data, but we already know that there are at least forty-seven of these bodies between one hundred and three hundred meters in diameter. There are many – possibly thousands – smaller than that, but the majority of those will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere and pose no threat.”
Lois felt Clark's hand as he reached for hers. She glanced in his direction, but his attention was all on the announcement. He had a look of determination, but the way he held her hand told her something else. It was as if she could hear his thoughts. There was no doubt in her mind that her husband was thinking, 'here we go again.' She composed herself, gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, and turned her attention back to the front just as Dr. Aames finished.
Dr. Aames looked over at the general and stepped back. Then the general stepped up to the microphone. “We will be issuing a press release with all of the information that we have available. I will take questions now.”
At first, the shouting left no room for a reply but within seconds the questions became clear.
“Is this related to Nightfall?”
The general nodded to Dr. Aames. “Yes,” Dr. Aames said as he stepped forward. “We have analyzed the speed and trajectory of the cloud and determined that it is part of what remains of Nightfall. When Superman shattered that large asteroid, some of the debris was driven toward the sun. To our great misfortune, this group of rocks narrowly missed the sun and instead followed a sun-skimming orbit, which has sent them back in our direction. Unfortunately, the Earth is in exactly the wrong place.”
“What damage will the impacts cause?”
Dr. Aames took this one. “The largest bodies, those over a hundred meters in diameter, will have the destructive power of exceptionally large atomic bombs. Because of the high velocity that these objects are traveling, each asteroid is far more destructive that an equivalent chunk of the original Nightfall asteroid.”
“Why are they going so fast?”
“They were accelerated by the energy of the collision of the intercept ship that Superman drove into Nightfall. Remember, the original Nightfall impact took place at a velocity of nearly a thousand miles a second. This group was thrown from that collision with a large portion of that energy. As I said a moment ago, these happened to have followed a sun-skimming orbit and they're now heading back with all of their original, post-impact velocity.”
“What is the government doing about this?”
General Isaacson stepped up to the microphones. “We're working to update the shelters that survived Nightfall and those lists will be available starting in a few hours. We're also working to plot the impact points of the largest of the asteroids. Even though the time is short, we will be recommending that everyone at those locations try to get at least twenty-five miles away. As Dr. Aames said, the impacts will have the energy of atomic bombs. There won’t be any radiation, but the explosive concussion will be immense.”
“But what are you doing to stop them?”
The general’s expression turned cold. “Nothing. We simply don’t have anything to use against something like this. Even if we had the launch capability that existed before Nightfall, there would still be nothing we could do. If we had rockets to shoot at the cloud, the thousands of small rocks would prevent us from reaching the largest asteroids.” He took a deep breath of resignation. “They are going to hit the Earth and there just isn’t anything we can do to prevent it.”
Just as he finished his statement, a door opened and several men came out of the building carrying a few stacks of paper. “These are copies of the announcement with the information we have as of an hour ago. The only information missing are the projected impact points for the large asteroid segments. That information will be released as soon as we have accurate information. We expect that to be approximately twelve hours from now.”
Lois hurried over to the stack of information sheets and retrieved copies for her and Clark. She returned to find Clark grim-faced. When she offered him a copy of the data, he didn’t take it. “I have to do something,” he said, determination clear in his voice.
“I know,” she replied, fighting to maintain her composure for what was sure to come. “We can’t talk here. Let’s go.”
~~~***~~~
Bernie Klein wondered what Lois Lane could want to talk to him about. He hadn’t heard from her since they had closed the books on Nightfall several months ago. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she had contacted him only hours after the existence of the Nightfall asteroid group had been revealed to the public.
Despite the fact that he had plenty of connections with EPRAD, he’d been as surprised as anyone at the announcement of the cluster of asteroids that was bearing down upon them. The media seemed to have already decided on a name. They were calling it the Swarm.
What could she want? He was an accomplished scientist, but except for the Nightfall mission, he had very little involvement in matters related to space exploration. His real specialty the past year had been Superman. Since Superman had died, Bernie had been looking for a new area of specialization. His best guess was that Lois wanted to ask if Superman would be able to make a difference if he was still alive.
At that moment there was a knock on his office door. “Come,” he said, loud enough to be heard through the closed door.
The door opened and the administrative assistant for his group came in. “Dr. Klein, Ms. Lane is here to see you.”
“Thanks, Judy. Please show her in.” The young redhead stepped back and Lois entered the room.
“Good afternoon, Lois,” he greeted her. “I hope you and Clark have been well.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “We have.”
“So what brings you here today? I have to believe this is somehow related to the asteroid cloud.”
“When we were doing our investigation into Nightfall, you once gave Clark and I a tour of STAR Labs. I remember seeing a storage area in the back of the building. It had a door that led to a fenced area.”
“I know the place you mean,” Bernie replied, slightly confused. “What about it?”
“We need to go there now. There’s something that you need to see in that room.”
“But Lois, I’ve seen the inventory of the boxes in that room. There isn’t anything interesting there.”
“Bernie, I assure you that there is. Please indulge me on this. It would be best if we didn’t waste any time.”
Bernie started to object, but he knew enough about Lois to realize that would be futile. “Okay,” he said in a resigned tone. “I can’t imagine what you think we'll find there.”
She stood, obviously impatient to get started. “Trust me. I'm sure that you will agree that it was worth the trouble.”
The trip to the room only took a minute or two. The door was locked but Bernie had the key and in only a moment, they were inside. Once they were in the room Lois walked deliberately around the room looking at the walls and ceiling. Then she went back to the door they had used to enter and locked it. “Lois, what’s going on?” Bernie asked, suddenly nervous.
She didn’t reply. Instead, she crossed the room and unlocked the door that led outside. She opened the door and looked quickly outside. “You know that we can’t leave that way,” Bernie said. “That’s a gated area with our large liquid nitrogen storage tank. There’s a gate, but it’s padlocked from the outside.”
Lois left the door ajar, stepped deliberately away from the door and turned back to him. “I don’t intend to leave.”
“Then wha…” Bernie started. Before he could finish he heard a whooshing sound. Standing in front of him was a dead man. “Superman?” he sputtered.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Klein. I apologize for the cloak-and-dagger nature of this meeting. I needed to talk with someone that would be in a position to help me, but I wanted it to be kept as secret as possible.”
“Help you?” Bernie asked. “I don’t understand. And where have you been? How are you alive?”
“Much of that will have to wait. Briefly, I was severely injured during the Nightfall mission. I made it back to Earth, but my powers were gone and I had the same kind of amnesia as Ms. Lane’s husband. Until very recently, I had no idea that I was Superman. I was just another displaced and injured person trying to survive after Nightfall. My abilities returned only a short time ago. I was considering how to return to helping people when I heard to the news of the Swarm. I want to help if I can.”
Bernie was struggling to absorb all this. “Why… why me? And Lois, what’s your part in this?”
“Superman contacted us – Clark and I – about a week ago. He had seen our stories about Nightfall and recognized the similarity between the amnesia that he’d experienced and what Clark went through.”
“You see,” Superman added, “my memory is completely gone. I have no recollection of any of my activities as Superman. I needed someone to talk to that knew me as Superman. The fact that Lois and Clark had also been through the amnesia made them the perfect choice.”
“So you don’t remember meeting me?” Bernie asked.
“No. I know through Lois and her stories that I met you just before the Nightfall mission, but I have no recollection of it.”
“So why me?”
“Because you have connections to EPRAD and, according to Ms. Lane, you have access to the Nightfall mission technology. If I’m to have any chance to do anything about the Swarm, I will need both of those.”
“Why didn’t you go directly to EPRAD?”
“Because I don’t know if this will succeed,” Superman said. “And, after what happened with Nightfall, I want as few people as possible involved. Based on what I’ve seen of the Swarm, if I can reach it, there should be something that I can do. Lois has told me that you have duplicates of the Nightfall mission pack. Can you outfit me for a mission?”
“Yes. All of the remaining Nightfall mission equipment is in this building. I even have the communication link ground station.”
“What else will I need for a mission to deal with the Swarm?”
Bernie thought for a moment. “I need to get the equipment set up. Then I need a live link to the EPRAD communication system. How many people can I bring in on this?”
“None,” Superman said abruptly. “At least, none if we can avoid it.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Bernie countered. “Setting up the equipment alone will take several people most of a day.”
“What if you have one person who is both super strong and super-fast?”
“Oh… I guess I won’t need as much help as I thought.”
“Good, when can we get started?”
Bernie thought a moment. “You said that you want this to be as private as possible, so I’ll need to reserve one of the sealed labs and have the equipment moved there. I also need to set up a link to EPRAD so that I can tap into the telemetry that they are using to track the Swarm. Can you come back in early this evening?”
“Can we afford to wait that long?” Lois asked. “The Swarm is moving awfully fast.”
“Yes. The soonest you should start will be early tomorrow morning. I want all of our tracking stations to be in line with the Swarm while you are out there working. We can spend the early evening setting up. That will give you overnight to rest or do whatever you need to get ready. Tomorrow morning the Swarm will still be roughly twenty-four hours out. Based on what you did during Nightfall, it will take–” Bernie pulled out a calculator and ran the numbers. “–approximately ninety minutes for you to reach the Swarm. The survival pack can sustain you for five hours. That will give you two hours dealing with the swarm. That should be plenty of time to deal with all of the largest fragments and many of the smaller ones.”
~~~***~~~
“Check the connections in the back of that third panel,” Bernie told his assistant. He never imagined that Superman would be helping him set up equipment. Then again, he never imagined that he’d be called in to be the sole provider for technical support for a mission to save millions of people. And after what happened during Nightfall, he never imagined that he would be seeing, much less working with, Superman.
“Try it now,” Superman called from behind the panel.
Bernie checked the equipment again. “That did it,” he said. It had only taken a few minutes to realize that when working with Superman there was no need to shout. Superman could hear every word no matter how softly he said it.
Bernie adjusted the image on the screen in front of him. It looked harmless enough. A series of points that looked all too much like a simple star field. “What are we seeing?” Superman asked from behind him. “Which of those points are asteroids and which are stars?” he asked.
“This is radar, not an optical image, so everything you see is part of the asteroid field.”
“Oh,” Superman replied. “Do you think you will be able to use this information to guide me?”
“Absolutely,” Bernie replied. “Watch this.” He adjusted the directional filter and most of the points except for the ones in the center of the image disappeared. “What I just did was to filter out those bodies that are not on a collision course with Earth. There is no reason to waste your time with ones that will miss us.”
“Good,” Superman said. “Can you tell me which are most dangerous?”
Bernie made another adjustment. The image seemed to zoom in so that the points filled the screen again. Then he made another adjustment and the lights started going out. He continued until only three lights were left. “Those are the three largest asteroids. They are all approximately 300 meters in diameter.”
“And I don’t need to try to destroy them?” Superman asked.
“Correct. All you need to do is push them sideways to change their direction. Based on the abilities you demonstrated before Nightfall, you should just give each one a good shove to the side and move on to the next one.”
“How can we be sure I pushed it hard enough?”
“I’ll be using the same directional filter that I am now. You will be working about thirty light-seconds out. Since the radar is being sent constantly, about thirty seconds after you achieve your deflection, that asteroid will disappear from my screen.”
“So should I wait for confirmation?”
“I don’t think so. We want to deflect as many as possible, so I don’t think you want to wait around. Remember that I will know thirty seconds after you achieve a deflection. But you won’t hear my confirmation for another thirty seconds after that. I don’t think we can afford to spend a minute on each rock you move.”
“But according to the information that I saw, there are only forty-seven large asteroids. That should leave plenty of time.”
“Those are only the largest ones,” Bernie replied. “We also need to take care of as many of the smaller ones as we can. We know that Nightfall was a very dense body so we have to assume that any individual fragment could be hard rock or possibly even iron. That means that in a worst-case scenario, anything larger than about ten meters across could reach the ground intact with devastating consequences.”
“Devastating?” Superman asked. “Do I need to stop more of the Swarm to protect all the people?”
Bernie struggled for a reply. “Are you asking how small you would have to go to make sure on one got hurt?”
“Yes. If I’m going to be up there, I want to prevent all of the ground impacts.”
“Superman, to do that you would have to divert everything down below a meter in diameter.”
“Then that’s what I need to do,” Superman replied. “That should be our mission goal.”
“I understand what you want to do, but that isn’t going to be possible. There are thousands of rocks in the Swarm. You simply don’t have time to divert them all. The best we can do is to divert as many as we can. That’s why it’s important to work as quickly as possible. I’ll re-adjust the sensor every few minutes to only pick up the largest of the ones still heading at us.”
Superman was quiet for several long minutes. “How long do I have?”
“The survival pack was designed to give you five hours of air. I wish I would have known this was going to happen. If we had more time, I could have modified the pack to use the section that Luthor added for the Kryptonite gas, to carry another hour of air. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible in the time we have.”
“What if I did two trips?”
Bernie considered that. “It might be possible,” he said. “You could certainly get a lot more. All we would need to do would be to swap in new air tanks and a fresh battery pack. Do you think that you're going to be strong enough to do a second trip? When we were preparing for the Nightfall mission, we never looked at your ability to do several trips.”
“If that’s what it takes, then I’ll have to be able to do it,” Superman replied grimly.
“Superman, please,” Bernie implored, “If you divert everything above the ten meter limit, then while there will probably still be damage and injuries, it won’t be a disaster. Think about the good you can do if you survive.”
After a long pause, Superman said, “All right. But just in case I have the strength, could you please make sure to have extra tanks and battery packs ready?”
“I will,” Bernie said.
“So what else do we need to cover tonight?” Superman asked.
This was the moment Bernie had been dreading. “There is one more thing,” he started nervously. “If we're going to be successful, I'm going to have to involve a few other people.”
Superman's face turned stern. “You know I don't want that.”
“I understand,” he said quickly. “But there are two problems. First, we need someone high-up in EPRAD to know that I have a mission going on.”
“Why?” Superman asked.
“Once you start deflecting the Swarm fragments, EPRAD and the military are going to want to know what's going on. Someone might decide to cut external data feeds to try to contain the information. We need someone high up at EPRAD who knows how important it is not to cut our feed.”
“I guess I understand. What can we do?” Superman asked.
“I know Dr. Aames at EPRAD. I would like your permission to tell him that I'm heading an experimental operation that might be able to mitigate the Swarm. All he needs to know is that it's critical that the STAR labs feed not be interrupted.”
“So you wouldn't tell him about me?”
“No. I believe I can extract a promise from Aames to remain silent and keep the STAR labs feed alive until it's all over. I believe that this is necessary for the success of the mission.”
Superman was quiet for a long moment. “Okay. I understand. Is that all?”
“Not quite,” he answered. “This other issue is less critical, but would help me.”
“What is it?” Superman asked.
“You mission will last many hours. If you do two missions, we will be at this for a very long day.”
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“Superman, you may have super powers, but I don't. I will... well, I'll need to use the rest room. And I worry about getting tired.”
“What do you suggest?”
“One of my colleagues here at the labs, Alyson Summers, could assist. She is a huge fan of yours, and I've already made sure that she will be in tomorrow.”
“You'll vouch for her?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then. But no one else.”
“Agreed.”
“Fine,” Superman said. “Is that it?”
“Yes, that's all. That door over there–” Bernie pointed at the door in the back of the room that Superman had used to enter, “–will be your entrance and exit point for this lab. The mission pack is ready to go now and we’ve tested the comm. link. The equipment here is all set. I’m going to head home and try to get some sleep. I suggest that you do whatever you need to do to prepare yourself. I assume you have a place to stay?”
“Yes. I have…” Superman cut himself off and looked suddenly cautious. “I have things to do before tomorrow morning.”
~~~***~~~
The apartment was quieter than Lois could remember. And the bed was cold. Lois didn’t remember the bed being so cold before. It hadn’t been that long since she’d slept alone, but just the same, it felt like forever. She really had changed a lot in the months she’d been with Clark. Lois had grown up convinced that she didn’t need a man in her life. Up until a few months ago, that decision had been easy. But whether she needed Clark or not – not a question she intended to pursue – she sure wanted him in her life… and in her bed.
Lois looked at the clock. It was after midnight and she’d been in bed trying to fall asleep for over an hour. It figured that tonight was the night that Clark’s parents had been scheduled to move in with the Whites. Martha had offered to stay, but the Whites were expecting them tonight. Since Clark was going to be at STAR Labs all evening, Lois had insisted that Martha and Jonathan go ahead with the plan for moving to the White’s.
There was a rushing of air and suddenly Clark was in the room in his Superman suit. It was nice to have him home. “Hi, honey. I missed you,” she said. He smiled back at her. She loved it when he looked at her like that. He didn’t need to say, ‘I love you.’ That look said it much louder than words. However, as much as she liked that smile, something was wrong. He looked worried. “Did everything go okay at STAR Labs?”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “It’s all set.”
“Clark, tell me what’s wrong.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. As soon as he sat down she reached for his hand. He looked at their clasped hands for a few seconds before he spoke. “Bernie says that no matter what I do, I can’t stop all of the rocks.”
“How hard could it be to push forty-seven rocks aside?” Lois asked.
“It’s not forty-seven. Those are only the large ones. Bernie told me that while they may not be city-destroyers, there are thousands – possibly many thousands – of asteroids that could reach the ground. Our plan is to start with the largest and keep working until I need to return because the survival pack runs out. Since every rock that reaches the ground is a potential killer, every one that I leave behind could kill a person. Or worse, any one of those could kill a family.”
“Is that what has you so upset?”
“Yes. I let people down last time, and now it feels like it’s going to happen again.”
“Clark, if not for what you might be able to do, we’d be looking at a major disaster. Have you seen the updated projections for the destructive force of those large asteroids?”
“No,” Clark replied.
“There was an article in the late edition. The biggest asteroid, the three hundred meter one, is projected to land in France. Based on the information I’ve seen, that one impact will kill millions and decimate a large part of that country.” She let that sink in for a moment. “So don’t tell me you’re letting anyone down. Maybe you can’t stop every rock, but the fact that you're here means that a few days from now millions of people will be alive who wouldn't otherwise.”
“But I have to start back with an hour and a half of air. In the time it will take for me to return I could divert hundreds of rocks.”
She felt a chill run through her. “Please don't tell me you're thinking about not coming back.”
“No, it's nothing like that. But I could fly more missions. Bernie told me that he has supplies that would allow us to re-outfit the survival pack for a second trip.”
“Okay,” Lois said, the relief clearly present in her voice. “But are you strong enough for two trips?”
“I don't know. I feel like I have to be. How can I decide that I'm too tired to make another trip when failing to do so will cost lives?”
They sat silently for several minutes. “Clark, you know that I'll never argue that even one life isn't important, but there are other issues here. A minute ago I talked about what might have happened if you weren't here for this... return of Nightfall. If you were to push too hard and not come back, who's going to be here to save us next time the world is threatened?”
“There probably won't be a next time,” Clark countered.
“If it was all about probability, then there wouldn't have been a first or second time either. But even without another world-threatening disaster, you still need to be here to help with everyday emergencies. From what you just said, it sounds like once you've taken care of all the larger asteroids, the others are threats to individuals or individual dwellings?”
“That's what Bernie said,” Clark verified.
“So if you take out a thousand of those, you have potentially saved what... at most a couple of hundred people? But if you're here and help clear a high-rise in a fire or rescue a ship in a storm, won't you save that many each time? And you can do that for many years to come. Don’t you see that it's not just for you and me? It's to everyone’s benefit that you make sure you survive the mission.”
He looked at her sheepishly. “I guess I'd better make sure I come back.”
“Yes. You better make sure.”
TBC
