Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(76)

The man crumpled to the ground and went quiet.

Clark then turned to Corey, who’d been watching the whole exchange.

But he was quiet now, too. So Clark left him alone and went to the other side of the chopper to sit by himself and wait.

When Bryan had been gone for nearly ten minutes, Clark started to get nervous. He wondered if his friend had betrayed him after all.

A few minutes later he heard the sound of synchronized footsteps over the hill. The troops were on the move.

Clark rushed over to the crest and watched dozens of soldiers moving in his direction. They were dressed entirely in brown, machine guns by their sides. They all stared straight ahead as they marched in perfect unison.

He froze.

How was he supposed to fight people he couldn’t bear to harm?

Clark crouched, locating Structure A.

It was positioned directly between him and the troops, but there was no sign of Bryan anywhere. His stomach sank. He really had been betrayed.

Instead of waiting there like a sitting duck, Clark decided to plunge right into the fray and try to retrieve the antidote himself. Maybe it was a suicide mission, but he had to do something. He had to act.

He took a deep breath, then sprinted down the hill several yards before taking flight. As he soared into the air, he heard Montgomery shout orders through a megaphone, and he watched the first row of soldiers raise their guns at him and begin firing. To his horror, Clark realized that one of them was Cruz. He was as tall as the soldiers around him, but far scrawnier, his uniform draping off his skinny frame. Clark’s whole body went numb as he watched Cruz discharge his weapon without remorse.

Heartbroken, Clark retreated higher into the sky to rethink his strategy.

And from this new perspective, he realized something.

He had assumed that Montgomery had ordered the soldiers to shoot at him, but now he saw that he was mistaken. Because here was Bryan, speeding up the hill in a jeep under a barrage of gunfire.

Montgomery had ordered them to shoot at Bryan.

His own son.

Clark swooped back down just as Bryan’s jeep skidded to a stop beyond the crest of the hill. There was shouting below, and more shooting, as the line of fighters in their brown uniforms continued to advance.

Bryan threw open his door and called to Clark, “What now?”

“The helicopter!” Clark grabbed a large plastic jug out of the back of the jeep and hurried toward the chopper. He set the jug inside the cab. “What happened?”

“My dad saw me going for Structure A!” Bryan shouted. “And he knew!” He hopped into the cockpit, trying to catch his breath, and turned the key. The engine roared back to life, and the blades above them began to turn.

Clark spotted blood trickling down Bryan’s forearm. “You’re hit!”

Bryan shook his head. “It barely grazed me. Come on!”

Clark hoisted the jug onto his lap. It had to contain at least three gallons of the liquid antidote. He peered through the back window and saw that the soldiers were now coming up over the crest, weapons drawn. “Can you fly over the top of them?”

Bryan quickly lifted the helicopter into the air, spun it around, and started moving forward, directly toward the soldiers in brown, who all raised their weapons at once and began to fire.

An onslaught of bullets peppered the bottom of the helicopter as Bryan made a pass over their heads. Shots pinged against the metal floor and the siding and punched into the belly. Several holes appeared beneath Clark’s feet as he unscrewed the plastic lid and attempted to pour a small portion of the sloshing antidote onto the men below. But he stopped immediately when the wind caught the liquid, carrying it into the side of the helicopter.

This wasn’t going to work.

Bryan adjusted the controls, and the helicopter lurched higher.

“Bring it down again!” Clark yelled over the hum of the whipping blades. “I’m going to try going underneath!”

As Bryan looped around, preparing for a second pass, Clark watched his friend’s fingers move gracefully over the control panel. A look of calmness had settled on his face. This was where Bryan belonged. This was where he was at home.

Clark climbed beneath the helicopter with the antidote. He clung to the lone remaining landing skid, preparing himself to splash it over the soldiers’ heads.

As they approached the men again, this time at a lower altitude, Clark saw several police cars pulling into the field in the distance. And he saw some of the men in business suits fleeing in large black SUVs. At the very least, he’d led the cops to the scene of the crime. But what if Montgomery turned his soldiers on the cops? They’d fire back. They wouldn’t know any better. And how many innocent people would get hurt?

This had to work.

The soldiers were now kneeling on the crest of the hill, leveling their weapons at the quickly approaching chopper, eyes trained on their target.

Bryan flew right over their heads this time.

Directly into the line of fire.

Bullets seared into Clark’s back as he attempted to dump more of the antidote onto the brainwashed men. He saw the spray rain down on one of the men, who dropped his weapon immediately and sat on the grass. Then another man let go of his weapon. But the yellow liquid came out haphazardly. It touched only four of the men, and one continued to discharge his weapon. The other three soldiers had gone to the ground, clearly confused, while the soldiers around them fired at Clark and the battered helicopter.