OBS Chapter 4326 Body of Steel (31)
Chapter 4326 Body of Steel (31)
Chapter 4326 Body of Steel (Thirty-One)
The Kryptonian flagship was eerily quiet. A corpse lay in the center of the hall, a gaping, bloody hole in its chest. It died with its eyes wide open, its eyes wide open in disbelief.
When everyone recovered from their weakness, they all looked at Zod. Zod also collapsed to the ground, his face filled with disbelief, as if he had no idea what he had done.
The atmosphere started to get weird.
The first female adjutant to get up from the ground said, "Go back to the medical bay and get him into the cold storage."
No one moved.
A flicker of fear crossed the female adjutant's brow. Her gaze swept over her subordinates, all of whom remained expressionless.
Then one person got up, walked shakily to the corpse, and dragged it outside. The others also stood up and walked outside, and no one made a sound throughout the whole process.
“General,” the female adjutant said to Zod after everyone had left, “they…”
Zod used his hands to support himself as he stood up. His hands were clenched into fists, and his entire arm was trembling.
“Don’t be like that, Zod.” The female adjutant walked to his side, gently took his arm, and said, “This is not your fault.”
“I was blinded by anger.” Zod closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “I shouldn’t have been so hasty. I should have realized it sooner.”
“Humans are too cunning,” the female adjutant said. “No one expected that they would create such a powerful weapon in such a short time. It was just an accident.”
Zod slowly shook his head and said, "No, there are clues to all of this. If I hadn't acted impulsively back then, we wouldn't have been exiled. It's all my fault."
He closed his eyes again, his fist slowly clenching. When he opened his eyes again, the marks of time were much more pronounced on his face. The female adjutant quickly reassured him, "But that also saved us from extinction. As long as we put the engine down, we can transform Earth into our home, and there is still hope."
Zod remained silent. His adjutant sensed a growing unease and said, "You are our pillar of strength now, General. We cannot abandon you."
“I have no intention of giving up,” Zod said, pursing his lips, “but I can’t stay any longer. Go and prepare my equipment, and I’ll go to Earth myself.”
"What?! But..."
Zod held out a hand, stopping her from saying what she was about to say. He turned around, looked in the direction the group had left, and said, "I accidentally killed my own subordinate. Who will trust me now? Some of them have already gained superpowers. If I don't leave, it will probably be even more dangerous for them."
"Besides, my own plans have been riddled with flaws, and they won't obey my orders anymore. I might as well go down and find the Central Scripture myself. You stay here and keep an eye on the spaceship and the engine."
There was no point in saying more now. The female adjutant could only nod vigorously and say, "Don't worry, General. I'll go prepare your equipment."
Inside the medical bay, two soldiers emerged from the medical pod one after the other. One of them gave the other a wink, and the two went into the adjacent corridor.
"The general has gone mad; we can't stay here any longer. Otherwise..."
"I think so too. If he dies on the battlefield, I have nothing to say, but dying at the hands of his own people is utterly meaningless. Since being exiled, the general's temper has become increasingly volatile..."
"Do you regret it?"
The other person shook their head and said, "After all, this saved us from the extinction of Krypton, which can be considered a lifesaver. But I never agreed with any Earth terraforming plan in the first place. Are we just going to abandon our homeland like this?"
The soldier sighed and said, "I thought terraforming Earth would be easier than rebuilding Krypton, but now it seems we should have gone back to Krypton. Even if the planet disintegrated, we could have found another star. Why go so far?"
"The general is probably still after the Central Codex, after all, that thing is an important treasure for the Kryptonians to reproduce."
"Come on, I've already heard that biologist Al already has primitive breeding technology. What's the point of the Central Manual? Just give birth directly, isn't that enough?"
"How can we be sure what talents a child will have or what kind of job they should do? Society will be in chaos!"
"Do you really think this is the right thing to do? If you implant a general's gene into an embryo, it will be born a general; if you implant a farmer's gene into an embryo, it will be a farmer for life."
"What's wrong with it? Hasn't it always been like this?"
"Then how did Krypton end up?"
The younger soldier was speechless. Another soldier sighed and said, "Perhaps we shouldn't have opened that Pandora's box called genes back then. But it's too late to say anything now."
"What are you going to do?"
The other person opened their mouth and said, "Look, we look just like humans, right?"
"That's true. I was stunned when I first saw them."
"We can live on Earth too."
"what?!"
"As long as we don't say anything, who will know we're aliens? If we can get a set of human clothes, we can blend in with the crowd."
"But...but we can't wear human clothes. The atmosphere and stellar radiation might be toxic."
"But there's no future in staying on the ship. The general has gone mad, and that so-called Earth terraforming plan is nothing but a pipe dream. We've followed the general for so long, gone to jail with him, and come all this way here; we've already done enough for him. Why can't we think about ourselves?"
"You mean, let's take a gamble?"
"That's right. Since Earthlings look so much like us, their planetary environments are probably similar. It shouldn't be that breathing a few breaths of air or sunbathing for a few days would poison us, right?"
The soldier looked conflicted. He thought for a moment and said, "Well, I'm just worried that I won't get along with those humans."
"They're no different from us. It's better than sharing a room with some monster with hooves or tentacles, right?"
The young soldier took a deep breath and said, "You're right. I don't want to die without knowing why. We've already done enough. So, tell me, how do we get there?"
“The general didn’t take my ID card, so I can start the small escort ship. Let’s take this ship to Earth and then let it return automatically.”
"And the rest of the people..."
"Don't tell them," the older soldier cautioned. "Some of them are very loyal to Zod, especially his adjutant. If they find out, we won't be able to escape. Besides, if they want to run away, they can just fly their own spaceship."
The young soldier nodded and turned to pack his things.
About half an hour later, a small spaceship landed in the New Mexico desert. Two figures stealthily emerged from the spaceship. As soon as they stepped out, they both gasped in surprise.
It was incredibly hot here. Even though it was winter, the New Mexico desert was still scorching hot. The two of them felt like they were melting as soon as they landed.
“I told you we should wear protective suits,” the young soldier said. “This earth is just too hot.”
"Never mind that for now. When the spaceship landed, I saw some people over there, let's go take a look."
The two patiently continued walking, and apart from the heat, they didn't feel uncomfortable at all; in fact, they felt more and more energetic as they walked. They could only attribute this to the fact that Earth's gravity wasn't as strong and the oxygen content in the air was higher, making it more suitable for vigorous exercise.
They walked up to the house, and before they could say anything, they saw the dark muzzle of a gun. The two recognized it; Zod had just used one of these to kill one of their comrades.
"Don't shoot, we're lost!" He paused for a moment after saying this. He had forgotten that he didn't speak any Earth languages, only Kryptonian. And because he wasn't wearing armor, he didn't even have a translation system.
The two men were terrified, thinking they were about to be exposed. Unexpectedly, the two soldiers with guns seemed unfazed, waving their guns and signaling them to move in one direction.
The two had no choice but to follow his directions. As soon as they arrived, they found quite a few other people there, all seemingly human, but with varying skin tones. Most were darker-skinned, but a few, like them, were white.
Armed guards stood at the door, letting them in one by one. The two men were pushed and shoved into the house. They expected there to be weapons or something inside, but instead, someone gestured at them for a while and then made them put their fingerprints on a form.
Just as they were about to leave, the older soldier noticed the man sitting at the table make a gesture to the other. After the two left, he said to the other soldier, "This looks like some kind of checkpoint."
"A checkpoint? So these people are being detained?"
"That should be about right. They'll probably take us somewhere."
"What should we do then? Should we try to escape?"
"What's the point of running around? It's all the same no matter where we send them. At worst, we'll just be doing hard labor. We're from out of town, we can't ask for too much. Let's find a place to stay first."
The young soldier nodded.
Sure enough, a bus arrived a while later and quickly took them to an even more crowded place. Judging from the outer barbed wire fence, it looked like a prison.
Everyone was brought here. They were chattering away, and the two men couldn't understand a word at first. But gradually they started to remember some words, and in less than half a day, they could understand some short sentences. So they tried to communicate with the locals.
“Ah, don’t be nervous. This is an immigration prison. We’ll be released when it’s full. But you’d better be smart and not say you’re from Mexico, or you’ll be deported. Since you’re white, just say you’re from Europe or South Africa, and they won’t be able to do anything about it,” said a dark-skinned human who had been in the prison before.
The two only half understood what was being said, but they did manage to memorize the word "South Africa." Sure enough, another group of people arrived in the afternoon, and the prison was already overflowing. At this point, they started letting people out. Everyone crowded towards the gate.
Seeing their chance, the two men squeezed their way in. These two were, after all, well-trained soldiers; who could possibly outpace them? Before long, they were almost at the gate. The guard at the gate, seeing they were white, asked, "Where are you two from?"
They understood what he meant, so they quickly replied, "South Africa."
The guard sized them up and noticed that they were tall and muscular, and didn't look like poor people, so he said, "You've come to escape your debts, haven't you? Go on, and hopefully you'll survive the winter."
So the two were released and taken by another vehicle to a more bustling area. Everything here was new and exciting to the aliens. Using the alphabetic spelling rules they had just learned, they read out the words on the sign—"Ding Pangzi Square".
(End of this chapter)