Then the lightning ceased, and the bluish
orb seemed to sink into the metal of the gantry, as if it were being absorbed.
The gigantic rocket was starting to lift now, hovering a few dozen feet above the silo's strengthened
base, preparing for its leap into the atmosphere. In disbelief, Superman saw one of the gantry's huge
steel beams bending and twisting like a living thing. Suddenly, it recoiled and with incredible speed
bounced back to slam into the side of the rocket. Swiftly it drew back again for another blow.
Laserlike beams of heat sprang from Superman's eyes. As they struck the section of gantry, it began to
glow red, then white with fiery heat. Then there was a silent explosion as it disintegrated in huge
drops of molten metal.
But the blue light's destructive work wasn't finished yet. Even as the rocket started to rise, so
gradually it looked like it was moving in slow motion, the blue light reappeared. It dropped like a
stone toward the casings of the rocket's huge engines. As it fell, the roiling electrical energies inside
the ball of light grew fiercer, spinning faster and faster.
Superman flew headfirst toward it. He could see that the temperature in the silo beneath the rocket
was climbing, as if the globe was magnifying the engines' discharge. It was only seconds away from a
catastrophic explosion.
No! I won't allow it... I can't allow it!
Superman filled his lungs with the hot night air, then expelled it swiftly as a long, cool stream of
frozen superbreath. For almost a minute he hovered there, locked in a life-or-death struggle with the
orb, trying to cool down the massive amounts of heat that emanated from it.
I'm not going to beat it this way, he realized with a sinking heart. For every few degrees that his icy
breath managed to cool the silo, the globe merely heated it up again.
Kicking into forward flight, Superman swooped as fast as he could. At almost the speed of sound he
careened into the sphere of light, his hands grabbing for some kind of hold on it. Its surface was
smooth, almost plasticlike in its consistency. But beneath the exterior he could feel the power of
concentrated energy.
He carried it a hundred yards away from the silo in a fraction of a second. Then, as if becoming
conscious that its schemes were being thwarted, the light orb began to pulsate in his hands.
"Sorry, but I'm not going to see what else you have in store," Superman snarled.
With an abrupt movement he tossed the spinning, throbbing light ball high into the air. As it reached
the apex of its flight, Superman blasted his heat vision into it with as much power as he could muster.
The ball spun faster, striving to absorb the energy of his Kryptonian vision. But in vain. Its motion
ceased
totally, and the roiling energies in its core glowed incandescently. For an instant it flared intensely—
And then it was gone as suddenly as it had arrived.