Enemies & Allies Read Online Free Page B

Clark said.
    “This is a newspaper, Kent. Go find out what it is.”
    “It’s an SOS call!” snapped Steve Lombard, a reporter who primarily covered sports. “A passenger boat sinking forty miles off the coast, one hundred twenty-three passengers and crew.” He looked up from the shortwave set. “It’s the Star City Queen. One of the engines exploded, blew out the lower hull, and she’s going down fast. They’ve called for the Coast Guard, but they’re still miles away.”
    Clark gave the matter his full attention as he backed out of the editor’s office. Perry pushed past him, no longer interested in the Bruce Wayne article. Lois was in the middle of the excitement. Her face showed clear concern as well as frustration. “It’ll take rescue ships more than an hour to get out that far.”
    “Gosh, by that time the ship will be sunk!” Jimmy said.
    “Better hope they stocked up on lifeboats,” Lombard cracked, as if the situation were a joke.
    Lois grabbed her purse and her notepad. “Jimmy, follow me down to the docks. Maybe we can get aboard a Coast Guard ship before they head out.”
    The young photographer had already snatched up his camera. “Sounds like they’ve already been dispatched, Miss Lane.”
    “Then we’ll wait for them to come back, gather some information in the meantime, do man-on-the-street interviews. Let’s hope this doesn’t turn out like the Hindenburg or the Titanic. ” In a flurry she was gone.
    Clark knew what he had to do. He made an excuse to a distracted Perry, mumbling something about checking his sources on the Wayne profile; then he ducked down the hall. Not a moment to lose—the people aboard the doomed Star City Queen must have been terrified, knowing that even the swiftest Coast Guard rescue would be a long time coming.
    It was easy to find a secluded closet, where he stopped being Clark Kent and became someone else entirely.

THE STAR CITY QUEEN
     
    D RESSED IN RED AND BLUE, HIS CAPE STREAMING BEHIND him, Kal-El shot out of a window on the opposite side of the building. Right fist extended, he soared into the sky, circled the rooftop’s golden sphere with the orbiting words “Daily Planet,” then raced toward Metropolis harbor.
    Every second counted. No time to enjoy the euphoria of flying, the freedom of not having to hide his secret identity. Martha and Jonathan Kent had raised their adopted son to be much more than a passive observer. Seeing a problem, Kal-El had to do something about it. It was the core of who he was.
    Leaving Metropolis and the shoreline behind, he headed out over the ocean. He streaked past the diligently chugging Coast Guard boats that churned a white wake behind them. Lois had wanted so badly to get aboard one of them to be an eyewitness reporter with the rescue operations; he realized he could have deposited her on the deck right before the surprised faces of the Coast Guard sailors. But he didn’t want to put Lois in the middle of a dangerous situation. She had a bad habit of doing that all by herself.
    Kal-El had to think of the desperate passengers first, all those people who needed him. More than forty miles from port, the Star City Queen was all alone.
    Except for him.
    With an odd combination of super-hearing and enhanced vision, he was able to push his senses from the short-wavelength band of the X-ray spectrum out to intense infrared, and from there to the very-long-wavelength radiofrequency range, where he picked up the urgent SOS transmission bleating from the Star City Queen. He could even hear—ever so faintly above the wind and the stirring waves—the cries of terror from the passengers and crew.
    He tightened his fist and flew faster, slicing through the salty air and across the open expanse of deep water until he found the curling plume of smoke from the burning engines. Below, in the middle of blue-green emptiness, he spotted the wallowing Star City Queen.
    The large boat canted at an unusual angle, its lower decks