Zephyr 14.15 (Coda)

There is no gravity in the chamber, yet there’s an undeniable sense of tipping that has me looking back in panic at the vast curvature of space beyond the destroyed wall of the main atrium. One quick glance confirms the other members of my erstwhile posse hanging tough, Raveness clutching onto some protruding cabinet and glaring at me with her face red with her own blood, knowing if the edge-of-destruction moment eased off even the slightest iota she would be back to trying to kill me regardless of the greater risks. I cannot for the life of you tell me why we still even have oxygen, but it barely rates a question amid the more immediate likelihood of death.

“Is he down?” Negator yells above the din which I realise is the noise of a space station dying, the metal restraints, every part of it succumbing to Earth’s gravity well.

We’re being sucked in. In other words, we’re falling. In other words: we’re screwed.

My mouth is dry. I can’t form a proper reply. “He’s out,” I manage to squeak.

“Nobody do anything foolish,” Tragedian says.

I only shake my head. Too late for that. My eyes pick over the wreckage to find the Punisher crouched, crapping himself in one corner, frightened eyes fortunately invisible behind the mask. I scan back around the room looking for helpful things as the screeching of nuts and bolts reach some kind of awful crescendo and then we are quieter, just falling, slowly rotating at the same time and catching the occasional view of the earth as we hurtle towards it.

“Holy shit, man,” Negator says. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here.”

“Centurion!” I bellow.

The hulking armoured shape stands in the middle of the chamber, back to us, some trickery of his engineering meaning his stance is stable where the rest of us hold on to the furniture for dear life. The old villain turns and looks imperiously at me, taps his spear and promptly vanishes.

Crescendo disappears with him.

“Shit,” I say.

“Z-Zephyr!” I hear the Punisher call. “What are we gonna do?”

I pick through my memories for anything helpful, then turn and grasp the Prime by his shirt-front, heaving him up and shaking him until his eyes open groggily.

“Where’s the thing? The Moonstone? Where is it?”

The Prime stares at me, supreme, uncaring. Defeated.

I growl and throw him down, pointing to him angrily.

“If you want someone to hurt, hurt this guy,” I tell Raveness.

She only looks back at me, surprisingly heavy lashes as she slow-blinks, predatory, something about the zero gravity, bosom heaving as she burns with nothing but the desire to find out what I taste like. Ignoring it somehow, I growl, leap across the room to where the Prime was lounging before we trashed this party, and I start checking the equipment drawers, all of which have funky zero-g accoutrements so they effectively have child-proof locks.

“Whatever you have planned, I would suggest you make haste,” Tragedian says.

I glance up. It’s getting hotter. Our spin cycle has mellowed out. Flames are trickling past the open side of the atrium looking onto black space, suggesting very strongly to me that the Earth is on the other side of the station and fast approaching, us entering the atmosphere now and friction, like any vessel on re-entry, starting to burn our errant space station, bits and pieces snapping off, ablaze, sparks trailing away. I curse, each hand like it has five thumbs as I start just randomly mashing the drawers until one pops open and there it is: a weird glossy black onyx stone not unlike a bowling ball, life within it, I don’t know how or why.

I lift the ball up. Ancient technology from a culture that never flourished to such heights in this parallel. And I have no frigging idea how to work it.

“Negator. Come here. Bring the kid.”

“Where’s the Centurion?” Negator replies.

I give him a good like-you’re-really-asking-me-this-right-now look and he catches himself, grabs Punisher and vaults across the room. Somewhat reluctantly I motion the same to Tragedian and Raveness.

“Huddle up,” I say. “This piece of shit is getting us out of here.”

The Prime looks at me. Truculent.

“It ends for you too if you can’t get us out of here,” I say.

More and more of the space station disintegrates around us. Negator like my best bud in the world getting in close, grabbing a good handful of the back of the Prime’s cape so he can’t leave us behind.

The Prime breaks. Nods. Begrudgingly puts his hand out onto the Orb and we all follow suit.

And vanish.

Zephyr 14.15 (Coda) is a post from: Zephyr - a webcomic in prose