by Matt Cowper
“What about the safeguards?” Gillespie said, staring at the massive control panel in front of them. “They've been disabled, but––”
“It's too late for that,” Nightstriker said. “Whoever did this was thorough. They've destroyed the core's shielding and put a lock on the system. I could out-hack this hacking, but that would take precious minutes.”
“OK, then whadda we do?” Buckshot said. “Get Slab to toss it into space?”
“If we had time, that would be viable,” Nightstriker said. “But to do that, Slab would have to carry it outside, and then throw it. He wouldn't get halfway there before the core erupted.”
“I can blast a path through the Beacon,” Sam said. “Then Slab would have a hole to toss it through.”
“Again, there's no time,” Nightstriker said. “The Beacon is too well-designed; it would take you a long while to burn a path.”
“Then what the hell do we do?!” Metal Gal said. “I've been working on a core myself, but this––”
“––is far more powerful than your Zeta Core,” Nightstriker said. “But you're right: you are well-qualified on energy generation and storage. As is Blaze.”
Sam blinked, and he felt his Fire Shield dim a bit. “Me?”
“Yes,” Nightstriker said. “You've been using your powers to fill Metal Gal's Zeta Core––”
“Yeah, fill the core!” Sam said. “But shooting fire into this thing would only make things worse!”
“I don't want you to shoot more energy into it,” Nightstriker said. “I want you to absorb its energy.”
Sam's jaw dropped. “Absorb? But––”
“You think you're just someone with flame powers,” Nightstriker said. “But I've studied you, trained with you. Watched you work on the Zeta Core with Metal Gal. There's more to your powers than you believe. You can do this, Sam.”
“Nightstriker, are you crazy?!” Metal Gal shouted, her eyes flashing a dangerous red, and part of her arm reverting to a silvery sheen in her dismay. “The Beacon's core has more concentrated energy than––”
“I know how much energy the core contains,” Nightstriker snapped.
“Warning: core meltdown in progress,” the computerized voice interrupted.
Energy began to slough off the core, in a manner that reminded Sam of someone cracking an egg and pouring out the yolk. The heat levels rose tremendously; though no heat source adversely affected Sam, he could sense the temperature, and his flesh-and-blood companions were drenched in sweat.
Nightstriker hurried over to Sam and looked him in the eyes. Sam tried to look away, but the legendary hero's gaze was too fierce.
“You can do this, Sam,” Nightstriker said. “It will be difficult. It will hurt. But you can do it.”
“I––”
“It's now or never,” Nightstriker said. “Concentrate as hard as you've ever concentrated. Manipulate the energy. Think of it as just another version of fire.”
A beam of yellow energy lanced off the core, heading straight towards Buckshot and Gillespie.
“Look out!” Metal Gal shouted.
They both twisted around, noticed the deadly energy, and prepared to jump out of the way.
But just before they leaped, a giant stone crashed down in front of them. The energy slammed into it, and a sizzling and cracking sound assaulted everyone's ears, along with a grunt that sounded vaguely human.
Slab had put himself between them and the beam, using his nigh-impenetrable hide to block the destructive energy.
But nigh-impenetrable wasn't totally impenetrable. As they gathered around the humongous rock-man, they saw his chest was singed, some rocky parts glowing like charcoal embers.
“Slab!” Buckshot shouted. “You OK, big guy?”
“That...hurt,” Slab replied. “If one little bit of energy can do that to me....”
More and more energy sloughed off the core. The Elites danced around it, but the room and control panel were rapidly being destroyed, and an ear-splitting wailing now filled the air.
Sam glanced over at Nightstriker. The man nodded back, like a general who'd just given an order to a subordinate and expected it to be carried out.
Again, Sam grinned. There was no one better in a crisis than Nightstriker.
He jacked his Fire Shield up to max level, feeling the fire within his very cells. It probably wouldn't do much good, but it made him feel like he had some measure of protection.
He floated up towards the core, its energy pressing against him like a hurricane-force wind. Behind him, Metal Gal was screaming, but he ignored her. He knew she was furious and afraid, but he couldn't get distracted now.
Absorb energy? He could create and manipulate fire, but absorbing? How....?
But then, he could “turn off” his fire powers at will. That was a form of absorption, wasn't it? The fire he generated had to go somewhere.
He concentrated on the energy that was now all around him. It was massive, implacable, deadly.
But could he....? Yes! A tiny fraction of the energy seemed to suck into him. He felt it within, flashing through his body like some drug.
He absorbed a bit more...then a bit more...yes, he was doing it!
He felt immensely strong, like he could do anything....
Then it felt like every atom of his body was ripping apart.
He'd reached his limit already?!
No! He wouldn't quit!
He thought of Metal Gal, the love of his life. Of holding her body. Of her shifting into various forms to pleasure him. Of their constant laughter and teasing.
Of his teammates, so varied in personality and power set, but all committed to doing the right thing.
He thought of Nightstriker. Relentless. Unstoppable.
Yes, also immensely flawed...
...but still a true hero.
It was this image that he seized on as the core's energy tore through him.
A scream burst from Sam's mouth. Pain...so much pain....
His vision warped. He saw wavelengths. Tiny dots like distant stars. Strange, bright shapes.
His memories seemed to burn away like scraps of paper tossed in a fireplace.
Nightstriker...
...who was he?
And Metal Gal...
...who was she?
“Blaze!” someone yelled.
Talking. Tired of talking. The energy didn't talk. The energy...was just there.
“Blaze! You've done it! You've saved everyone!”
Female...voice?
“You need to release the energy now!”
Male...voice? Something within the voice...a command he couldn't ignore.
“I know you can hear me, Blaze! You need to get off the Beacon, and shoot all the energy you've absorbed into space! If you don't, you'll erupt just like the core!”
Blaze tried to focus on the voices, but all he saw were squiggly lines and bright splashes of color.
No. Some of the squiggly lines looked like a...man? Those lines didn't jump around like the other lines, and they were pitch black instead of every color of the rainbow.
Blaze blinked, trying to see, as he thought he'd once seen...when he'd been human....
No, he was human. He was Sam Boyd, aka Blaze, and standing over him was Metal Gal, Buckshot, Slab, Anna, and Beverly Gillespie.
And Nightstriker.
“I...understand,” Sam said. His voice must've come out strange, because everyone jerked back when he spoke.
No matter. Nightstriker had told him what he needed to do. He rose and flew through the nearly-deserted corridors of the Beacon, moving at a speed he'd never come close to reaching before.
Then he was outside, with clouds and blue sky around him. A few jetliners raced through the air probably a half-mile away, going to and from Z City International Airport.
He wondered if the pilots could see him. They surely saw the Beacon – they flew by it every day. But Sam doubted they flew by an entity like he'd become very often.
An enormous energy blast surged into outer space, as bright as the sun, and probably just as powerful. There was a grinding, churning noise, like the very atmosphere was being ripped apart.
And slowly, Sam came back to himself fully.
It felt like coming down from a drug-induced high. His memories returned, and his mind regained its lucidity.
Sam felt his power weakening, dimming. He instinctively knew that, with the energy he'd absorbed, he'd basically been a god. He could've done great things with that power.
But his regret was quickly replaced with more pragmatic thoughts. He couldn't have held on to that power; it would've destroyed him. He would've gone supernova and killed everyone, and his heroic endeavor would've been pointless.
Finally he was depleted. He'd shot everything he'd absorbed into space. His blast tapered off, and the terrifying ripping noise stopped. The sky was once again blue and peaceful. His body felt normal, his mind and vision were no longer bombarded by strange thoughts and extra-sensory sights.
But while Sam was no longer in agony, an unforgiving weariness had dropped onto him. He could barely raise his arms, could barely keep his eyes open. He was reminded how he felt after one of Nightstriker's training sessions: like he'd ceased to be a person, and was only a sluggish, dumb piece of meat.
And he was falling.
His powers! They were gone?!
Without his powers, Sam couldn't stay airborne. He continued to fall, the air whipping by him, tugging at his spandex, nearly ripping his mask from his face.
He tried to fly, to activate his Fire Shield, to form a fireball – nothing worked.
He passed through a cloud, and there was Z City below, rapidly getting bigger. A fall from this height would kill anyone. Even Slab would probably end up shattered.
Again, Sam tried to stop his free fall, but his superpowers remained in hibernation.
“What the hell is going on?!” he shouted.
But no one was there to answer his anguished cry.
Ah well. He didn't want to die so young, but he had saved his friends, as well as everyone on board the Beacon. That counted for something....
Then his descent was arrested, and cold hands gripped him tightly. A silvery face with glowing red eyes looked down at him.
“Metal Gal?!” he said.
“Yeah, babe, it's me,” she replied. “Couldn't let you go splat on the pavement, could I?”
He looked his girlfriend over, and saw she was in her metallic form, the form she usually used for superhero work. Her leg-thrusters kept them aloft; she'd obviously flown out after him as soon as he left the others.
“Is everyone...OK?” Sam asked softly.
“Everyone made it off the Beacon safely. You saved us all, Sam. You...the way you looked, and when you screamed...I thought you were a goner....”
She leaned down and kissed him, a passionate, desperate kiss that brushed off some of his fatigue. He caressed her neck, her arms, her breasts, feeling like he was the luckiest man in the world.
Then he opened his eyes, and pushed Metal Gal away in horror.
A giant gray orb was dropping towards Earth, brushing through cloudbanks like someone angrily shoving through a crowd. With its size, it would do massive damage when it hit.
Was this some sort of attack? Had an alien ship shot some mega-missile at the planet? Had some supervillain dropped it from a specially-designed platform?
Sam finally realized he was looking at the Beacon.
“What the hell?!” he said, pointing at the orb. “It's...falling? But...I thought....”
“Without the core, there's no power for the flight systems. It can't stay in the air.” Manufactured tears ran down her cheeks.
“But...isn't there a backup power source?!”
“It's gone. The core's meltdown and your energy absorption was...was too much....”
“But people are going to die when that thing hits!”
“Yes, they will.” She kissed him on the cheek. “We can't worry about that. Many more would've died if you hadn't...sacrificed yourself.”
“No, I should've released some of that energy back into the core, just enough so the flight systems would work––”
“There was no time, and you weren't yourself. You were...Sam, it looked like you'd...transformed into a star. Are you...do you feel––”
“I feel tired,” Sam said. “More tired than I've ever been. And I can't turn my powers on. If you hadn't saved me, I would've been roadkill.”
Metal Gal looked at him worriedly, and Sam grinned to try and put her at ease.
“Look, I'm fine,” he said. “I'll recover soon enough. Right now, we need to stop the Beacon from––”
“There's nothing we can do, Sam. You're depleted, and I'm not strong enough to blast the Beacon to dust or lift it. No one else is, either. Everyone's abandoned ship. We'll just...we'll just have to help with the aftermath as best we can.”
“Dammit!” He slammed his fist into his palm, and felt tears come to his own eyes.
He thought his anger and desperation might jump-start his powers, but there wasn't as much as a flicker of fire around him.
“I'm sorry, Sam,” Metal Gal said, stroking his cheek.
“You said everyone's abandoned the Beacon? Are you sure?”
Metal Gal looked away, and wiped away her tears. “Everyone but Nightstriker.”
Chapter Six
Nightstriker
Death didn't frighten him.
Failure frightened him.
If he couldn't stop the Beacon from impacting Z City, hundreds or even thousands would die.
And it was his fault.
He should've planned for this. He knew Blaze's energy absorption would render the main core useless, but he was counting on the backup cores keeping the floating fortress in the air.
But now all the power sources were ruined.
He rifled through his mental catalog of superhumans. Who was strong enough to stop the Beacon's free fall?
The Power could lift the Beacon, but the Power had left Earth in sadness and disgrace weeks ago. No one knew where he was going, or what he was planning.
Professor Perfection could possibly come up with a solution – he had designed the Beacon, after all – but he was a shell of his former self, imprisoned on an island designed for the sole purpose of holding him. If asked, he probably wouldn't help anyway.
This was futile. There was no time to contact any other superheroes. It was just Nightstriker and his wits, alone on this death-bringing meteor.
After Blaze had rushed away and unleashed the energy, the Beacon had immediately begun to fall. Everyone had sprinted to the nearest escape pods – but Nightstriker held back. As his teammates shot away in the pods, yelling at him through their pod's tiny windows, Nightstriker turned and headed back to the flight systems control room.
He'd been in tighter spots before. He could do this.
But not if everyone kept yelling at him through the commlink.
“Get off the damn ship, Nightstriker!” Gillespie's voice raged. “There's nothing you can do!”
“Be quiet,” Nightstriker growled. “I'm thinking.”
“Boss man, I know we've had our differences here recently,” Buckshot drawled, “but goddamit, get outta there! I can see the Beacon from my pod! It looks like it's about to scrape the buildings in Midtown!”
“I am well aware of the stakes,” Nightstriker said. “All I need from you all right now is a status report on Blaze. Is he OK?”
“Yeah, I am.” Blaze's voice sounded weak through the commlink, but at least he was alive. “But I agree with the others. You're being––”
“Be quiet.”
They didn't quiet down, of course. They kept shouting, criticizing, threatening. Nightstriker tuned them out as best he could, and stared at the control panel and video screen for the flight systems.
The
re was no power, of course, so he was only looking at a blank screen and useless buttons. The only light came from the battery-powered emergency lights....
Yes! That could work!
He spoke into his commlink: “Metal Gal, your Zeta Core. Where is it?”
“Uh...it's in my lab.”
“Which lab? Hurry!”
“Uh...uh...lab C3, on level 20!”
“Is it charged?”
“Not completely, but––”
He ignored the rest. Running from the room, he jumped off the balcony around the Beacon's enormous central high-tech escalator. The escalator ran on hard-light technology, so without power it too was turned off.
Nightstriker was looking at a twenty-three story drop – but he wasn't committing suicide. He reached into his utility belt, pulled out his pneumatic grappling hook, shot the hook at the balcony to level twenty-one, and swung down to level twenty.
Sprinting down the halls, he quickly found Lab C3.
There was Gal's Zeta Core, glowing and humming softly.
There were other small power sources on the Beacon – the armory in particular was well-stocked with all sorts of weapons and shields – but this was the closest one.
Nightstriker strapped the core to his chest, left the lab, and returned to the central balcony. Now he swung down to level eighteen, where Engine Room Two was located.
“Nightstriker, say something!” Anna shouted through the commlink. “Are you––”
“I'm fine,” he replied. “I have Metal Gal's experimental core. I'm going to use it to power Engine Room Two. It likely has enough capacity for that, but no more.”
“Why?” Gillespie barked. “One engine won't make a––”
“I can't stop the Beacon from impacting,” Nightstriker said, “but I can alter its course. Before power was lost, I'd seen the Beacon's descent path on one of the screens. Right now, it's headed directly towards the center of Z City. But if I activate the thrusters connected to Engine Room Two, I can perhaps send the Beacon to the outskirts of the city, where there will be less casualties.”
“Perhaps?” Gillespie said. “There's no way you can––”