Comet impact T minus 1 day, 22 hours, 11 minutes:
It was less than two days to the end of the world. The comet, now clearly visible in the night sky, was the most talked-about topic on Earth. Dozens, hundreds of news reels and shows featured it as their main attraction. Prophets of doom were pronouncing the end at every street corner. The governments of the world were keeping a tight lip, saying only that the comet would pass close to Earth, but not do any serious harm.
A blatant lie, of course, but why cause a mass panic?
This wasn’t the movies, after all. There were no space arks to evacuate people from the planet. No underground cities that might shelter some survivors until the Earth might one day be habitable again. No, the hopes of the world rode on two women about to embark on the most important mission of their young lives. And there really was no need to tell anyone about it until and unless they were successful.
In the Middleton Space Center said two women were about to undergo their final mission briefing.
“The space craft General Reinhart has provided is truly extraordinary,” Dr. James Possible said, his inner geek still in a frenzy after seeing the alien saucer from Area 51. “It will allow you to rendezvous with the comet well-outside Earth’s gravity well. Approximately here.”
A stylized map of Earth and near space was on the conference room’s giant view screen. The comet itself was an ominous red dot, edging closer to the blue planet with very tick of the clock. By now there was no more doubt that it would hit.
“The comet has accelerated somewhat due to the sun’s gravity pull,” Professor Ramesh said, taking over. “It’s now travelling at approximately 52.7 kilometres per second. During the rendezvous you will have to match speeds with and come to relative rest.”
“Who will pilot the saucer?” Kim asked.
Doctor Director, who had so far watched the briefing in silence, answered that question. “Agent Will Dhu is fully qualified to fly this type of craft. He will accompany you as mission pilot.”
“You will come to a relative stop about 15,000 kilometres starboard of the comet,” Ramesh continued. “This puts you well within the comet’s gas cloud and there is some danger of particle damage to the saucer’s hull, but there is nothing to be done about that. We have to hope the craft can take it.”
Kim nodded. They had done one more fire test four days ago and the range of their energy discharge had increased once again, now topping 30,000 kilometres. Still, everyone figured it was better to be as close as possible while still allowing them enough distance to get away if… when they managed to blow up the comet.
“Once you reach the comet,” James Possible said, “the two of you will exit the craft in specially equipped space suits we’ve been developing. They are transparent and should allow your energy discharges to pass through without tearing them apart. The helmets are made of titanium and equipped to keep you alive as long as possible even if the suits should rip.”
“We need someone on stand-by to get us back into the ship after the blast,” Shego said, her voice professional. “Odds are we won’t be in any shape to do it ourselves.”
“We have enough suits for some of our… volunteers,” Dr. Possible said, pointing at the group of people that would also go along on the ride. Team Go stood at the ready, just like Ron and Kim’s mother. Her father would also be there, as well as Doctor Director and Professor Ramesh.
The Team Go members had scored a place on the saucer by simple logic. They, too, had comet powers which were still growing, so there was no telling whether or not they might become powerful enough to help out in some way after all. Especially that close to the comet. Jane Possible was along in case they needed a doctor. James Possible as the rocket expert, Professor Ramesh as the astronomer, and Doctor Director because no one had the clout to tell her she couldn’t come.
“Once outside,” Dr. Possible continued, “you will need to charge up all the way. Shego, the unfiltered sunlight outside Earth’s atmosphere should suffice to max you out within ten to fifteen minutes at the most. Kimmie, we have figured that with your powers you should be able to steal kinetic energy from the saucer itself. It will put some strain on the engines to charge you up and keep pace with the comet, but the calculations look sound. If that doesn’t work, we have a rail gun onboard the saucer.”
Kim gulped, the thought of someone shooting her with a rail gun somewhat disheartening, but nodded. It was only a fall-back after all and these last few days she had practiced stealing kinetic energy from objects even if it wasn’t directed directly against her. So she should be able to charge up simply by touching the hull of the saucer as it sped along at better than fifty kilometres per second.
There were quite a few ‘maybe’s, ‘should’s, and ‘hopefully’s in this plan, but they didn’t have a better one.
They spoke about some more details, but nothing really important. In twenty minutes they would launch towards their date with destiny and the whole world, whether it knew it or not, was depending on them to do the impossible.
“Everything’s possible for a Possible,” Kim muttered her dad’s mantra. “We can do it.”
People were rising from their seats, heading off to do some last-minute preparations or maybe just to retreat into a quiet corner to pray. Kim had spent half an hour with the tweebs just before this conference. They had annoyed each other for the most part, but both her brothers and she had all known that it was a form of saying goodbye. Hopefully not for good, but you never knew.
Which left Kim with enough time to take care of one last bit of personal business before they left to save the world.
“Shego?” she said, approaching the green-skinned thief. “Got a minute?”
Ten days earlier:
“Kim?” Shego said. “Got a minute?”
Kim looked up, seeing the woman she’d been thinking so much about these last few weeks standing in the doorway of her quarters. She really couldn’t tell whether she was glad or apprehensive about her being here.
“Yeah? Come in.”
Slowly walking towards her, Shego seemed hesitant. “Sidekick said you wanted to talk to me about something.”
Kim silently swore. She certainly hadn’t told Ron to go and send Shego her way. Not after the talk they’d had just a few minutes ago.
She’d never suspected that Ron might harbour romantic feelings towards her. Looking back, she wondered how she could not have seen it. Kim was the first to admit that, when it came to matters of the heart, she certainly wasn’t the girl who could do anything. Her weakness for hotties was legendary in Middleton High, her crushes on Josh Mankey and others among the most embarrassing things in her short life.
“I’m… not sure what Ron meant,” Kim said, cursing her inner coward.
“I think I do,” Shego answered, her gaze making Kim fidget.
Realizing that she was harbouring… feelings… for the villainess had come slowly over the course of the last few months, but had only bloomed into full awareness after Shego had helped save her from the energy build-up that had nearly killed her. For a time she’d tried to do it away as nothing but fascination, maybe just another crush, a feeling created by the intense and overwhelming sensations that accompanied their meshing of powers.
The truth was, though, that fighting Shego got her more excited, more pumped up, and made her feel more alive than all the Josh Mankeys in the world ever could. She’d never had any sort of romantic dreams about any of the hotties she’d crushed on, but more than one dream had featured her green-skinned nemesis.
Yesterday Kim had sat her butt down and had a long talk with her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. She had called up images of Josh Mankey, of the other hotties at school, of Senior Junior, even of Ron. None of them had done anything for her. Thinking of females, though… she had realized it wasn’t just Shego. Recently she had caught herself watching her fellow cheerleaders with more than the team captain’s critical eye. A recent tussle with Adrena Lynn had left her quite wound up. And battling Shego… nothing topped that.
Kim had come to the realization that she liked girls. It went fully against her favoured good girl image, but what was she to do about it? It wasn’t something one could switch at will, after all. She liked girls. It was as simple as that. And the girl she liked the most was Shego. Not girl, she corrected herself, a woman. A woman nearly ten years older than her, a criminal, and one that didn’t particularly like her.
A woman standing in her quarters right now.
“What did he say?” Kim asked, referring to Ron. She knew she had broken his heart by spilling her guts about Shego to him. How cruel was it to hear the person you cared about talking about falling for someone else? The fact that she hadn’t known about his feelings then didn’t make it any better.
Had Ron said something to Shego? God, she hoped not. She wasn’t ready to have this conversation. It had taken all her courage to talk about it with her best friend and it had pretty much blown up in her face, no matter how graciously Ron had taken it. She wasn’t ready to take about it with her arch-nemesis who also happened to be the focus of her feelings.
“Nothing much,” Shego said, shrugging. “Didn’t really need to. I… I overheard you talking earlier.”
Kim felt herself blush from head to toe, blush so hard she felt like passing out as all the blood went from her brain to her skin. Shego had overheard? How much? Did she know? Oh God, this had to be a nightmare.
“I… I think we should get this out in the open and over with, Kimmie,” Shego said, ignoring her growing state of panic. “This… this thing… it’s… look, I am not good at this talking-about-feelings stuff, okay? So I’ll say it straight out.”
“Uh, yeah? Go on,” Kim muttered.
“Kimmie… Kim! You… you’re a teenager. What we experienced with that… that energy meshing and discharge… it drove my hormones into overdrive, too, and I’m an adult. I can only imagine what it’s done to you, so…”
“What?” Kim yelled, jumping to her feet. “You think… oh, this is so not what is going, Shego.”
“Isn’t it?” Shego asked. “I save your life, we work together to save the world, we go through something I can only describe as a nearly-orgasmic experience and suddenly you think you’re in love with me? Oh, please!”
Kim was completely torn. On the one hand Shego had just offered her the perfect opportunity to jump off this runaway train before it derailed. Yes, it was just a crush brought on by what they’d been through, nothing else. Leave it at that, all’s well.
The larger part of her was enraged, though. Shego had never before dismissed her as a stupid kid. Oh, she had made some jibes about it in combat, but their fighting had never left any doubt that Shego considered her an equal opponent despite her young age. The villainess had certainly never held back for fear of hitting a youngster and Kim had received more than her share of bruises to prove it.
Why was she now dismissing her like that?
“You’re wrong,” Kim forced out, barely keeping her temper in check. Her hands were starting to glow a dim white. “It’s not like that.”
“Of course it is,” Shego answered with conviction. “Come on, Kim! You’re the good girl. You don’t fall for the bad girls, you crush on the hotties. I’ve seen the kind of guys you drool over, kiddo. People don’t change their types like that. Someday you’ll marry a football player or something and have the white picket fence and everything.”
Suddenly Kim realized something. It was the tone of voice Shego used, the look on her face, the stance of her body. It was off and suddenly Kim understood what was going on here.
Shego wasn’t trying to convince Kim that her feelings were just a crush or something. She was trying to convince herself.
“When this is all over,” Shego continued, oblivious to her thoughts, “you’ll go back to school and the next hottie who comes along will catch your eye. And you and I will go back to fighting like we always do. No more stupid comet to force us into cooperation or anything. Everything back to norm…”
Kim, far from certain she wasn’t doing something monumentally stupid, cut Shego off by walking up to her, taking her face between her hands, and pressing a kiss on the taller woman’s lips. Shego froze, neither returning the kiss nor shoving Kim away. A few seconds later Kim pulled away, looking Shego in the eye.
“…normal,” Shego muttered, continuing her earlier sentence for lack of a more coherent thought.
“Certainly not,” Kim just said. “Whatever else happens, we won’t go back to normal. Not me, at least. Never again.”
Looking at the green-skinned thief, she added “What about you?”
The Present:
“Shego? Got a minute?”
Shego looked up at Kim’s question, locking eyes with the teenage girl who had confused her so these last ten days.
“Sure,” she just said. “I got a minute.”
TO BE CONTINUED