Comet impact T minus 23 hours, 17 minutes:
When the darkness finally cleared Kim Possible found herself prone on a rather uncomfortable bed and looking up at the blurry shape of a woman. As the shape slowly came into focus she recognised it as her mother.
“She’s coming awake,” her mother told someone outside her field of vision. “How are you feeling, Kimmie-cub?”
How was she feeling? Her entire body seemed to be one giant bruise. Everything hurt, her limbs felt like lead. But all that wasn’t really what sprang to her mind the moment it finally cleared.
“Did it work?” she asked, her throat raw from screaming. “Did we save the world?”
Unfortunately the look on the face of her mother told her all she needed to know.
Twenty minutes later and somewhat restored Kim found herself standing on the bridge of the flying saucer once again. Shego was also there, looking as bad as Kim felt, and both were staring at the view screen in front of them.
It showed the comet.
“We estimate your blast vaporised about 23 percent of the comet’s solid core,” James Possible said, his voice sounding defeated. “You tore a huge chunk out of it, girls, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be enough.”
Dr. Ramesh continued. “The loss of mass and the impact of the energy beam changed the comet’s trajectory, but it is still going to hit the planet. Not dead on, but close enough that it might as well.”
“We have twenty-three hours left,” Dr. Director said. “Can we do it again?”
Kim and Shego shared a look, needing no words between them.
“I don’t think so,” Kim finally admitted for them both. “That blast… I think we… I think it was too much. Our powers… they feel… burned out.”
Shego nodded. She balled her fist, tiny green flames dancing over her skin. “I think I’m at roughly the same level I was before the comet started getting close. We might be able to charge back up given time, but…”
“We don’t have time,” Dr. Director finished for her.
“Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of back-up plan,” Shego asked, sounding kind of pissed. “You didn’t bet the future of the world on this one shot, did you?”
“As the comet approaches Earth we’ll hit it with every space-worthy weapon in our arsenal,” Dr. Director said. “Projections give us only a 2 percent chance that it will do any good, though. You two were our best shot.”
“Damn it,” Shego swore.
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Ron said. “I mean… this can’t be it, right? We can’t have… nothing, can we?”
Standing back from the arguing crowd, Hego looked at the approaching comet on the viewscreen. Over the last few hours while Kim and Shego had been unconscious all the smart people on board had talked a lot about what options might be left to them. James Possible had briefly touched on building a giant rail gun to shoot at the comet. Hego hadn’t known what a railgun was, so he’d asked.
The answer had given him an idea.
“We need to go out there,” Kim said, oblivious to Hego’s thoughts. “Maybe we can fire another blast. It won’t be as powerful as the last, but…”
“Pumpkin, we’re burned out. I don’t think…” Shego began.
“DO YOU WANT TO STAND HERE AND WAIT FOR DEATH?” Kim yelled back.
Silence followed that. Then Shego shook her head.
“No, princess. Let’s head out.”
Their original space suits had only just survived their blast, barely lasting long enough for the Wegos to get them back inside afterwards. They had suited up again in new suits and were now once again standing on the hull of saucer, looking at the comet.
“I’m gonna give it the old college try, princess,” Shego said, “but I really doubt it’ll do any good.”
“We don’t have any better ideas, do we?” Kim asked back.
“Actually, I think I do.”
Both Kim and Shego turned around to see that Hego, too, had suited up and was now standing outside the saucer with them.
“You, Henry?” Shego scoffed. “You have an idea?”
“Let him speak, Shego,” Kim said. “Anything’s better than just standing here, you know?”
Grudgingly Shego nodded, motioning for her older brother to go ahead.
Hego told them his plan.
“He-Hego, you idiot,” Shego yelled after a moment. “Are you completely flipped now? This… this is insane. How can…”
“It can work,” Hego told her calmly. “It’s our only chance now.”
“But… but, you… it won’t work that way. It can’t. And even if… if it does… you will… you…”
Hego saw the tear in the corner of her eye and wished he’d be able to brush it away, that his sister’s beautiful face wasn’t sealed away inside a helmet. So he could only give her a smile.
“Shego… Shelly,” he whispered, using her real name for the first time in years. “I know you think I’m an idiot. Maybe you’re even right about that. Damn, I… I know I’ve never been the smartest or… or the bravest. That was always you. You were always the one who fixed our problems and… and when you left… I was never the big brother I should have been.”
“Henry…,” Shego began.
“Just this once, Shelly,” he pleaded with her. “Just this once, let me be the brave one! Just this one time.”
Shego looked at him, unable to believe that this was really her idiot big brother standing there. The one who had just figured out how they might save the world yet.
“Oh God, Henry,” she whispered. “I… I…”
His hand moved up to touch her helmet, his touch conveying everything he didn’t have the words for.
“Take care of our family, Shelly,” he told her. “They need their big sister.”
Tears in her eyes, Shego nodded. “I will. I promise.”
Clenching his fists, Hego turned to look at the Earth for a moment, admiring the beautiful view. Whatever tiny doubts he might have had about his planned course of action evaporated. It was such a wonderful world down there. How could one not do anything to help save it?
Filled with determination he turned to face the comet. He could feel it coming closer, every kilometre it covered increasing his strength, making him more and more powerful. Powerful enough to kill it?
Well, but one way to find out.
The plan as such was terribly simple. That was the beauty of it, actually. Hego had never been very smart. His method of dealing with problems was to smash them until they ceased being problems. And right here, right now, that was just the right method. With his powers increasing every single moment, he was the only one with a shot to save the world.
Sharing one last look with his sister, he then jumped into the void, right toward the approaching comet and began to glow a bright blue.
“Do it, Kimmie,” Shego said, her voice barely more than a sob.
Kim nodded, knowing that words wouldn’t help now. Instead she reached out with her power. It was almost easy by now. Her feet touched the hull of the space ship beneath her, a ship that was shooting toward her home planet at several dozen kilometres per second. She stole some of that energy. Not enough energy that the ship wasn’t able to compensate, not nearly enough energy to smash a comet to bits, but more than enough to accelerate a single, man-sized object to tremendous speeds.
Kim’s kinetic force blast hit Hego’s body and accelerated him so fast it made his head spin. An ordinary man would have been crushed instantly by the g-forces, but Hego was no ordinary man. His comet-given power increased his own density. His body, mere flesh and blood, became as dense as a rock, as dense as steel, and still denser. His thoughts began to slow down, neurons having trouble penetrating the thickening matter of his brain. It didn’t matter anymore, though. He didn’t need to think anymore. He only needed to become denser.
Shego, somehow keeping it together, reached out with her own power and directed every last bit of plasma she had left towards her big brother. Moments later a bright green aura of flame surrounded him. The space ship beneath them fired up its engines to full power, allowing Kim to steal more of its speed and accelerate Hego even further. The heat licked at his skin, but he was near-indestructible by now. The space suit he wore was ripping away, exposing him to the vacuum of space, but even that couldn’t harm him anymore. And lack of air wouldn’t be a problem much longer.
“Up, up, and away, Henry,” Shego whispered as her eyes followed the fiery path her brother was carving through space, right towards the source of their doom.
Travelling at a speed measured in hundreds of kilometres per second, surrounded by plasma burning as hot as the sun, his mass approaching that of a small moon, Henry Gordon, better known as Hego, hero of Go City, smashed into the very heart of the comet that threatened the survival of his homeworld.
And the comet was no more.
TO BE CONCLUDED