…………

At a High Elliptical Orbit altitude of more than sixty thousand kilometres, Leela backed off the engines and allowed the tether to go loose.

"That's far enough," she said. "Detach the filament, Amy – we're going back for our boys."

"Aye Captain!" Amy said enthusiastically, punching the keys.

Leela spun the Planet Express ship around on its axis and powered back toward the asteroid at high speed, hoping anxiously that everyone was still alright.

…...

Future Fry lunged forward and grabbed at Zapp's gun, managing to jam a finger behind the trigger. Zapp tried to fire, and was unable to activate the mechanism with Fry's finger in the way. He grunted in frustration and aimed a punch at Fry's head. The time-travelling delivery boy caught Zapp's wrist with his cybernetic hand and squeezed, feeling the satisfying grind of bones beneath his grip.

"You filthy barbarian!" Zapp snarled savagely. "I'll see you burn yet!" He lashed out with his foot, catching Fry in the groin.

Bender, Kif, and present-day Fry watched as future-Fry sagged in agony. Fry moved to help his other self, but the older incarnation shouted hoarsely for him to stay away.

"Go!" he yelled, still hanging desperately onto Zapp's gun. "I don't think I can stop him – just RUN!" He swiped across Brannigan's torso with his steel-clawed right hand, opening up the larger man's flesh and sending streamers of blood spraying onto the ground. Zapp shouted out loudly in pain and fury.

"I'm not gonna just leave you!" present-day Fry shouted. He started forward again, but Zapp's gun swung in his direction as the two combatants scrabbled for it.

"You CAN'T leave me!" future Fry growled as he wrestled for the weapon. "You ARE me! And one version of us needs to survive to be with her – so GO!"

"He's right – come on!" Bender said, grabbing Fry's shoulder and pulling him backwards.

"But…"

Zapp pulled back, using his weight to throw the smaller man off-balance and twist out of his grasp. He cracked the handle of the blaster against future Fry's head, knocking the delivery boy to his knees. Fry recovered fast, snapping out a strong kick into Zapp's flabby stomach. Brannigan wheezed and stumbled back, reeling. His eyes fixed on the group by the exit; present Fry, Bender, and Kif.

"Oh, you're not leaving," he snarled, levelling the blaster at them. The three friends gasped in horror as Zapp prepared to shoot.

"No!" Future Fry shouted, launching himself up into Zapp's line of fire.

The positron blast cut through the air leaving a flaming trail that flared and expanded, and slammed into future Fry's outstretched right arm, blasting apart the cybernetic prosthesis and continuing onward into his torso. He was thrown to the ground amid a ring of fire that began eating rapidly into the atmosphere. Zapp was engulfed in it, and the sound of his laughter carried over the roar of the flames.

"…This is right…" future Fry whispered to himself as his vision faded. "My life… for hers…"

Kif and Bender dragged Fry back through the adjoining passage as a massive incandescent fireball billowed out and engulfed the cemetery.

The atmosphere erupted in flames that expanded out rapidly. The three fleeing figures were caught by the blast wave and lifted off the ground as it pushed them through the access tunnel, limbs flailing and screams stifled by the roar of burning air.

………….

Leela's eye widened in horror as she watched the deadly orange blossom unfold inside the Orbiting Meadows dome that floated in space straight ahead.

"Oh my sweet Lord, no!" she cried. "No! No!" She slammed the ship's throttle to full, gunning straight for the station's docking tube even as the main dome ruptured and began to disgorge great streaming columns of flaming gas into the void.

The docking gate wasn't fully open, but Leela flew onward heedlessly, clipping the tail fin against the plexiglass barricade. Inside the secondary dome, the air roared and spiralled violently toward the atmospheric breech; the Planet Express ship came through the airlock and was spun about madly in the sudden maelstrom.

"Aii!" Amy shrieked, clinging to her belt buckle.

With monumental skill, Leela managed to bring the ship into a stable hovering pattern against the roaring torrent of air.

"Where are they?!" she gasped in mortified falsetto, staring out through the forward viewscreen in desperation.

"Oh my God," Amy sobbed.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, three figures slammed into the forward viewscreen and hung there spread-eagled, making the women jump in fright. One was Bender, while the other two were shrouded in space suits with the hastily-affixed helmets misted by condensation.

"Stay strapped-in," she ordered Amy. "This is gonna get bumpy." With that, she hit the landing button, and the embarkation stair descended, allowing the air inside the PE ship to rush out in a deafening torrent that whipped savagely around them. The three figures slipped down the front of the ship and fell to the ground while the landing stairs settled nearby. They picked themselves up and ran up the stairs, and Bender slammed his hand against the emergency lock button when they reached the top, causing the staircase to ascend again.

A series of explosions rocked through the asteroid as power reactors and oxygen tanks erupted spectacularly. The gravity generators overloaded and the PE ship bobbed freely in the rapidly disintegrating dock facility.

Leela and Amy paused to let their ears stop popping, then detached themselves from their chairs and rushed weightlessly back through the companionway. In the common area, they met with Bender and the two suited figures who were floating dazed with their helmets still on.

"Someone's missing," Amy sobbed, wringing her hands.

Slowly, both the figures removed their helmets. Fry and Kif looked breathless and bruised by their brush with explosive decompression, but a sense of mournfulness pervaded over all else.

Amy rushed to embrace Kif, sobbing gently on his shoulder as her pent up anxiety finally released. Leela similarly clung to Fry; and Bender, feeling left out, pulled a bottle of malt liquor from his chest cavity and hugged it tenderly.

Leela pulled back from Fry and looked questioningly into his eyes.

"The other one…?" she said softly. Fry shook his head, and Leela let out a small moan of anguish.

"He saved us," Fry said. "He put himself between us and Zapp to give us a chance…"

"Oh God Fry," Leela whispered, clinging to him. "It was supposed to be me. He… you… he… died in my place."

"I'd have done the same thing," Fry said comfortingly. "Oh wait… I did… didn't I?"

A staccato clatter echoed through the hull as clouds of asteroid debris rained against the ship.

"The place is coming apart," Bender said. "Perhaps it's time we were elsewhere."

Leela nodded, swallowing hard. "Right," she said, reluctantly pulling away from Fry and jogging off to the bridge.

The main reactors and redundant atmo-supply tanks erupted in final violent splendour, tearing great gouts of rubble from the surface of the asteroid in shimmering tongues of gas and plasma. The Planet Express ship blasted away from the stricken rock.