I Can Hear the Drums
Chapter 31
The Voiya Rose and her flanking team of Avengers emerged from the other side of the portal under the protection of the Bethlehem Star. The elven fleet fanned out on either side of her, guiding the great signet ship away from the moon's surface, and closer to the great, swallowing darkness beyond them.
Instantly on coming through the portal, a massive force threw the Voiya Rose onto her side. The bridge flipped and righted, tossing the occupants within. Clint hit the forward glass, shoulder first, and scrambled back as something massive collided with the outside.
Thor swept by. He swung his hammer, bringing Mjolnir down into the nose of a Shi'ar ship. The metal buckled, split open, and oozed thick yellow fuel in globs before sinking soundlessly down. Iron Man shot across the viewscreen, firing repulser blasts. A second ship swung around and collided with his chest. It had been thrown like a frisbee by a form Clint knew well.
"Herald!" Clint forced himself up. "Rinon, bring the ship around! He'll tear this thing apart!"
"Hold on!" Reylano cried.
In the distance, one of the Xandarian vessels made a dramatic arc against the moon's magnetic field. It came, sling shot-ing around the red orb directly toward them. The Hulk's mouth opened wide as he used the front of the Voiya Rose as a springboard to gain momentum. He threw himself into the nose of the encroaching ship, and tore it apart, one panel at a time.
"What's happening? What's wrong with them?!" Natasha asked, watching it all in horror.
Coming through the portal was like stepping into a cafeteria food fight. Only this time, ships, missiles, munitions, repulser fire, metal casings, and even bodies were being flung from one area of open space to another. Friend crashed into friend. Mass destruction ensued. In the ship-to-ship comms, they could overhear the screams and frantic cries of the dead and dying men. Even as they watched and heard the utter chaos around them, a great darkness continued to loom ever closer. This was their first look at the enemy they'd waited so long for.
This was Galactus.
The ancient being had come from the time of Celestials, prior to the fall of the Dark Elves and their expulsion from Alfheimr by Doodle Bygrove seven thousand years ago. Galactus contained an unknown strength, caused by his feeding on planets. It was no surprise he'd been ascribed the title of "World Eater" by great historians throughout the cosmos. Originally, the Celestials had attempted to defeat him, destroying the monster forever. Their attempts were unsuccessful, though they did cause him to be bound for more than five thousand years. Time, though, saw his rise to power again. Seeing him after his consumption of nearly three systems of planets, and innocent lives, none could doubt the fear driving their minds wild. There existed nothing left of space around him, behind him, or surrounding the little Nova Luna moon.
There was only Galactus.
His massive, consuming form was like a storm cloud brewed of volcanic ash and fire. The churning mouth opened wide with toothless jaws, and approached the moon to gobble it down his insatiable gullet.
"We have to get down there! If we don't, this war is over before it starts!" Clint exclaimed.
Rinon nodded, he made a sign to Reylano, directing the decks below them. No sooner had the nose of the ship begun to point for land, than another massive strike slammed home. A warning klaxon sounded. Overhead, jets of air shot downward in thick clouds of white.
"There has been a breach in the hull!" a voice called in the excitement.
Clint looked back at the glass in time to see yet another ship, this one from Xandar, on a collision course with the Voiya Rose. Behind the ship, he could still see the form of Galactus' Herald. This one wasn't the same as the one he'd encountered before. This one was new, leaner, with spindly black arms, and a head shaved completely bald. Red eyes, as bright as targeting lasers, zeroed in on Barton as he watched. The Herald's arms lifted, spun. He manipulated his fingers the way Clint remembered the Scarlet Witch once doing. Suddenly, three more ships joined the first Xandarian, one heading on a collision course.
Clint tapped his comm. "The Herald is manipulating the ships' piloting systems! Anything not in elf control, is under his! Everyone focus fire. You've got to take him out!"
"Got it!" Tony answered.
"Avengers, assemble!" Steve rallied.
The attack shifted. Thor and the Hulk both returned to the nose of the elven ship, and pushed her down beneath the incoming projectiles. Six elven ships rocketed by them, one carrying a latched-on Tony, the other with War Machine. The minute they reached the Herald, both detached and went straight for him. Out of danger for now, Thor and the Hulk leaped away. They rallied around the Bethlehem Star, deflecting those who may wish to destroy the one good chance they had of defeating Galactus here and now.
"Everyone out there, converge on the Star! They're going to try and take her out of the sky," Clint radioed from his vantage point. A hatch over his head blew. A missile fire from across the field of battle, collided with the top of the Voiya Rose and deepened her nose dive. They were approaching the atmosphere.
"Hulk, get back to the Rose! She's crashing!" Steve ordered. He grabbed for one of the jump seats and attempted to drag himself into it. Beside him, he helped Natasha stand and strap in.
A second missile exploded under the bow. The entire crew flew into the air and crashed down against the floor tiles. Somewhere, deep below them, Clint could hear the tearing of metal on metal. He'd heard that sound before, back when the Milano met her end. For him, it had been only days ago since he'd lived that moment. Here, it had been half a decade.
The Hulk roared soundlessly in the vacuum of space. Clint watched the black smoke billowing around him as Thor's hand revved back and slammed down. What he aimed for, was hidden behind the stern of an Asgardian warship.
Beyond him, Tony hovered in space behind the Bethlehem Star. War Machine fired his repulsers in time with Iron Man's. They made short work of the incoming projectiles of ship parts and wayward torpedoes. The Hulk leaped off the flat landing platform of an Alfheimr carrier, and nearly made it to the Rose herself, but a throttling Shi'ar cruiser stopped him in his tracks.
Clint's eyes watered as he caught the final glimpses of them. At his back, Steve shouted for them to abandon ship. The atmosphere came rushing at them, and soon they would become little more than a smoldering mass, hurling into the landscape below with no way of stopping. For a while, Clint held off that reality. He just wanted to sit at the glass and watch them, his friends, as the war slowly ripped him away from them. He closed his eyes, sending a silent goodbye to Thor, Rhodey, Tony, and the Incredible Hulk.
"Rellya!"
"Clint!"
Elves and Avengers called for him. They were at the bridge door, forcing it open as the walls began to cave around them. Indeed, it was time to go. Clint abandoned his post. Five other cruisers dropped through the atmosphere at the same time around them. Like flaming meteors, they crashed through the airspace for the landscape stretched out below. Day converted to night as that great shadow above them blotted out the dual suns Nova Luna shared with her mother planet, Xandar.
"What are you doing? Taking in the sights?" Steve asked, trying to put humor into his stressed voice.
Clint snorted as they ran after Reylano and Lirrie toward the lower deck. "Yeah. Figured I'd bust out the umbrella drinks and tequila sunrise if this all goes right."
"Make mine a daiquiri." Natasha might have been ahead of them by five meters, but she could still hear them perfectly. She threw a smile over her shoulder. "This mean you're drinking again?"
"If Tony can save the world up there, then yes, I think that deserves alcohol," Clint replied.
The idea made Steve genuinely smile. Clint, their Clint, was back at last. Maybe it had something to do with his new found youth, or a new found faith in all they had done to this moment.
Steve carried his own bow, the one he'd trained with for the last seven years, on his back. He knew the decision swiftly approached. Every moment they spent crashing to that planet's surface, was another second closer to the Infinity Gauntlet. And Steve was going down into that pit whether Clint liked it or not.
"Hurry!" Lirrie beaconed. The elf's long legs carried him faster than the others. He was stood, propping open a bulkhead as best he could while first Rinon, Fehreh and Reylano squeezed around him. Two pairs of hands appeared to help him. Linnor and Faraday, the elven brothers, had abandoned their posts in the piloting deck in favor of evacuation.
Natasha went through next. She moved aside, sliding down the hangar stairwell to head for the sealed quinjet. There was no way to get aboard without restraining the war-hungry Hank Pym, so she didn't even attempt it. From the outside of the ship, she programmed in an auto-pilot protocol. The minute the hangar opened, the ship would do its best to land him somewhere safely. It was the best she could do for him under the circumstances.
"What about the others?" Steve asked, ducking into the hangar.
"Emergency pods line the ship on either side. They will reach them," Linnor told him. "Get to one, and get out! Quickly, before she destroys us!"
"Laice!" Rinon demanded. He would go down to the flames of Hell itself before he left his beloved dire wolf to crash.
"Sent already!" Faraday told him, "Le'lerame, please! Go!"
The rend in the ship, the one which caused her mad spiral into the bowels of the planet, began to pull the hangar in half. The far wall separated like a cracking egg. Hank's ship listed to one side. The flames of their rapid descent licking over the quinjet's nose.
Within seconds, the entire hanger door tore free. The quinjet was sucked out instantly. Sensing the pressure change and hoping to preserve whatever life it had left aboard, the blast door began to seal shut, despite the elves keeping it open. Fehreh reached out and grabbed the back of Lirrie's tunic, yanking him out of the way before he was crushed under its weight.
Clint was trapped on the other side.
"No!" Steve cried. He threw himself at the door, slamming his fists against it. He could see Clint on the opposite side trying to work the panel. The archer's face was frantic. Steve drove his fist into the glass, expecting it to break, but surprisingly, it held. He shook off his fist, intending to try again, but Clint's hands stopped him. He spoke, forming words that Steve, try as he might, couldn't hear over the explosions of conduits and rush of air escaping the hangar door. Clint tried his comm, but nothing save static arrived. So Clint changed tactics. He began to sign.
~"Keep your promise,"~ Barton told him with a cold, hard stare. ~"You take care of her. Watch out for her. You told me you would."~
"No! Clint, don't say that!" Steve exclaimed. He tried the handle again, it came free under the overwhelming strength of his grip. Clint pounded the glass, and he looked up again.
~"You promised! Remember that!"~ Clint backed away from the door. Steve could see the torn emotions on his face. ~"Tell her I love her. Tell Tony too, and tell him goodbye. I'm not letting them die for me. This is my choice, now. I'm making it."~
Without another word, Clint spun on his heel and ran in the opposite direction. Steve screamed for him. Tried desperately to pull the door apart and find the archer again, but Clint was already gone. Limply, he allowed Lirrie and Linnor to guide him away. There were only a few transports left, and he had to make it to one before the entire ship exploded around him.
Natasha somehow felt Clint might resort to an insane play in order to face his death alone, but she had already anticipated a counter measure. Launching into the hangar bay, she grabbed hold of Rinon, forcing him and his elves toward the nearest remaining ship.
"Hurry and track him down! Follow this!" She grabbed a GPS tracer out of her waistband and shoved it into his hand. "You can find him, save him. That's what the Sarhorn said, you just have to try!"
Without question, Rinon accepted the device. He shot across the wind-whipped hangar, holding on to whatever he could find to prevent from being sucked out the doorway. The ship took a sudden lunge and, bringing up the rear, Fehreh was cast aside. Rinon turned, screaming her name.
Natasha had half-climbed into her own escape pod when she saw it happen. Rinon meant to stop and go after Fehreh again. If he did, he might never make it to the ship, tipping perilously close to the open hull. Linnor, Lirrie, Faraday, and the others had already climbed on board to get the engines moving. Reylano waited for Rinon.
"Go!" Steve shouted. He fought the torrents of wind. Fehreh had been knocked off her feet and was perilously close to the rift making its way across the floor. Using all of his strength, Steve grabbed her under one arm, and dragged them away to safety. "Get to the ship!" Steve shouted again. "Get out of here! I have her!"
Rinon paused, indecisive. Behind him, Reylano tugged at the leader's tunic to get him moving again. Across the hangar, Steve clawed his way to the next closest escape pod, and somehow managed to get himself, and Fehreh, inside. The door sealed shut on them. Fehreh, Rinon's love, was safe.
"Kinme, please!" Reylano begged.
Rinon turned to go with him, Clint's transmitter, firm in his grasp. He was trying it again; tempting fate. Changing visions and nightmares to save a life he could never protect before. He swore to himself that this time was going to be different, this time he was going to succeed. Clint Barton would not meet his end this day!
:(:):(:):
Smart, Clint, real smart. Yeah, just let everyone who might potentially help you, head off by themselves so you could be the hero guy everyone looks up to...when you're dead! I think this might just be the stupidest thing I've ever done. Nope, takes the cake. This is the stupidest thing I have ever done.
Clint berated himself as he ran through the abandoned halls of the Voiya Rose. He knew some of his way around, enough to locate a ship's layout and locate the next available escape pod.
Along the way, there was one thing he couldn't seem to escape: himself.
He'd struggled, since the day he left Earth, on what might become of him, how he might react, when the time came for him to swan dive into a canyon of desolation. Running out on those who loved him to prevent them from seeing him at his lowest? That didn't exactly line up with part of the plan.
Beggars can't be choosers. He'd made his decision, now he'll have to live with it.
The escape hatch pulled free without incident, and he found himself spiraling away from the flaming Alfheimr flagship. For a time, he simply watched her fall, the glint and gold, the running dire wolves and mouth of the Faralir were all encased in fire.
Other pods shot free. Some made it, spinning wildly through the air, while some could not get far enough from the wreckage raining down from above. After all, the Voiya Rose was not the only falling ship. Hundreds, thousands more, cascaded through the sky, like gleams of rockets. Clint wasn't sure how many Heralds were up in that sky around Nova Luna, but it didn't really matter. If he could just get to the Gauntlet, this might all go away.
The first time he'd held it, Clint could sense the power fusing with his bones. It wanted to destroy him, to rip him apart and make him something entirely evil and new. The death it had been created for, seeped in like a poison flowing through his veins. He wanted it like he craved a drug. It had been a great struggle to hurl the thing away from him the first time. But now, as he approached it again, he could feel his heart pound-pound-pounding like the drums of war.
OMG OMG OMG OMG...its happening