Rock on, Rock off

Zoom Zuppa was rocking out. He was so absolutely rocking out that he did not stop when the hull breach sirens started screaming. He had been playing a nuitar solo for about two hours, surrounded by a couple of thousand of his closest hanger ons. While the hanger ons sealed their hard vac suits and floated toward their ships Zoom began a ghastly duet with the sirens.

They were all floating in the main cavern of what had originally been the headquarters of Ramis Asteroid Mining Inc. After Ramis had abandoned the hollowed out lump of space rock it had been used for several different purposes. It had housed a series of cults until cults were no longer trendy. Then it had acted as a space station catering to the various needs of travelers who were passing through.

After travelers moved on to other, more hip, routes some joker gutted the internal structure to make one large open space and reprogrammed all surfaces to be a rusty orange color. Then he gave the access codes to everyone he could find who really liked to party.

That joker had been Zoom Zuppa. While he had been very successful in creating his own personal amp theater in which to be adored as he played his nuitar endlessly, he had been much less successful in ensuring that the ancient anti-collision devices still worked properly.

Zoom floated in a small orbit, limited by the short tether connecting his ankle to a structural beam. He didn’t mind playing in zero-g he just hated floating around and bumping into things. And Zoom Zuppa did not do things he hated to do.

He paid no attention to the hanger ons as they finished their substance exchanges and grabbed nets full of Zoom’s food and drinks on their way out to their ships. A few groupies tried to free him from his tether. He started keeping time by kicking at them. One of them managed to hit the emergency sealer on his hard vac suit and they drifted away feeling like they had done everything they could for him.

The sirens wailed on and on. Zoom wove a distorted melody around them, using many of the same notes but throwing them out in a faster tempo. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else was real. The entire universe consisted of Zoom and his nuitar and the sirens.

And then, Zoom’s universe exploded.

Zoom was alone when the hull finally cracked wide open, exposing him to the debris field. His suit would give him another 182 hours, if he didn’t take a direct hit. He played on for less than 60 hours, inspired by the beauty of spinning out of control in the midst of dirty ice and dense debris.

By the time he was ready to be fished out of the regeneration tank his brother had arrived.

“What the hell were you thinking Zoom?”

“Did my recorder come through intact?”

“Who cares? You almost got yourself freeze dried!”

“Were they able to get all the data off my recorder? Do they have all of my last solo?”

“You really need to examine your lifestyle choices if that is all you can worry about 15 minutes after the medics finished gluing all your parts back on to you.”

“Zap, tell me, please, is the data complete?”

“Yes, you smeg head it is.”

Zoom settled back with a sigh. “My next tour is going to be the spinnenest thing you ever sperienced. I’m going to call it Sirens in the Void. I can already smell it selling out. It’s gonna be galactic.”