Unconstant Love

by Timothy J Meyer

  Much as time presses him, Odisseus does spend a moment here, fiddling with the device. After all, should it and its ilk all across the ship choose to act up during their daring escape, it would wreak havoc with the ship's external sensor bank.

  “–we did the DermEndure, I finished my smoothie and that's when, I think, we lit out for the territories.”

  The misbehaving calibrator raises another concern for Odisseus, as he scoots deeper and deeper into the bowels of his spaceship. There'd been no time, after the Lover came down on the planet's surface, for Odisseus to examine or repair the dozens of breaks, fractures and discombobulated systems the ship no doubt suffered during her freefall from high orbit.

  She might have been ray shielded and shrouded in space ice but there were still likely to be dislodged components or fried circuits or moons knew what, lying in wait to trouble the escaping Lover. They would be very lucky, Odisseus appreciates, to escape the planet without something vital failing when they needed it most.

  “Where'd we do the DermEndure?” wonders Nemo speculatively, as though this might be the missing piece of the puzzle. “You remember?”

  “The cargo hold,” Odisseus answers by rote, not wishing to resummon the memories of spraying down his naked saltbrother with a can and a half of DermEndure. “By the laundry–”

  At that moment, the Ortok's flashlight plays against a vertical duct, headed for the deck somewhere above. Once again, Odisseus performs his famous squeezing act and manages to lever his body into the joint between crawlspace and access hatch. A little more strength of his shoulder and the grate above, all that separates Odisseus and freedom from this infernal deathtrap, is popped free.

  Soon as his neck and shoulders are through, Odisseus sucks in a long breath of dusty, stagnant air, more refreshing than the most bracing of ocean breezes. This time, he'd actually guessed right and emerged in the center of The Unconstant Lover's cargo hold.

  It's utterly dark, a void that Odisseus only recognizes as the hold by the sheer sense of space. His flashlight punctures that darkness and reveals the jagged arteries and housing mechanisms of the molecular strip, that great ugly landslide of corrugated thermosteel that dominates one corner of the hold. Swinging the flashlight about reveals more familiar sights – the steering column, scattered cargo crates, the companionway stair.

  It is certainly true that somebody is shooting at his saltbrother right now. Odisseus still spends the time to savor this moment of homecoming, so many perils faced and overcame in the desert.

  That moment savored, there's still somebody shooting at his saltbrother, after all.

  “That's where I'd look, then,” mentions Nemo through the comm. “Over by the laundry whatzits. Where we did the DermEndure.”

  “Sure thing,” grunts Odisseus, as he yanks his shoulder, paunch and hindquarters through the hatch in the floor. He had no intention, of course, of heeding his saltbrother's dubious advice. Wherever Nemo thought was the likeliest place was certainly not the likeliest place, not by a long shot. Based on the Captain's retraced steps, Odisseus would head for the galley, the blender and the last known location of Nemo's supposed smoothie.

  First things first, however, there's the boarding ramp. The missing keys would be no help to anyone if their only pilot gets shot to pieces before he can even board the spaceship.

  En route to the boarding ramp's control panel, Odisseus passes the fateful keyrack, riveted against one of the hull support beams that jut like ribs from the hold's walls.

  The Ortok stops dead. There is no way it's that simple.

  Moira's pretty sure they've spotted her by now.

  Somewhere, in that white haze of billowing sand, someone is definitely shooting at her. That green muzzle flash is all too consistent for stray shots or misfires. First, it was just the one shooter, a shooter that was eventually overcome by a flaming Gitter and thus vanquished. Now, however, it's three separate shooters, firing from three separate angles and, unless Moira misses her guess, they're moving closer and closer with each shot.

  She can and is returning fire. She can even extrapolate, with reasonable accuracy, where the brain, throat and heart of each approaching spice ranger, with some variance for species, would be. What Moira cannot do, with either Righty, Lefty or even Nemo's discarded Domino, is blast through the personal ray shield that envelops each ranger.

  Plus, with no ray shield of her own, Moira's forced to spend most of that time cowering behind the Lover's extended landing feet while they barrage her endlessly with sparking green ditrogen.

  Flask, on the other hand, has no need to cower. Outfitted with his own ray shield, he can simply stand unimpeded and rattle off his return fire. On its own, his Domino's no better at puncturing their ray shields than Moira's pistols but at least he can stand on two legs and take clear shots at his revealed enemies.

  It's only together that they have any chance of evening the odds.

  “Far right!” Flask barks. Moira hears his harness whine as he swings about to pepper another approaching ranger.

  “Far right?” she screams back. “Isn't the far left closer?”

  “Far right!” is Flask's only response. With no other options, Moira swings both Righty and Lefty around to join in the barrage.

  The rapid fire from three firearms is enough to visibly short and fizzle the far right ranger's ray shield. Before the ranger behind can retreat or even scream, they're riddled with a torrent of green and yellow laserfire.

  “Suck it, Raz,” Flask is heard to mutter into his comm. “Been thinking about that for months, you prick.”

  Moira has nanoseconds to withdraw back behind the landing gear before the ignored ranger on the far left riddles her too with ditrogen. Instead, it impacts against the landing gear as, with a furtive move, she slinks back into cover.

  “Much as I'm delighted,” Moira comments casually to Flask, “to help you to your petty revenges–”

  “Odi? Odi!” Nemo continues to holler into the comm, clouding the airwaves with his desperation. “What've I told you about answering the bloo–”

  The answer that comes is the sound of hydraulic pistons firing, a mechanical motor grinding and some motion out of the corner of Moira's eye. She shoots a glance behind, toward The Unconstant Lover's hull. She's astonished as a chunk of that sand-blasted hull uncouples from the rest of the ship and descends down to meet them on the ground.

  It's the boarding ramp, Moira realizes. The boarding ramp is descending to meet them.

  Angelic white lights blink into being along the hydraulic pistons, revealing the heavenly ramp in all its pockmarked, sand-scored beauty.

  They also reveal a figure, paunched and shaggy, that stands at the top of that ramp. “You ready?” comes the Ortoki through the comm, accompanying this unlooked-for godsend.

  It takes all Moira's ironshod discipline not to simply go running, arms flailing, up the ramp and into the safety of the spaceship. Instead, she stays put, unwilling to grant the ranger on the left the opportunity they need to paint her backside green with ditrogen.

  It is, of course, Nemo who does go running, arms a-flail, back fully exposed to those that were shooting at him only a moment before. None of the shots actually hit him, of course, whizzing and twanging off the thermosteel of the extended ramp. Six strides and he's disappeared up and into the bowels of the ship.

  “On three?” offers Flask, shifting his position to absorb some of the landing gear within his ray shield. A grateful Moira nods and hustles inside the shield's enveloping embrace. Cramped as hell, the two of them manage to scuttle backwards, on four uncoordinated legs, onto the ramp, protected the whole while by Flask's ray shield.

  So lambasted with laserfire, the shield won't last much longer before it shorts out. Odisseus is already reversing the servos and withdrawing the ramp the moment before they step aboard. The rangers go surging forward, materializing from the sandstorm, ready to leap onto the ramp.

  Odisseus proves to have the answer for this t
oo. One paw on the ramp control, the other produces from nowhere a bleeping grenade. This he rolls calmly down the ramp. His timing proves perfect, the tiny black orb slipping off the end of the ramp the exact moment the rangers reach its edge.

  There's a momentary glimpse of the explosion, the terror and surprise blasted across the face of the approaching rangers. Then there's the sound of the boarding ramp hissing shut and a quiet boom, muffled almost to silence behind the Lover's triple-thick teltriton walls.

  “You did it!” a flabbergasted Nemo exclaims to Odisseus as he staggers up.

  “Where'd that fooking grenade come from?” is what Flask wants to know.

  Odisseus thrusts high a ring of keys on one claw. Among an “I Heart Takioro” keychain and a set of suspiciously familiar ignition kets, there’s a grenade’s pin, clipped alongside the rest of the paraphenalia.

  “My keys!” a flabbergasted Nemo exclaims.

  “Where'd you find them?” Moira is a little frightened to ask.

  The Ortok thrusts an insistent claw toward the hull support beam, not three feet away, where he'd long ago riveted the keyrack.

  Flask presses his thumb against the recognition pad. After a moment of deliberation, the harness cooes softly in confirmation. As one, all the pressurized clasps decouple with metallic clanks. With a shiver of his shoulder, he slips from the now-slackened harness and, in the same movement, Flask throws himself into the gyroscopic co-pilot's seat.

  Only thrice before now has Flask ever actually been aboard his cousin's galactically famous spaceship. Nemo's fervent cult following would be surprised and disappointed to discover The Unconstant Lover a broken-down wreck, more a spaceworthy trash heap than some sexy pirate corvette. As his cousin of nearing three decades, Flask is anything but surprised – disappointed, certainly, but never surprised.

  The helm exemplifies this better than anywhere else aboard. The supposed center of all the villainy, the seat of command of the most wanted pirate vessel in the known galaxy looks like a teenager's bedroom – all dirty undies, dirty dishes and dirty tissues. Having spent a decent amount of time in the Captain's actual teenage bedroom, Flask can attest to the impression's authenticity, even as he delicately avoids physical contact with everything but the seat and the controls.

  Right now, all Flask cares about is whether or not this thing'll actually even start up.

  This does not appear to be primary worry of the Captain as he plops comfortably into the timeworn pilot's seat. Nemo, still powdered bright blue and wearing his crown of flowers, flips switches and cranks dials, the pre-flight sequence long since memorized.

  “Shouldn't we,” Flask starts to ask, unable to keep the terror from his voice, “be, like, seeing something?” He points an uncertain finger towards the consoles, lifeless and unresponsive to Nemo's efforts.

  Nemo blinks and seems to notice this for the first time. “Huh,” he grunts. “Good eye.” He torques the keys in the ignition a few more times and receives nothing but subterranean grumbling from somewhere far below their feet.

  Unfazed, with a shove of his legs, Nemo throws the pilot's seat backward and slams into a bulky console far to his starboard. Slamming a fist against the console pops open a cabinet and burying an arm to the elbow roots out a small block of blackish plastolieum, trailing wires. Drawing in a great breath, Nemo blows fiercely into the block's row of sockets, back and forth, like a harmonica.

  This done, he pops the cartridge back into place, slaps the cabinet shut with a heel and cranks the chair back into place. Flask opens his mouth to balk but soon as Nemo cranks the ignition keys, the boosters, after some cursory whining, sputter to life.

  “There's my girl,” purrs Nemo, revving the engine like a dasher in traffic, to threaten or impress adjacent drivers. The whole helm of The Unconstant Lover comes hiccuping back to life, her boosters cycling and stuttering somewhere away and far below.

  Screens all around Flask falter and waver in unsure green, their systems coming awake like yawning children. One console literally coughs dust into the air as its internal machinery comes alive, components shuddering and humming like chattering teeth. A pair of squeegeed arms, their fluid long depleted, descend from somewhere above the viewport and attempt to wipe away all the accumulated sand. Instead, they get stuck, twitching spasmodically, a quarter of the way down.

  So too does the co-pilot's station activate, the gyroscopic chair unclasping and the sensor monitor flickering with its green-lined grid.

  Behind him, Flask hears the helm door open with a complaint. Nemo spins proudly around, big stupid grin on his face. “See? What'd I tell you? Started right up for Daddy.”

  “You are,” Odisseus states, “definitively not Daddy.” The Ortok waddles into the helm, field exemptor under his arm. “Moons, listen to that.” He stops on his way to the sensor array and stands there, scowling. “Can't even imagine how much sand's gotta be lodged in the turbines.”

  “Think she'll fly?” poses Flask hopefully.

  “She'll fly,” Nemo answers, a little too quickly. Before either of them can offer a counter argument, Nemo's gripping a lever and activating the driftjets.

  There's a nauseating lurch to the starboard as the whole Unconstant Lover levels out a little. In the tilt, a decent percentage of the sand that's heaped against the viewport sloughs away. Unfortunately, all that's revealed behind that sand is more sand, this time blowing about instead of heaped about.

  “Ain't the flying so much that worries me,” Odisseus mutters behind Flask, taking a knee to examine something beneath an instrument panel. “It's the crashing.”

  “–noticed or not,” crackles the broadband comm, the communications package scrambling to come online, “but there's still a blooming sandstorm out there.”

  “Fuck me, is there?” remarks Nemo acidly, leaning all the way forward to squint exaggeratedly out the viewport. “And here I've been this whole time, wandering around with my face riveted to my asschecks.”

  “You say that,” counters Quicksilver through the comm, “like it's not a distinct possibility.”

  “Puh-leeze.” Nemo waves away everyone's concern. “How quickly we forget the Byorzi Knot. If I can fly her through a gravity maze,” he reminds them, voice cocked an octave up in pure condescension, “pretty sure I can fly her through, what, a fucking sandstorm?”

  With that, he, in one simultaneous motion, cranks the yoke back and pumps the clutchlever. Flask is far from an expert pilot. He's pretty sure you're not supposed to do that.

  The Unconstant Lover seems to agree, flatly refusing to budge. Her engines moaning with exhaustion, she doesn't blast off as Nemo intended but rather hovers heavily on her driftjets and is swayed this way and that by the fierce winds.

  Odisseus barks something that's completely lost beneath the booster's groan. When faced with so much dissent from friends, family and spaceship, Nemo only doubles down. He pumps the clutchlever three more times, sending a fresh torrent of fuel to the boosters.

  At first, the freighter seems to pay this no heed, lingering uncomfortably there, battered back and forth in the abusive wind. Then, miraculously, this strategy somehow seems to work. There's a great jerk forward, throwing Flask against his safety restraints, as the Lover launches upward at an exponential curve and gives battle to both gravity and sandstorm.

  The higher they climb, the stronger grows that storm. Within seconds, the helm and the whole spaceship are thrown violently about at the wind's every whim.

  Laundry, dishes and miscellaneous garbage sloshes and slides across the floor like water caught in a sailing ship's bilge. The gyroscopic rig is especially susceptible to all the turbulence, bouncing madly about this way and that. Long as Nemo and Flask are both strapped in, however, they're borne along for the bumpy ride.

  For Odisseus, caught unawares, the ride is substantially more than bumpy. Flask catches occasional flashes of the poor Ortok, tossed helplessly about the helm with the rest of the trash. By the third such glimpse, Odisseus
is clamped firm – eyes closed, fangs clenched, hind claws dug into the floor's grating.

  “We're fine,” Nemo explains placidly, a trickle of vomit running down the corner of his mouth and into his beard. “Everything's fine.”

  The viewport is a blank white canvas, colored only occasionally by the shadow of more or less sand blowing past. Even with the high beams alight, Nemo flies the Lover completely blind, twisting the yoke up and down, port and starboard, at odd intervals with no correlation to the wind or visibility.

  A sudden gust dips the Lover low then flips her completely over, showering all the helm's garbage down on their heads. A plastic food container beans Flask on the shoulder, reeking of spoiled leftovers but thankfully empty of its expired contents. From somewhere behind, there's a startled Ortoki yelp as something much harder and heavier than a leftovers comes down atop Odisseus.

  For one sickening moment, The Unconstant Lover flies upside-down through the sandstorm. A discarded tee shirt flopped over his head and his crown, Nemo exploits with the next gust to right the vessel with a second white-knuckling lurch.

  How long the Lover flounders in that sandstorm, Flask would never be certain. It is possible that he blacks out for a spell, his memories of that hellish moment of the escape never coming clearly again. One moment, the freighter is flopped on her head and the next, the sunlight's growing and growing through the haze.

  When Flask's senses do return to him, the Briza is blasting away skyward. Gi's overwhelming sunlight glints off a viewport rapidly losing all its sand. Still caught in the planet's gravitational pull and the inertial compensator missing in action, all the helm's flotsam and jetsam, Odisseus included, is plastered against the back wall as the Lover climbs into the atmosphere.