Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Bentley gave the android a stern look. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Jelly Bean's projected face displayed hurt. “No, of course not, Bentley. If you say you got his permission, of course I believe you.” She walked up to the console on the captain's chair, which Bentley had gone through great lengths to ensure Shango was not around on this pass. “Artificial gravity being disengaged… now.”

  One of the ship's many electric hums, the ones that play so constantly in the background that you no longer notice they are there, went silent, and Bentley began to rise from the floor. She waved her arms through the air to swim upwards, then tucked her legs in her arms to do a spiral through the air.

  She had been enjoying her time in zero-gravity for only a short while before Shango came in to ruin her fun. He was pulling himself along using grooves he found in the wall, moving with such grace that for a moment Bentley thought he was enjoying the zero-gravity as well. Until she saw the look of anger on his face. Olofi followed in behind him far more clumsily, smacking his head on the doorframe and spiraling face-up towards the ceiling.

  Shango pulled himself towards the captain's chair. “What is going on here?”

  Bentley floated herself towards him. “I had just realized: I've been in space for a long time, but I can't remember ever taking any time to enjoy the benefits of it. Like zero-gravity. Isn't being weightless kind of fun? Come, swim with me.”

  Shango looked at her like she had just proposed some act of indecency. “What has gotten into you, Bentley? Are you drunk?”

  She was a little. Loco had shared some of his booze with her. “Of course not.”

  He shook his head disappointingly. “Jelly Bean, turn the gravity back on.”

  Bentley had been expecting this and kicked off the wall closest to her, launching herself at Jelly Bean. The android was much heavier than her, and thanks to their current weightlessness she was able to grab her by the arm to stop in the exact spot she wanted. Bracing her feet, she pushed off the console hard enough to push her, taking them both to the far side of the room.

  Jelly Bean spun in the air, a disoriented face appearing on her screen. “Bentley, what is the meaning of this?”

  Bentley spun her around a few more times for good measure. “This is for not using wet floor signs. Do you know how many times I've slipped already?”

  “I do not understand.”

  She was having such a good time torturing the poor android she didn't realize Shango had already reached the console by the captain's chair himself. The artificial gravity returned with a soft electrical hum and Bentley went crashing into the ground.

  She groaned and decided maybe she'd had enough fun for this loop.

  +++

  “What is this about, Loco?” Shango asked as Loco led him to the lower parts of the ship, an area mostly used for storage.

  Loco was doing his best to remain stone-faced, but it was tough when he was filled with so much humor over what he was about to do. “Shango, how often do you know me to be awake this early for any reason? Do you think I'd be bothering you this early if it wasn't important. Trust me, you're going to want to see this for yourself.”

  Shango was suspicious, but he felt obligated to see this through just on the rare chance Loco was being serious here. Loco led him to one of the furthest storage rooms, currently empty except for one oddly placed bucket. Shango gave Loco a look that said if this is some kind of joke, I'm going to make you regret it.

  Loco gave a fake bow with a sweeping gesture into the room. “After you. I think you'll find this very important.”

  Deciding it was best to just get this nonsense over with, Shango took a few steps inside the room and looked around. Nothing immediately caught his attention. “What am I supposed to be looking at, Loco?” No response. “Loco?”

  The door slammed shut and there was the sound of the lock being put into place. Shango rushed to the door and slammed on it with his fist. “Loco, are you insane? Let me out of here right now or I'll have you locked up for the entire trip!”

  On the other side of the door, Loco rapped lightly with his fingers. “I know you found my hidden stash of high quality booze that I hid under the bottom of the pantry. Despite many, many days looking for it, I cannot seem to find it. You're pretty good at hiding things, you know? We could probably make a decent living as smugglers, no ship inspection would turn up contraband. Anyway, I've decided it would be quicker to just get you to tell me where it is. As soon as you tell me where you've hidden them, I'll let you out.”

  Shango slammed at the door harder, creating a resounding bang that would have certainly alerted the rest of the crew if they weren't so far below the main deck. “Loco, I'm giving you one chance…”

  “Yeah, yeah. I heard it before. Last time I tried to lock you in your room, but you just called Jelly Bean to let you out. Boy, were you pissed. This time I had to pick a spot where your corteX wouldn't get any signal. Remember when I 'bothered' you about getting a signal booster on the ship, and you told me, 'It's a waste of money,' Bet you're wishing you had invested in one now.”

  Shango fiddled with the door handle and tried to use his weight to leverage the door open, but it was useless. “You really think I'm going to give in to this kind of immature temper-tantrum?”

  Loco's voice was whimsical. “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But I'll find exactly the right kind of temper-tantrum to get you to talk eventually. I'll leave you to think on it a while, come back to check on you later. If you need to use the bathroom, I left a bucket in there for you.”

  He left laughing as Shango yelled his name behind him.

  +++

  “Look, I understand everyone needed some time to unwind after the last battle. I did, too. But we've really let the ship go to hell in the meantime. There's garbage everywhere, the kitchen is filthy, and I'm pretty sure something’s rotting in the fridge. That would explain the smell. It's one thing to need a break, but my ship…”

  Bentley cut in on the speech she had already heard a dozen times. “Is not a flying trashcan. Yeah I know. Hey, Shango, you know there's something I've been meaning to ask you. It's been bothering me for a while now.”

  Shango was caught off guard by the aggressiveness in Bentley's tone. “Uh, yes, Bentley, what is it?”

  She got up from her usual seat at the center table and walked up to the captain's chair. “You are always talking about just how messy the ship is and are lecturing us on how lazy we've been in maintaining it…”

  “Always? I haven't said anything since we left…”

  Bentley continued, ignoring his protests. “But you live on this ship, too. I've seen you use the kitchen and leave the dishes in the sink. Or put trash on top of the bin when it's already overflowing. You've been slacking off just as bad as the rest of us.”

  “Well, I…”

  “But you came up with this big list of cleaning chores for us to do, and you're going to put our names next to each one like a kindergartner's chore wheel, and yet… all this time, I don't think I've seen you assign any of those duties to yourself. What exactly do you intend to do while the rest of us are cleaning?”

  Shango cleared his throat and looked around at the crew nervously. “Well, someone needs to supervise things. Make sure all the duties are done right…”

  Loco laughed loudly, a boisterous, intoxicated laugh that let Bentley know just how much he had already drunk on this loop. “Oh, naughty, naughty, Shango! You were going to sit back and let us do all the work! Not that I was going to do any, anyway, I always get Svend to do my job.”

  Svend looked uncomfortable to be dragged into this conversation. “What? I didn't… I don't recall that.”

  Bentley grabbed Shango's wrist and flipped through the chore list on his corteX. “If you ask me, the captain should do the biggest, most important job on the ship. Set an example for the rest of the crew and all that. And since you tried to get away with doing nothing, it shouldn't be a pleasant job, either.” She
stopped the list at just the duty she was looking for. “Bathrooms. An important task that only someone with your leadership could pull off. Won't you show us how hard work is done by taking on such a challenging task?”

  Shango had been caught in a trap, just as he had been planning to trap poor Olofi. “Oh, uh, yes. Of course I can handle the bathrooms myself. That shouldn't be a problem.”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “That's our captain. I knew we could count on you.” As she left the bridge she stopped by Olofi just long enough to give him a knowing wink. “You're welcome.”

  And one more quick pause after leaving the confused Iwa to give an instruction to Jelly Bean. “Wet floor signs! Anytime you mop, put up a wet floor sign!”

  +++

  Loco came striding onto the bridge, face brimming with confidence and a cocky stride to his step. All eyes were on him and he basked in their admiration. Shango's eyes were wide with awe, Olofi's mouth was open in a frozen stare at his glory, Jade was shielding her eyes from his greatness, and Svend averted his eyes lest he be blinded by the radiance.

  For Loco was walking the bridge completely in the nude. His lucky crewmates got to get a good look at what a truly masculine body looked like. In a way, it was too bad that they would not remember this tomorrow, as this kind of lesson could be very helpful to them when they needed to get a measure of a man.

  Shango put his head in his hands. “Why are you naked, Loco?”

  Loco stretched out, putting one leg up on a nearby chair and letting it all hang out. “Whatever do you mean? I'm just being comfortable. It is important to be comfortable on your own ship, don't you think?”

  The captain grimaced. “Is this because I hid your special stash? For the love of god, man, I'll give them back. Just put on some pants!”

  That had not been Loco's intention, and it didn't feel great that, after the dozen different tortures he had tried on Shango to get him to give up the location of his booze, it was the sight of his naked body that had finally broken him. Still, he'd take it. “Why, yes, that is what this is about. Give me the location and I'll grab my pants on the way.”

  Shango sighed. “By the trash compactor, on the shelf above. I was going to get you to clean up today, and you would have come across it when you got to the end, but you win. Now get out of here.”

  The irony that if he had just done the duty assigned to him in the first place he would have already found his stash was not lost on him. He just chose to ignore the lesson. “Well, I guess I will be off, then. Good day, gentlemen.”

  “Just go!”

  Loco was practically skipping as he made his way to his precious high quality booze. And the greatest thing about the time loop was he could drink it all, and it would be full again tomorrow! No reason to ration, just enjoy. Maybe he'd even share some with Bentley.

  Maybe.

  +++

  Smack

  Bentley might have been enjoying the time this repeating day had granted her, but she really wished there was a better way to start it. She had given up on punishing Svend for his abuse. Technically he had only done it once, on accident, even if she had memories of it happening close to two dozen times. All she did now was gently remove his hand from her face and place it at his side.

  She rolled over and tried to decide what she wanted to do with her day. When she had first decided to follow Loco's advice and enjoy the loop she spent one pass timing how long she had between Svend's wake-up slap and the Chesed entering the storm that would destroy it. She had roughly seven hours and forty minutes from beginning to end on each loop. Long enough to watch a movie or a few episodes of whatever shows the ship's computers had stored, read half a book, or entertain the crew with whatever random thing came to her mind. But options were limited: they were in deep space so getting anything new on the computers was out of the question, and they didn't have enough time to get to any information hub to download more. She could learn new skills, but she couldn't physically improve herself because her body seemed to return to its previous state at the start of each loop.

  Not that she particularly minded having little to do. While Loco was most excited by the antics he could get away with without any consequences, Bentley was most enthusiastic about having something she had not had for a long time: down time. Time to just lie down and unwind and not have to worry about swords, the fate of humans and androids, or the mystical ways of Legba.

  Maybe she would just spend this entire loop in bed. That wouldn't be so bad.

  Next to her, Svend stretched and opened his eyes. “Bentley. Uh… hi, I mean, good morning.”

  Bentley smiled at him. “Good morning, Svend. Sleep well?”

  Svend sat up and pushed the covers off of him. “Yeah, it was good. I mean the sleep, I slept well. I mean, everything was good.”

  She didn't feel like getting up so she just kept lying there. “You toss in your sleep, you know?”

  He looked embarrassed. “I do? I'm sorry, I… this is all very new to me. Hopefully it doesn't bother you too much.”

  “It doesn't… until you smack me in the face and wake me up.” She rubbed at her nose, which was sore, but a pain that she was so familiar with by now it barely bothered her.

  Svend went into panic mode. “Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Are you alright?”

  Bentley rolled over on her side so she could look more directly at her lover. “I'm fine. Though I'm actually curious about something: are you always going to be so nervous when we're together?” Having no fear of consequences meant she could finally say what she wanted to say without worry.

  Apparently, androids could blush. “It's not that I'm nervous. Not really anyway. I'm just… I don't want to mess this up. I don't really know what I'm doing here, and I mean that in more than one way. On this ship, around this crew, here with you. It's all so… strange. And I don't really feel like I fit in. But I want to. And I really want to be with you. I just don't know when the wrong thing is going to come out of my mouth.” His face went from red to white. “Wait, was that the wrong thing?”

  She couldn't help but chuckle at the hapless android. “No, that was fine. Look, I know I come off as a stone cold badass…”

  “A sexy stone cold badass,” Svend corrected.

  “Right, a sexy stone cold badass, but it’s not like I'm going to gut-punch you for saying the wrong thing. We can't always be walking on egg shells with each other. Eventually we have to be comfortable enough with each other to just be ourselves.”

  Svend looked like he had been lectured by a teacher. “Yes, I… yes. I know that. I want that, too. I just… it is going to take some practice, I think. Until we're more comfortable. And we just haven't been together that much. I mean, we've been together. But we don't spend a lot of time together during the day. You're always kept so busy with your work on the ship, and I'm not usually given much to do, so I'm just left, you know, sitting around. Maybe when things are less crazy we'll have better luck.”

  Bentley remembered Svend saying this once before. And yet when would things be less crazy?

  Of course, she had all the time in the world right now. “Then let's spend some time together. Stay here with me today. We'll spend the whole day together.”

  Svend was caught off-guard. “What? Well, yeah, that would be great. But won't Shango need you for something?”

  As if on cue, a knock came at the door. “If you both are awake, Shango has requested the crew gather on the bridge A-S-A-P. That means, 'as soon as possible.' If you are not awake, please awake now.”

  There was no way she was going to Shango's morning janitorial meeting again. “Tell Shango I am not feeling well today, I'll be remaining in bed.”

  It was not that easy to get rid of Jelly Bean. “Have you fallen ill? Should I provide you with medical attention? I can take your temperature. Do you prefer oral or anal thermometers?”

  Svend came to her rescue. “It's alright, Jelly Bean, I'm in here taking care of her. I have… all the thermometers. Y
ou should go to the bridge, I'm sure Shango will need you with Bentley absent.”

  There was a moment of silence, as if Jelly Bean was calculating all this. “Okay. If you decide you need medical care, contact me at once.”

  Bentley sighed in relief. “Will do. Thanks, Jelly.”

  Svend and Bentley were left alone, with nothing to do but spend time together. And they used that time to great effect. Physically, mentally, and emotionally the two of them grew closer, working through the awkwardness of their relationship. By the end of it, Svend could even speak to her without stumbling over all his words. Just most of them.

  They knew that they still had a long way to go, that there was still a lot to figure out between them, but their confidence in the relationship soared. It reminded them of why they had wanted to be together in the first place, and taught them that all they really needed was time. They could make this work.

  “We have a situation up here. Everyone get to the bridge immediately.” Shango's voice on their corteX signaled the end of their day together.

  Svend pulled himself up as if getting ready to get out of bed. “Guess we should go up there, huh?”

  Bentley shook her head and pulled Svend back to the bed with her. “Don't worry about. Just stay here with me for a little longer.”

  He didn't argue, and the two of them spent the end of the Chesed together.

  Smack.

  Another day, another wake-up slap from Svend. Bentley wasn't even mad this time, she was riding a high on their relationship from yesterday. She shook her lover awake like an eager girl.

  Svend groaned and rolled over, then blinked a few times as he came awake. “Bentley. Uh… hi, I mean, good morning.”

  Bentley froze hearing Svend's stumbling words. “Good morning, Svend. Sleep well?”

  “Yeah, it was good. I mean the sleep, I slept well. I mean, everything was good.”