Unconstant Love

by Timothy J Meyer

  “In a,” grunts Moira with exertion, “minute.”

  All of this is distraction. All Odisseus needs to focus on is the field exemptor, why it is not working and what he must do to get it working again.

  He spends perhaps a minute busy at work – unplugging connectors, adjusting valves, rebundling conduits, everything minute and inconsequential that he can think of, to ensure he's not neglecting anything. Outside, laserfire scorches the ship, the Captain threads the Lover through competing crossfire and the feeble ray shields are pushed to their absolute brink.

  Odisseus doesn't care. Odisseus is busy.

  His labor pays off eventually when he stumbles upon what may well be the culprit. The humblest of malfunctions, a feed cable has become so twisted it no longer carries its charge. All it needs is a length of conduit yanked from his toolbelt, a few quick bites and some careful twisting and it's repaired. This even seems to please the exemptor, those blue lights performing a little dance to show their approval.

  “There,” the Ortoki mechanic announces, scooting out from beneath the panel. “That oughta do it. Was the fucking stupidest–”

  “Do it,” Nemo orders, the strain in his voice increasing the longer this manic escape dragged on. “Do it now.”

  “What?” Odisseus starts, clambering to his feet and squinting out the viewport. “Are we there al–”

  Far as Odisseus can tell, there's still a minute or more before they need to fire the exemptor. The sky that separates The Unconstant Lover from the climatic field is still swarming with dropcraft, a concern the Ortok feels is much more pressing. Plus, at this extreme range, the field's command team may even have a chance to override their clearance and prevent their specific exemptor from unlocking the proverbial door.

  “Too early,” Odisseus starts to object. “We void the field now, that's just extra time for them to negate–”

  That's when the realization comes, Odisseus watching Nemo navigate a thicket of capital-class laserfire. “You don't trust that I fixed it.”

  “I trusted,” Nemo answers without hesitation, “it the first time. Shouldn't be a problem, though,” he counters, dipping the Lover a hair to avoid a blistering barrage, “if you fixed it, right?”

  It is not without some childish petulance that Odisseus, back to his feet, leans heavily over the communicator's panel. With eyes out the viewport and up into orbit, he presses the button with a claw.

  The climatic field does not disappear.

  He stands there a few seconds, claw still pressed against the button, pretending that the communication channels need a moment to open, that the exemptor takes a little time to broadcast its codes. Deep in his stomach, he knows it didn't work. He bobs and sways with each rocking motion of the swerving ship, his gaze fixed on that still-there hexagon of shimmering yellow climatic field, willing the thing to deactivate.

  “You gonna push it, or...?” Nemo, facing forward, wants to know. It takes an act of legendary restraint to keep Odisseus from reaching forward and pulping the Captain's windpipe with his claws.

  “This makes no sense,” Odisseus mutters under his breath.

  “What makes no sense?” Nemo perks up, endowed with inconveniently good hearing all of a sudden. “That you pushed the button and the climatic field's still up?”

  “I–”

  “Thought so.” There's a sudden crank on the yoke as The Unconstant Lover shifts her heading slightly, setting her sights on some new section of the climatic field.

  It's Flask who poses the obvious question. “So, what blooming now?”

  “There's gotta be a way–” Odisseus starts to insist, flush with embarrassment and rage, and he turns back toward the exemptor and the console it hides beneath.

  “Nah. New idea,” Nemo announces, his tone suggesting this was maybe the idea he'd rather they went with all along. Now that the ship's realigned, the Captain makes liberal use of the clutchlever to send The Unconstant Lover skyrocketing up at unprecedented speed.

  Not quite recalibrated after the previous collision, the inertial dampener doesn't really feel like dampening any inertia at the moment and subsequently tosses Odisseus backward and into the communicator's seat. He lands with a grunt, all his objections smacked out of him.

  He knew they were all dead anyway but a small part of Odisseus is somewhat relieved to be absolved of responsibility for their fate. This time, it actually sounds like all that's required of Odisseus now is to buckle his restraints and scream in terror at the appropriate moments.

  Moira loves this harness so much, she would consider marrying it. She will certainly be buried in it, she knows that much.

  Tebi-Gali, as a martial art, is very much the “one-on-one bout” type of martial art. Other disciplines – Thousand Fist or Zamazaghotra for example – are quite the opposite and revel in the multiple man melee. The most skilled of Galis, however, the myth-shrouded masters, were supposedly capable of engaging upwards of six opponents at once. In all fairness to Moira and her humanoid physique, the original species that pioneered Tebi-Gali were four-limbed, triple-jointed combat-savants.

  Four combatants, all arguably better trained than she is, is something of a tall order for Moira. Even the advantage of the harness, miraculous as it is, is more-or-less nullified when each of her opponents wears one and is an expert at incorporating it into their attack and parry routines.

  Nonetheless, it's an incredible rush, to feel the sheer strength behind each familiar blow and counterstrike, augmented by the servos inside the harness. She could strike twice as hard and twice as fast, cover double the distance she once could with each bound. If that somehow wasn't enough, she could always activate the flamejets and literally fly.

  Then, of course, there were the heatblades.

  Both of her opponents, the pinkskin and the Uvhog, don't seem too overawed by the feats of strength and athleticism their harnesses can achieve. They seem, to a ranger, more interested in putting Moira down as quickly as possible.

  She purchases a little wiggle room with a Whirlwind Ibexbok, one of the few Tebi-Gali maneuvers designed to engage multiple opponents at once. The humanoid scampers left, the Uvhog sidesteps right and Moira hardly has an opportunity to pant in exhaustion before the other two rangers open fire.

  Posted at complimentary angles to the main melee, the humanoid and the Hazric provide artillery, pecking at Moira's ray shield with fire whenever there's an opening. Moira'd chosen the cargo hold's starboard corner to make her last stand, ensuring she's not completely surrounded by rangers. Long as she kept two of them engaged with fisticuffs or heatblades, she couldn't be ignominiously gunned down by the other two.

  Every time those Dominos find an opening, though, her own ray shield takes quite a beating. It behooves Moira, therefore, to stay in combat with either of the rangers as long as she can, to grant her harness the time it needs to recharge.

  For her next attack, she chooses the pinkskin, based on the humanoid's unsteady footwork. Moira swings one heatblade around and into a stabbing motion, thrusting for the Comettail insignia in the harness' central plate. To give her stab a little more muscle, Moira kicks open her flamejet and skates the short distance between them, boosted by a sudden burst of fire.

  The pinkskin is indeed a little wobbly on her feet and it takes all the ranger's energy to scramble aside and dodge the flying thrust. In retaliation, she launches into a pre-coordinated maneuver – Drunken Palima – and it would've been child's play for Moira to dodge and deflect that routine, had the Uvhog ranger not come charging up to her defense.

  He leads with a headbutt, one powered by both flamejets and complimented by his pair of sloping tusks. Moira avoids this by leaping into the air, goosed by her own flamejets. The Uvhog goes rocketing beneath, narrowly missing headbutting a nearby hull support beam.

  No sooner has Moira gained this sudden height than the assault rifles blare back to life, rippling against her ray shield. Its dwindling strength – 8% and falling – flashes in her vis
or as Moira kills the flamejets and drops to the floor, landing in a Poised Hukia crouch.

  She's just landed, preparing to dodge the next attack the pinkskin's spinning to deliver, when her comm crackles.

  “You doing anything right now?” wonders Nemo idly, stress stretched tight across the illusion of his calm.

  Here comes the pinkskin's gambit – a flying kick, obviously inspired by Moira's own flying stab – and Moira goes ducking beneath, rolling across the hold floor to hopefully outmaneuver the leaping ranger. She's too slow, of course, and Moira only manages to clamber to her feet in time to meet the pinkskin's flurry of heatblade attacks.

  “Me?” Moira grunts. She dodges right, right and then swings left to right with her own heatblade – a sloppy, unprincipled attack but savage enough to earn a little space.

  Whatever space she does earn is quickly filled by the Uvhog, once again pounding in to trouble outnumbered Moira. The squat and stocky ranger, half a head shorter than Moira but twice as heavy, is more musclebound than most of his comrades and that shows in the powerful strikes he rains down on his cornered opponent. In the hands of the Uvhog, Patient Daridro is a devastating haymaker and Teekapar Swarm might, if landed properly, break through her ray shield and kill Moira outright.

  As always, of course, what his size gains him in strength, the Uvhog loses in speed. Moira's able to keep a few inches ahead of each of his teltriton-shattering swings.

  “No, Garrock buttfucking Brondi. Yes, you,” Nemo snarks. “Are you, Moira Quicksilver, doing anything right now?”

  Heatblades are nothing like true swords in practice and Moira cannot port over any of her knowledge of electrobaton or glassrock saber to apply to these strange weapons. They're weightless and can't, most crucially, be used to parry, the shimmering heat passing harmlessly through other blades. Tebi-Gali, then, makes sense as the ideal martial art to compliment this strange swordsmanship. Moira's problem is that she's not practiced at incorporating the extra ranger into her routines, constantly overestimating the distance to her foes.

  What Moira really wants is to find a window to bring either of her pistols back into fight, the weapons she feels most comfortable with. Against these ray shields, though, both Righty and Lefty are all but useless and Moira must be patient.

  Working in concert, the pinkskin and the Uvhog drive her further and further into the corner. To either side, the hold's teltriton walls start to encroach, constricting Moira's ability to dodge and weave. She'll make a fatal mistake any moment now, miscalculate a swing or bump stupidly into a wall and so end her life.

  “Kinda,” Moira hisses between gritted teeth. “Why?”

  In their overconfidence, however, the rangers overextend and that's the opportunity Moira seizes. The Uvhog commits both arms to a Clapping Ksaosiok, one Moira ducks to avoid. From there, she's perfectly positioned to spot the ranger's exposed thigh, his legs planted so wide that a patch of shaggy hide penetrates the outer edge of his shield.

  Fast as she can, Moira spins from the Clap and torques a wrist like a dash's handlebar to banish the heatblade. With a blur of her arm, Lefty leaps from her holster to her fist. The pistol cries out in joy to have an actual target and, at point blank range, the blast is devastating.

  The meat of the Uvhog's thigh practically explodes in a spray of teal blood. His pelt aflame, the ranger tumbles to the ground with an inhuman squeal. To her left, the pinkskin's shock is all too tangible and Moira moves quick to exploit this.

  “Hm,” Nemo contemplates over the comm. “No reason.”

  Moira swings her heatblade violently left, forcing the surprised pinkskin to stumble back a moment. This buys Moira the room she needs to drive a baby-stomping heel into the shield projector at the crux of the Uvhog's harness. There's a grunt from the downed ranger, a satisfying crunch from the projector and a single retort from Lefty.

  The Uvhog's ray shield down, there's nothing to stop Lefty's bolt from burying in the ranger's brain. The force of the shot shatters his visor and his great shaggy body falls limp.

  “Somebody in the torpedo tubes woulda been handy,” Nemo offers by way of explanation.

  As one, the two covering rangers open up with their Dominos, hammering Moira's poor shield that's barely had a moment to recharge. The pinkskin, at the same time, comes racing recklessly in on her flamejets to avenge her fallen comrade. That's her crucial mistake.

  Moira's only just fast enough to scoot backwards and, as the ranger goes roaring past, snag her flying wrist. There's a moment of awkward grappling, both women's servomotors whirring and complaining. Moira's able, with some effort, to convert the pinkskin's surprise to her advantage. When the dust settles, the spice ranger is held fast in Moira's Vooranga Chokehold, a live heatblade less than an inch from her throat.

  She flashes suddenly on another Vooranga Chokehold on another pinkskinned spice ranger the night before and wonders whether she should incorporate this into her daily exercise routine.

  This stops the gunfire dead, though it doesn't matter much. The way their bodies are positioned, their two ray shields are layered, one over another. Were they to fire through the first shield, they'd still need to puncture Moira's own shield – plus avoid hitting their comrade – to draw a bead on Moira.

  “No big, though,” Nemo dismisses. “Have fun!” The transmission clicks dead.

  Everyone's at a complete standstill a moment, panting and soaked with sweat.

  “Yield,” growls Moira, the heatblade close enough to the woman's throat to scald her flesh.

  Flask must have heard that wrong.

  “Excuse me,” he mentions to the room, soon as he can find an unoccupied second, when the shields're properly arrayed and actually holding steady, “did you fooking just say torpedo tubes?”

  His concentration admirably on the task ahead, Nemo's reply takes its time. “You heard that, did you?” he smirks, between harrowing twists of both yoke and Lover.

  Flask spread his hands. “I'm right here, ain't I?”

  His hands're off the controls one second before there's a fresh alert that starts blaring at him. There's more shield damage to the Lover's port quarter, presumably from some dropcraft. Once again, it's Flask's newfound duty to do something about that. He's back on the case, scrolling the gyroscopic seat about to better position the shield power and praying the sections he's leaving exposed don't now receive laserfire of their own.

  Out the viewport, the climatic field is once again an unbroken ocean of yellow. The Consortium cruiser is a hungry leviathan beneath the surface of that ocean, waiting to devour them soon as they dip a toe. The cruiser's broadside batteries keep firing but, to Flask, they seem somehow less accurate, their desperation to stop them showing through. More of their cannon fire lands among the dropcraft's dwindling ranks. Nearby explosions are common but no less deadly than laserfire.

  The part of Flask's mind that's still Jag can't comprehend the bureaucratic disaster this's become for the Consortium – a CCF cruiser, firing on its fleet of dropcraft, swatting their own soldiers from the sky. All to prevent this one interloping freighter and the one potted plant it carries from escaping the planet.

  Flask is starting to wonder about the Captain's exact heading. The higher they climb into Gi's atmosphere, it becomes increasingly clear that Nemo's not aiming The Unconstant Lover for the open expanses of climatic field. Instead, he's aiming towards the mechanical arms of the station, the strands of hangars and projectors that form the edges of the field's honeycomb. At first, he'd simply assumed this was to better shield the freighter from capital-class barrages but all this talk of torpedos suddenly has Flask very apprehensive.

  “These torpedos,” wonders Odisseus cautiously, thinking exactly what Flask's thinking, “don't have anything to do with this new idea, do they?”

  “Gee,” Nemo responds innocently, “what gave me away?”

  Flask shudders to hear the off-kilter lilt in Nemo's voice, that half-crazed quiet that seems to overtake him whenever h
e plays dice with everyone's lives. Flask considers the speed of the ship. He considers the distance between the ship and the bank of projectors. He considers, from months living and working aboard the station, the very, very many decks of very, very solid teltriton they were soaring straight towards.

  “Nemo,” Flask starts to plead, before that same “dropping shields” alarms draws his attention back to the consoles. “You gotta believe me on this, I been aboard that thing, it's too thick to–”

  Midway into his argument, Flask catches sight of the blue booster wash of a torpedo as it rockets away from The Unconstant Lover's dented nose. The Captain, steering with one hand, keeps firing them as he answers, tapping the launch button at seemingly random intervals. “Too thick to...?” he repeats significantly. “You were saying?”

  Flask's words evaporate as he watches the torpedos soar away from the freighter. In uneven clusters they're shot from the tubes below the helm – first two, then three, then another two. A small parade of missiles herald the Lover's approach to the space station ahead, with more and more torpedos falling into line all the time.

  “Worked before,” Nemo is heard to mutter. “No reason it wouldn't work again.”

  “Flask!” barks a desperate Odisseus. “Bombard shields, double forward!”

  Snapped from his hesitation, Flask goes scanning across the shielding station, in frantic search of the necessary controls to swap the Lover's shields from ray to bombard. With the pointing of claws and furious Ortoki yammering, the press-ganged co-pilot does eventually discover the necessary combination of keys and the actionable lever. With speedy fingers and one hasty yank, he activates the bombard shields the second before the first torpedo hits its target.

  The missile meets no resistance against the unshielded hull; no reason to shield the station with no spaceworthy enemies within the nearest thousand zottibles. Like a flaming drill, the torpedo punches a ragged hole straight through the teltriton, its edges toothy and blackened.

  This is only the opening, however, as torpedo after torpedo come happily on its heels and detonates inside the hole already blasted in the station's hull. There's a series of receding explosions, deeper and deeper within the station, and a rain of charred and twisted wreckage that comes clattering down onto the Lover below.