Nusquam & Rose Collaboration

A New Groban

"Life-form detected", droned the system AI.

Lydon's ship was floating in the lower stratosphere above a stripped and riddled plain; this was a world which should sustain no life.

Stroking the crease between his eyes, Lydon let out a sigh,"Microbial life-forms won't yield anything; look for structures."

The AI took control of the piloting system.  Lydon felt his ship shudder as it descended for another round of scans.  Reclining in his captain's chair, Lydon watched the data coming in: nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

The possibility of any structures remaining on this battered world seemed unlikely; it had to have been at least a billion years since anything had been constructed here, a mere reference in the archives. It would be an ideal place for a new hideout to store their haul, assuming they ever got out of this slump.

The data stopped coming in.  Lydon sat up and checked the monitors.  His ship had ceased its search pattern; instead, it hovered a several yards above the plain.

"Detect structures," repeated Lydon.  Damn glitching AI; there probably weren’t even microbial life-forms on this rock.  He should have coughed up the extra hundred marks for an upgrade.

Then something knocked.

"Hey Lydon, Open the door will ya?" a muffled voice called from under the hatch.

This happened all the time, the door would get stuck for no reason; so Lydon had to use a primitive doorstop, in the form of a crumpled up manifest--upgrades for the AI would have to wait until he scraped together enough to fix the door, or at least scavenged a better doorstop.

Raising himself out of his heavily worn 'captain's chair', in reality an antique he had scavenged, Lydon made his way to the door, stooping down to scoop up the displaced manifest.

"Heads up!" yelled Lydon, seconds before slamming both his feet down on the hatch.  The hinges hissed and the floor hatch popped open enough for Groban to stick an arm through the opening at the peak of a jump and begin to squirm his way back in.

"Did you find anything out there?" asked Lydon.

"Does this look like the face of someone who found anything out on this barren pointless rock?" groaned Groban, still hanging half out of the ship. He disengaged his helmet and had it half off before Lydon pushed it back on.

"Then get back out there."

With a dismissive grunt, Groban moaned, "You're the one who wanted to search this shithole for Iridium; so why am I the one digging around while you sit in here searching for a new hideou--"

Groban didn't manage to finish his sentence before Lydon's boot dislodged him.  Groban fell in ironic slow motion--the low gravity and relatively short drop would prevent any serious injury, beyond Groban's already crushed pride that is.

Bellowing after the flailing man who was still slowly drifting down, Lydon replied, "Because I’m the captain this week!"  Pushing a man out of a ship may seem cruel, but Groban had done the same thing to Lydon last week--now they were even... or at least they would be once Lydon had finished his week in charge.

Lydon settled back into the captain's chair and woke up the AI console with a heavy smack.

"Detect Structures," he instructed.  The useless manual was still in his hand; he had forgotten to use it to jam the door open.  Groban would just have to knock again.

"Structures Detected," droned the AI.  Lydon nearly fell out of the captain’s chair.  Life-forms and structures could mean civilization. Civilization meant laws. Laws meant he and Groban had better get going.

They didn't have a second set of protective gear, but Lydon didn't plan on being exposed very long.  After parking his ship on its side, descending the ramp, and using the manual to jam the door, he set off to follow Groban's boot-prints.

Trudging along the surface, Lydon looked up at the stars and sighed; he was too old to be doing this.  It was supposed to be his week off.  He should have invested in some radio devices for the helmets, but without a second set of gear it hadn't seemed important at the time.

Following the boot-prints, Lydon made his way over a ridge and into the dark valley below.  Then... the prints disappeared.

Confused, Lydon flicked his light around, looking for the next set of prints. Nothing.  Groban was probably skipping across the surface at this very moment, without a care in the world; he was a bit daft like that.  Unlike Lydon, he didn't have old age as an excuse.

Something glowed under the light.  Drawing closer, Lydon lost all interest in the disappearance of his comrade--shiny things tended to do that.  The light flickered, then died.  Lydon swore, ‘How long would he need to keep using sub-par equipment?’

While Lydon tried to get the light to flicker back on, the whole valley burst with bright light--momentarily blinding him.

Then, a scream.

A blaring monotone voice seemed to be repeating instructions in a guttural alien language.  Not waiting to find out firsthand what the voice meant or if it had been Groban that screamed, Lydon did what Lydon did best; he hightailed it out of there.  Maybe Groban would be waiting for him at their ship--maybe not.  Good news was he’d be the sole owner now--if he could make it out of this predicament.

A click to the side startled him, but he saw nothing.  The blinding light, the alien voice, and the plain he stood on had vanished.  He groped about in the dark.  Another click; again nothing.  Click. Click. Click.

Lydon stopped.  He waited, motionless until--click.  He spun about, trying to find the source of the clicking, but he felt nothing--saw nothing.  He'd be ready the next time there was a click.  Seconds passed, but there was nothing.

Lydon blinked and the barren plain returned.  He was alone, standing at the foot of the ramp leading up to his ship.  These episodes happened from time to time in moments of heightened stress.  Though after two years without an incident, he had assumed he was better.

Lydon searched the empty horizon.  He could go back… but he wasn't an idiot.  If Groban was still there, he had no intentions of joining him in… whatever that place was.

He would just procure a new partner in the next cluster; it wasn't that hard.  After all, this was the fourth Groban, so far; he didn’t feel like learning a new name every time someone was digested by carnivorous plants, accidentally fell into the engine, 'accidentally' fell into the engine, or was captured by odd clicking sounds.

This may again seem callous, but Lydon was fairly certain that he was the third such Lydon that Groban had traveled with; at least he had the sense not to choose a partner based on a name.  He was the captain this week, so to hell with Groban.   Anyway, Lydon was getting sick of his weird habit of sniffing everything he ate.  In fact Groban spent so much time sniffing, Lydon had never seen him take a bite.  A real pity though, to lose the one set of protective gear; it would be difficult to replace.

Making his way up the ramp to the ship, he noticed that the manual had been knocked out of the cracked door.  Wasn't that just typical.  It was a two person job to pry open the door from the outside.  Infuriated, Lydon kicked the door.  What a useless manual; transcribed in dozens of languages, you would think it could at least hold a door open!

"Who is it?" called a voice from inside his ship; it didn't sound like the latest Groban.

"I'm the captain, who're you?"

"I fly while others sleep and sleep while others fly.  I swell with pride and cry on flowers.  Who am I?"

"What are you on about? Let me in, I'm the captain!" Lydan kicked the door again.

"Oh.  You aren't the other guy are you?  The other guy knows the answer."

‘He must be talking about Groban’, thought Lydon.  Perhaps he should've tried harder to save that Groban; but to be fair, Lydon had no idea Groban had friends in the area--Lydon had no idea Groban had friends at all.  That gave him an idea.

"No, but I'm Groban’s friend.” said Lydon.  “Let me in and I'll tell you about our time in Endroch; lots of good-times pulling that job."

"How about you tell me where the start button is, and then I’ll let you in." replied the voice--like Lydon would fall for that one.

"Start button?  You don't have a clue how to fly this do you? Looks like neither of us are going anywhere until you let me in."

Silence; then the voice asked again, “Who am I?”

With a sigh of frustration, Lydon asked, “You know the answer to the riddle, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Well… In that case, if you know the answer; you must be Groban.”

“That's not how logic works. You can't just...”

Lydon didn’t let the voice finish, “Open the door Groban, I'm not in the mood for games.”

“But I'm not…”

Again, Lydon cut the voice off, “Good, since neither of us are in the mood for games, open the damn door.”

The door slid open enough that Lydon could squeeze through.  In the dim light he finally got a look at the stranger; with a smile, Lydon realized he had found a new partner, “So what was the answer, Groban?”

"It's a secret," replied the new Groban, "Maybe I'll tell you one day, but for now you don't need to know."

New Groban rose from the captain's chair and walked over to an open corner.

Lydon frowned.  How was it that this new Groban had been sitting in the captain's chair when he had opened the hatch for Lydon moments before?  That was youth for you; always darting from place to place for no reason.

"One day?  You act like we'll be together awhile," said Lydon as he took back his captain's chair.  He kicked the main console three times, prayed to lady luck, and booted up the ship.

The new Groban settled down in the corner of the cockpit.  "Who says we won't?" he added, before rolling over for a nap.

Lydon didn’t care for his new comrade's attitude; looking back at the door, he almost considered going back to find that old 'food sniffing' Groban--almost.  At least this Groban hadn’t tried negotiating rights to the chair; and now that he was asleep in the corner, he wasn't annoying in the slightest.

Other than being down to no sets of protective gear, Lydon was back where he had started: a semi-functional ship, a companion trained to respond to Groban, and the open universe before him--chalk full of opportunities for the taking.

Lydon browsed through the sky charts before selecting a random planet that his ship had enough fuel to get to.  It didn't really matter where they went next, so long as he didn't park where they checked registration numbers.

Tenbotsu

"How much time have we got left?" asked Groban.

Lydon did not respond.  Every word spoken depleted their already dwindling supply of air.  Groban knew this; Lydon had told him twice, but he wasn't willing to waste air on a third warning. 

Lydon instead settled for glaring at his partner of three days.  It looked like this Groban was going to be the last Groban. 

Lydon brought his eyes back to the scanner.  He had been staring at it for the last few hours.  He could have passed off the duty to Groban, but there was little to stave off boredom.  Around and around the scanner went, picking up nothing, nothing, and more nothing--no one in range, no one to help them, not that they could afford a towing. 

At least this Groban didn't smell.  Oh how he hated this 'Sir I-am-so-fresh'; who the hell doesn't smell after three days cooped up in their own filth?  Now Lydon was all self-conscious, and even the beep of the scanner seemed to be mocking him; how the hell else was he supposed to interpret *beep* *beep* *beep*?

Apparently this Groban didn't know how to read the mood, "How much air you think we got left?"

Well, that decided it, Groban needed to die.  A shame really, but all Grobans had to die eventually; it was the circle of life--or something.  With more air, that could have been insightful, all the more reason that Groban had to go.

With a sigh Lydon dug out a scrap of paper and a pen--he liked to keep it retro, that, and it was all he could afford. With a twitch of the eye, Lydon informed Groban, "I'm sorry, but this just isn't working out; I'm afraid I am going to have to let you go."  Then, with a sudden shift in tone, he extended the paper, "please sign here..."

Groban looked over the note, perplexed, "But it’s blank?"

"Consider it your Notice of Termination, a Suicide Pact, an Elegy... Whatever, I'll think of something to fill in later."

Groban seemed amused at the idea, signing the note with that knowing smirk.  Yep... Groban needed to go.

Dragging a non-resisting Groban to the Airlock, Lydon bid his partner of three-days adieu, "You're a f*****g prick, I'll mail you your stuff."  He wasn't going to...

Lydon looked through the airlock door, for an idiot who would walk into an airlock so willingly, this Groban had an infuriating attitude.   Thinking of all the air he would save Lydon cheerfully hit the Eject button, then turned back to his chair; maybe now he could take a nap in peace.

"How much air have you got left?" asked Groban. 

"If you ask that aga..." Lydon began to yell, but stopped himself.  Yelling wasted even more air than talking.  But more than that, how was Groban still on the ship?  Lydon opened his eyes; lounging in the same corner he had been, before Lydon had sent him on a space-walk, was Groban--still wearing that same obnoxious grin. 

Lydon grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back to the airlock.  Again, Groban didn't put up a fight; in fact he seemed quite amused.  Lydon eased himself onto the floor; there was no point.  However Groban had gotten back onto the ship, he would just do it again; opening the door would only waste air. 

"What the hell are you?" asked Lydon.  Now that the lightheadedness had sunk in he had stopped caring so much about preserving a few more breaths of air. 

"I fly when others sleep…" 

"And sleep when others fly," responded Lydon with an uncharacteristic chuckle.  "How did the rest go? Something about being a pansy?"

"I swell with pride and cry on flowers."

"What's it all mean?" asked Lydon between frantic chuckles. His limbs were heavy, stuck to the metal floor like road-kill; he still didn't know, he probably would never know, what it all meant.  What did it mean that he always came so close to the big pay-off, but things always fell through?   What did it mean that no one would ask about him after he’d left?

"Don't worry," said Groban.  Lydon distantly felt himself being patted on the shoulder. "Everything in time."

"Time, do I look like I have time?"

Tilting his head back Lydon couldn't help but laugh nervously, and soon hysterically; he was almost out of air--why else would he be laughing?  As he lowered his gaze back to Groban, his demented smile faded; there was nothing where Groban had stood mere moments before.

"Out here," the voice mocked.

Turning to the airlock, Lydon cocked his head in confusion, Groban was nonchalantly floating out in space, as though it was only natural--still wearing that irritating grin!

"You do realize it... right?"

"Realize what?"

With a chuckle Groban vanished, leaving only a voice rolling in the back of his head, "You're bat-s**t insane..."

The room was spinning, as if the whole ship was plummeting through the void; Lydon's head throbbed as he was suddenly and abnormally aware of the nothingness which was trying to tear the ship apart.

As Lydon lapsed into a deep sleep he felt the words, "Surely you have noticed, Fourth." rasped out behind lips which seemed to move on their own.

Then there was a nagging sense, of things not being quite what they were.  He couldn't see it, but he could feel it--he was dreaming.

He took a step forward and instantly knew what was so different.  He was young!

“Sweetheart,” a woman called from the other room. Something smelled good. He followed the scent of spiced ham into the kitchen.

“I know you're excited about your license,” said the woman. “But I can't have you waking up your little brother.”

“My license?” Lydon asked.

“Now I know your father promised he'd let you take your first flight tonight, but something came up.  He'll take you in the morning.”

Lydon wasn't about to sit around in dream world and wait for an absentee father.  He wanted to fly!

As soon as his mother, his dream mother that is, went to bed, Lydon was out the front door. 

He did not know where to go exactly, but this was a dream; when you are dreaming you tend to stumble upon what you need.  Just like that, Lydon happened upon the perfect opportunity; an unattended vessel, hatch open and engine running. He slipped inside and sealed the hatch.  Now this was a captain's chair; he swiveled once around before taking his escapade seriously.  Now where was the start button?

A loud banging at the door startled Lydon; he practically fell out of the chair.  Somehow Lydon knew that he wasn't supposed to be here, but...  Nervously Lydon swallowed before calling out, "Who is it?"

An irate voice from the other side of the door, "I'm the Captain, who're you?"

Wait... Who was he again?  Yet even though he had no idea how to answer, his lips seemed to take a mind of their own, "I fly when others sleep and sleep when others fly. I swell with pride and cry on flowers. Who am I?"  Lydon reached up to his mouth, it felt like something else was guiding his tongue; what did it even mean?

With a gasp, Lydon lurched towards the door; something felt different.  Pausing for a moment, he looked down at his hands, they were larger, wrinkled...  He must be awake; strange, he never felt like he woke up... was he even dreaming?

Looking around the room, everything seemed different.  It had, but moments before, all looked so new; now everything was dilapidated, cast in a dusty glow of flickering lights.  And the old Captain’s chair, where had it gone?  Odd, Lydon felt a tear trickle down his cheek.

"Requested Coordinates now in Range," droned the AI, interrupting Lydon's feelings of nostalgic Déjà vu--or was it Jamais vu?

"I don't remember requesting any coordinates," replied Lydon, his mind still a bit foggy.

The AI showed, if only briefly, its dry sense of humour, "It is not within my parameters to regulate your memory."

Lydon eased himself onto the metal floor; it didn’t feel right, at least for the moment, to sit in the antique chair that had replaced the Captain’s chair all those years ago. "Well, is it within your discount parameters to put whatever's in range on the freakin’ discount monitor?"

"Yes," said the AI.  A moment later it continued, "Would you like me to display the…"

“Yes! You stupid machine!" interrupted Lydon.

The system paused.  Lydon worried for a second that he had somehow insulted his ship into breaking; but that was ridiculous, emotional AIs were expensive beyond insanity and they had no place on ships. 

The monitor flickered back to life.  Unless his AI had developed a sense of humour; he was minutes away from docking in a regulation space station. Uniform ships streamed in and out of ports.  Small one-man maintenance scuttled over the surface of the station.

"Turn this ship around!” Lydon ordered, before remembering he was alone. He knelt at the console and began punching in commands. 

"Are you sure?" asked Groban. 

Lydon whipped around. There was Groban, still lounging in his usual corner. 

"If you run then you'll definitely run out of air," warned Groban. "And after all that trouble I went to."

Laughing like the maniac that he certainly was, Lydon replied, “See if I give a s**t, I’m not going to rot away in some prison!”

Groban did not at all seem impressed, “I’m sure you could get out with a plea of insanity.”

“I’m not insane!  You’re just a figment of my imagination…”

“Is that so?” replied Groban before gesturing at Lydon’s hands, “It seems that Tenbotsu disagrees.”

Looking down at his hands, Lydon was horrified to see that he had no control over them.  No matter how desperately he wanted to escape, his hands were guiding the ship in to dock--he had no control.

A hiss as the ship docked.  With an unusual response time, Lydon heard a pounding on the door, “Open up now!  This ship registration matches with that of the vessel which destroyed the Nebulerium System; come out with your hands above your head.”

Lydon was frantic now; how the hell had he got himself in this situation?  And what was the Nebulerium System anyway?  Sure, the vessel was stolen, but he had never even been to any Nebulerium System.  Looking around, he hissed, “Groban, you snake!  Where are you?”

No reply; he was alone now.

What was he going to do?  He had maybe thirty seconds to figure something out. That was until his hand slammed down on the hatch release, which for once opened smoothly.  Looking at his disobedient hand, Lydon gasped in horror--he didn’t even have thirty seconds now.  He was immediately surrounded by dozens of trigger-happy soldiers, their weapons trained on his chest.

Lydon wanted nothing more than to sink into the chair, to disappear; he wasn’t a brave person, he never pretended he was.  He had only gotten this far in life by running, from everything.  But apparently his body didn’t care what he wanted, as it confidently rose from the chair, and calmly spoke, 

“Marshal Tenbotsu, lower your weapons.”

The captain looked at him skeptically, “Forgive me if I don't believe you.”

With a smile, Lydon felt his hand slowly, but deliberately reach into his pants, pulling out an identification card which he had never seen in his life.  He tossed it to the captain.

The captain looked at the card closely, before leaping into a salute; the other soldiers followed his lead. With a beaming smile the man stuttered, “I never expected the great Tenbotsu to visit a station such as this; apologies for the misunderstanding.”

As his hand came up into a salute, Lydon felt himself utter those words which he would have never said, “I simply do what I can to preserve order, peace, and justice.”  What was this schlock; did these soldiers actually believe this bullshit superhero cliché?

The captain didn’t seem to think that it was any ‘simple’ thing, as he declared, “It is a pleasure; I am sure the Magistrate will be delighted to have such a renowned hero join him for supper; and to hear how you managed to capture the dreaded ‘Harbinger’.”

With a grin, Lydon decided that being this Marshal Tenbotsu might not be a bad thing if there was a free meal involved.  Considering that he was expecting to be arrested on sight, this was a nice change of pace; and with a magistrate?  Lydon couldn’t help but puff out his chest as he took back his ID, and followed his new escorts into the station.