the fallen beginning, part 2

“Shad, you mechanical genius, we’ve done it,” Valerie thrilled. I flexed my neurons and growled contently. Valerie stretched out her arms to me and I was about to gnash my face into her neck when a tensile parsec strap whipped our bow around and we both nearly were jerked from our crash seats.

 “Crap, one of those crafty bastards flew into our wake. Well, they won’t like this. Much.”

 The police beam was strong, state of the art, and too tight to evade. We were sailing smoothly through the worm hole, and only God or one of his evil henchmen knew where. But what I did know, and Valerie bunched noticeably, was that the convex skein was unpleasant, probably deadly. I wrenched the wheel and we skittered off its surface, dragging the cops into our sparks.

 Their faces turned spasmic in our viewfinder as the coppers quickly disintegrated into flux with their outer wrappings of vinyl and steel. I made a face and Valerie nervously giggled. Her fingers again turned my flesh into a mash of purple worm tracks as I wrestled the Star Hopper into submission and centered her back into the easy flow.

 “You mad man, so to speak,” Valerie sighed. “Soccer blue! I’ll kiss your pasty diodenous lips if you get us though this noodle.” Thankfully she relaxed her grip before my arm went to sleep.

 I winked and subconsciously set a subtle course as we fell monotonously down the portal’s tube to what/where/whenever. The cargo was safe, but delivery might be delayed, if not impossible. I lifted my buckled boots onto the dash and folded my arms across my lashings as Valerie swayed in her seat and hummed a heroic bar of The Galactic Anthem. She flipped up a double bird and laughed into the streaming void.