Ascent into the bored night sky or what passes for it, two of three spouts dry, just dim sparks from those, third doing its best, sullen gouts of fire, psoriasis flakes making doomed moth flashes as they plummet through the thrust. Damn, thinks USS Sooperman, thought I was done with the ointment. Surface looks as crap from nineteen thousand as it does down there. At least the complaints and grousing're less audible up here, as just then an arm falls off. Christ's puckered contribution, thinks USS Sooperman. Go back for it, or let's be honest still only takes one hand to spank it so maybe not. Plus the price of repair, the popularity of molybdenum. Dull clunk of the arm down below off a little Cessna bound east for Pope's Head Slick, probably. Pale tomato explosion says arm hit engine or maybe tank. One less object aloft is the good thing there. Combover flaps something awful at these speeds, nearly smarts slappng against one side then the other. Sole working spout cuts out for a second, and the new deceleration rides USS Sooperman's shorts way up. It's the heft of the prigging utility belt, unwelcome momentum, but wedgie friction looses some ooze from god knows where and wow're things free, shorts slipping down, way down. Spastic course change and USS Sooperman snags the elastic on the crook of a foot. Now there's all kinds of flapping. Aerodynamics get bad with doubling over to try to hoist the shorts back up, and a meteor hit on the ass arches USS Sooperman backward in pain so there's nothing to stop the next one square into paunch. Not enough hands to rub the stinging impacts. Ragged hole in the tummy carapace says what do you say now to the dumb claim of invulnerability, stupid loaf. Elastic's shot and that's it for the shorts, winging off behind. Chance they'll burn up on reentry, or if not end tangled on some useless public abstract sculpture art. USS Sooperman while considering takes a small research satellite in the face, sideways, so now frontal vanes are smashed, logo's dented, and nothing will look good down at Lonely Bar no matter how low the light. When after looking back up USS Sooperman sees faces pressed against the Shuttle's porthole windows looming just ahead it's not impossible that he accelerates.