The story arc Aurora of Rainbow Fire is part two of an ongoing series called The Odd Man Out. All current parts can be found at https://members.tripod.com/fanservicelimited/index.html
Aurora of Rainbow Fire chapter seven: Learning to Fly part b.
A Tenchi Muyo TV series lemon comedy by Nugar. Email the author at nugarthebarbarian@yahoo.com with any comments. All Tenchi Muyo characters and situations copyright their creators, Hiroki Hayashi and Masaki Kajishima, and AiC and Pioneer and are used without permission. All other characters and situations are owned by a whole lot of various people. This is a nonprofit work only.
"You sure are talented," Mihoshi said in awe as she watched Robot serve the stream of passengers that came by for drinks and ice cream. His digital memory and inhuman reflexes allowed him to get every order right the first time, exactly as the patron wanted it, within seconds, and was still able to carry on their conversation. She'd thought he was fast when he had made her own rootbeer float, but he had apparently been taking his time.
"Thanks," he replied modestly as he built a chocolate, coconut, and rosesap milkshake. "I am fully equipped for serving our passengers every need." He winked. "And I do mean _every_ need, cutie."
The innuendo was almost lost on Mihoshi. "Umm, like what?" she asked, pausing to suck on her straw. "Laundry, cooking, stuff like that?"
He waved one hand in dismissal. "Nah, we have organic beings to take care of the menial stuff. Quite frankly, I feel that cleaning the cabins is all many of them are suited for, not that robots couldn't do it better. But hey, it leaves us android types to our higher calling." Robot glanced around the room, noticing that the steady flow of passengers had dropped off to a trickle, most having left the cozy family room for the nighttime party rooms. He returned his attention to her. "I usually just work here, because it's all I'm contracted for. But occasionally, I find a beautiful woman worn by the cares of the world, such as yourself, who needs some special consideration to relieve her...tension, which I'm all too happy to provide." He laughed quietly to himself, a muffled, hydraulic sound.
"Ohhh," she replied, fascinated. "And how would you relieve my tension?" she asked innocently.
His eyes twinkled, their light glinting off the polished crystal of her glass. "I'd give you one of my interstellar- famous backrubs, of course."
Mihoshi lit up at the idea. "I like-" she began, but he interrupted.
"As a starter. For someone as tense as you... I might have to bring out my special attachments." He winked.
"Special attachments?" Mihoshi asked, losing the thread of conversation.
"Well, in order to better serve our passengers special needs, I am fully programmed to be proficient in all forms of exotic sexual congress." Robot replied without modesty. "I don't cause pregnancies, I never tell others, I can't be bribed, I'm not alive so technically it's not adultery, and I disinfect myself daily, so you never have to worry about strange diseases."
"Oh! You're talking about sex!" Mihoshi exclaimed. "I thought you were talking about a manicure!"
Robot froze in place, and his eyes blinked blue for several seconds, then, without warning, he kicked himself and his eyes turned back to normal, this whole process being the robotic equivalent of a facefault. "Why would you think I was going to give you a manicure?"
"Well, manicures always relax _me_," she replied defensively. "Pedicures, too. How was I supposed to know you were talking about sex?"
"Bec-" He stopped. "Nevermind. Have you ever had sex with a robot before?"
She glanced around in embarrassment, blushing. Then she leaned in and lowered her voice. "Unh huh."
"I see. And did you like it?"
Mihoshi's tone remained low, but this time it was more in awe than embarrassment. "It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. I've NEVER had anyone last that long before."
"Organic males are infamous for the fire-and-forget method they use during sex," Robot replied smugly. "Us android types, though, well, we bring new meaning to the term 'DO loop'." He sniggered, his head bobbing rhythmically. "I have equipment for _all_ kinds of sexual endeavors. Would you care to try some of them?" he asked hopefully.
Mihoshi wavered in indecision. "Well, I don't know..."
"Oh, come on. You're on one of the most luxurious ships in the Juraian Empire, you should take advantage of the opportunity! What's the point in traveling in this kind of style if you're not going to use the facilities available? It's risk free!"
Mihoshi shook her head. "No, no, I'm escorting someone to Jurai, I need to stay close to her at all times."
Deciding that the more personal touch was in order, Robot took off his white, spotless apron and tossed it into a drawer behind the counter. He walked around and quickly took Mihoshi's hand.
She was taken aback by his forwardness, but he seemed so earnest she couldn't get angry.
"Mihoshi, I am a normal, healthy android with normal, healthy appetites. You are without a doubt the most luscious, sweet, charming female of any species that has ever ordered a rootbeer float from my fountain. I really do think that you're stressed and overworked, and you need some downtime. I, personally, would be more than happy to ease the tension in your muscles because I can't stand to see young women working themselves into an early grave. I'm just programmed that way. Now, if you don't want to go any further, I won't force you, but please, allow this, your humble digital assistant, to give you a backrub."
Mihoshi blinked, looked thoughtful, then shrugged and nodded her head. "Okay."
"Ladies and gentlethings, the soda fountain is now closed!" he announced to the room at large, then gently escorted Mihoshi out the door, smiling as widely as the blinking lights of his mouth would simulate.
At one of the nearby tables, a skinny humanoid with greenish skin sniffed his glass of coke and nudged his pale pink companion. When his friend looked up, he gestured at the departing robot.
His friend nodded agreement. "Typical robot. The hottest babe on the whole ship shows up for a drink and he has to make a play for her."
"c4, c5, c6... Here we go. Cabin c7, which, if the ship's logs are correct, the lesbians are staying in." Amaraba knocked on the door proudly.
"Let's just get this over with," Ura hissed quietly, looking around nervously as she pushed the hovering cube-shaped laundry cart behind him. The bag full of drugs was inside, under some clean sheets.
After waiting several moments to make sure no one was inside, Amaraba pulled out his omnicard, preparing to swipe it through the keyslot.
"Cool it!" Ura hissed suddenly. "Blonde-haired lesbian drugrunner on your left!"
"Huh?" Amaraba asked, only to give a muffled protest as Ura grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him into the cart head over heels.
"Lie still!" Ura ordered, and quickly started pushing the cart away from the door, whistling innocently.
Mihoshi rushed by on the way to her cabin, a slightly wild look in her eye. Her hair was mussed, her clothes twisted, and her shirt was untucked and badly buttoned, with some of the buttons not fastened at all. She passed Ura and the laundry cart without even a glance.
Ura, curious, turned and watched as she strode up to the door to c7 and started fumbling around in her pockets, vainly searching for her card. After several fruitless moments, the strange woman uttered a sort of despairing wail and banged her head against the door several times. Ura shook her head sadly. That woman had problems.
Mihoshi was not happy. It wasn't that the little encounter with Robot hadn't gone well, it was that it had gone so well she had decided to spend the rest of the journey in his cabin, and she wanted some clothes. But now she'd forgotten her keycard somewhere, and her detour to her cabin was taking up valuable time! She hit her head one more time and turned to leave, only to spot the maid with the laundry cart, whistling an impressive two-part harmony.
Ura was startled and frightened when the blonde girl suddenly stared intently at her and walked for her. She knows! That's why she's so upset! Somehow, she found out! All Ura could think was that she was about to die. Dignity abandoned, she prepared to drop to her knees and bargain for her life.
"Excuse me, I lost my card and I can't get into my room. Could you let me in?" Mihoshi asked.
Ura's thought processes ground to a halt. "Huh?"
"It really is my cabin, you can check the registry. I do have my ID-" She started reaching toward one of her pockets, and Ura immediately panicked, thinking it was a gun.
"Oh! Ohh! I see. No, no, that's okay, I believe you. I know who you are, yes, I'll let you in, no problem!" Ura hastily assured her. "We do this all the time!" She hurried over to the door to c7 and swiped her own card through the reader. Then she put in her personal passcode and the door obligingly dematerialized.
"Thank you!" Mihoshi said gratefully, shaking Ura's hand enthusiastically before practically skipping inside. The door reappeared behind her.
Ura sagged bonelessly against the wall, the adrenaline flowing out of her body in a rush. She didn't know. She didn't know. Ura sighed in relief, then turned back to her laundry cart. "Amaraba, you can get out of the cart now."
Amaraba's head popped up, wrapped in a sheet with only his eyes left uncovered. "We cool?"
Ura nodded. "For now. She's inside the room, we'll have to wait for her to come out."
At that moment, the door dematerialized again and Mihoshi practically ran out, a loose bundle of clothes in her arms. Amaraba cursed and ducked back below the rim of the cart, but it was unnecessary. Mihoshi wouldn't have noticed if he'd been wearing a clown suit and dancing the whipped monkey.
Ura waited until the blonde was out of sight, then reached in the cart and prodded her boyfriend. "Hey, she's gone. Let's do this and get it over with."
Amaraba jumped up and started climbing out, struggling to free himself of the tangle of sheets. Unfortunately, he had done a little too good of a job burrowing in the pile to escape detection from above, making the whole process take much longer than it should have.
"Oh, please. Can't you do anything right?" Ura asked in exasperation. "Here, let me help you." She added her own efforts to the task of freeing her boyfriend.
"Don't look now, it's that little girl!" he said suddenly, looking over her shoulder.
Ura turned around to see the young girl, possibly the adopted daughter of the two lesbian drugrunners, jog by them to the door Mihoshi had just left from. The girl smiled at them, gave a friendly wave, put her card in the slot and quickly entered the room.
"Damn," Amaraba said succinctly, then simply gave up and pulled his girlfriend over the rim of the cart, ignoring her protesting squeal. The cart was only about five feet square by four high, making it a little cramped for the two of them.
"Hey! What's the big idea?" Ura rolled on top of him and poked him sharply in the chest.
"Mobile lookout post," he replied with a grin. "We stay in here and peek over the top until she leaves and the cost is clear." His hand caressed her leg, and it was obvious from the way he pressed into her from below that he had more on his mind than peeking.
"Amaraabaa," she drawled in amusement. "Stop it, we don't have time for this."
"Why not, babe? There's no telling how long she'll be in there. Could be allll night lloonng..." He grabbed her forcefully and rolled over, wrapping a sheet around them as his hands wandered.
Ura decided she didn't like that, so she rolled the two of them back over, still covered by the sheet. "Well," she said breathily. "I guess we'll just have to keep up the watch all night long as well." Playfully, she tugged his shirt up around his neck.
Amaraba was just about to reply when they heard a number of light, running footsteps go by. Ura raised up with the sheet over her head like a cloak, standing up over his waist just enough to look around and see Sasami run down the corridor. Sighing, she lowered herself back down to a sitting position over his pelvis. "She just left."
"Awww..." Amaraba complained as his hands unbuttoned her shirt from the neck down. Ura didn't protest, and he quickly pushed it back and ran his hands over her breasts, still bound by a bra.
"And just what do we have here?" asked a cold, unfriendly voice.
"Heek!" Ura replied, or something to that effect, quickly pulling the sheet around so that only her head was visible. With the way she was straddling his waist, it looked to both Amaraba and the newcomer that they were in a very compromising position.
"Uhhh, uhh, what does it look like?" Amaraba replied, struggling to slide forward and sit up, which caused Ura to eep in response. They both turned to see Kiyone's stern face looking down at them, not a trace of amusement on her features.
"I'm not sure. On the surface, it looks like two kids that don't have the common decency to keep private things private, but I _would_ like to know just why you decided to have your little tryst directly in front of MY cabin. Are you spying on us, hmm? Casing the joint before you rob it?" Kiyone unleashed her best cop's frown on the huddled pair, and it was truly terrifying.
"I-I-I-I-uh-no-uh" Ura attempted to explain, the words jamming up and twisting around her tongue into an meaningless babble.
Amaraba, on the other hand, had a rare flash of inspiration. "Your cabin? What the hell do you mean? Aren't we in the _laundry room_?"
A smile almost flickered onto Kiyone's face. "No, you're in the middle of a hall on the C branch."
"No, I'm telling you, we were just in the _laundry room_, taking a break, you know. How in the hell did we end up on the C branch?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Kiyone said dryly, "but here you are."
"Did you hear that, babe? We're not in the _laundry room_ at all." He poked Ura lightly in the arm. "We're on the C branch. Now ain't that somethin'? We _were_ just in the _laundry room_, weren't we, babe?"
Ura nodded shyly. "Laundry room," she repeated.
Amaraba nodded emphatically. "Yep. Someone must have played a mean trick on us, pushing us from the laundry room out here to the C branch while we were too busy to notice."
"Well, if you two are so insistent on being in the laundry room, why don't you get out and GO to the laundry room? The rest of us don't want a public sex show, and if we did, we'd go to the recreation room. Now get out of here, and don't let me catch you loitering around here again!" she ordered.
Amaraba struggled out from under his horribly embarrassed girlfriend, pausing to make some fake adjustments to his clothes beneath the sheets, as if he really had been hanging out. "Don't worry, babe, I'll take care of it. You stay in here." With a little assistance from Kiyone, Amaraba was able to climb out of the cart.
"One more thing," Kiyone added, putting her hands on her hips and leaning in to Amaraba's personal space.
"Yeah?" he asked, leaning back.
"Make sure you wash those sheets again before you put them on anyone's bed. If I find a wet spot on my bed, I'm coming after _you_ first. Got it?"
He gulped. "Got it."
Kiyone watched in satisfaction as he hurriedly pushed the laundry cart down the corridor and around a corner. That had been an amusing diversion, but it hadn't put her any closer to finding out who was after Sasami, nor why. Still having rounds to make, she quickly turned and walked away in the other direction, completely missing the head that peeked around the corner and watched until she was gone.
A minute later, Amaraba, Ura, and the cart all hurried back to the room. Amaraba quickly swiped his card through the reader, keyed in his code, and ran into the cabin.
Ura dug around in one corner of the cart and found a large, soft bundle which had been carefully wrapped in sheets. She removed the covers and produced the duffle bag, which she exchanged with Amaraba, who stood in the doorway with an identical one. He disappeared back into the room to put the replacement in the other's original position and she stayed to hide the one he handed her.
Their task completed, they let the door materialize and hurried away, their mission a success.
Kiyone looked around suspiciously as she prowled the service corridors of the ship. Technically, she wasn't supposed to be there. All doorways leading into them were locked and required both a crewmember's omnicard and pass code to open.
Of course, a Galaxy Police officer's control cube could do many wonderful things.
Kiyone had been wandering the corridors for much of the past three hours, having skipped dinner, paying particularly close attention in the ones running through C branch, where their cabin was. In that time she had found half a dozen bugs of six different types and manufacture, and no two of them seemed to be from the same departmental origin. One of them was even a long unmonitored GP surveillance bug, about the size of a flyspeck. She left it where it lay, having no need to keep it.
Now she headed for a computer terminal for the crew, hoping to tap into the cargo manifests and passenger lists. Perhaps something useful could be learned there.
The passenger manifests had proven ridiculously easy to break into, a fact that boded ill for their desire to remain incognito. If she could break into them, so could someone else. Just to check, she looked up Sasami's entry.
Sasami, Second Princess, Jurai Royal Family (verified). Passenger 1st Class. Cabin 7, C branch. Credit: Unlimited. Current tab: - 14 crd Refreshment stand G - 673 crd Game room G Total: - 687 crd Currently traveling incognito. Has requested privacy.
Kiyone had banged her head against the wall at that, then looked again. The running tab had increased by one. Just what was the girl doing, and why in the universe had she verified her identity?
The answer came to that question right after the tab increased by one more.
Money. She wanted access to her credit. But what could have such a powerful attraction that Sasami, a responsible young lady, would blow her cover in order to have it? And why was she still doing it at... Kiyone checked the time. In the middle of the night?
She yawned. It was getting late, but although she would have liked little more than to go to sleep, she still had rounds to make. Now it was time to go public.
"Well, that wasn't too bad," Amaraba said as he and Ura reentered their tiny cabin.
"You," she said, "are a genius."
He grinned. "I was pretty good, wasn't I?"
"You were incredible," she breathed, stars in her eyes. It was as if her boyfriend had suddenly shed his skin and became someone she could actually admire, rather than just tolerate.
"Thanks, babe," he said easily, so astounded by his own coolness he forgot to brag. He casually dropped the bag on the bed and turned to receive his reward from Ura.
Ura pulled off her work shirt in one smooth motion and her bra in the next, the movement setting her earring to dangling.
"Ahhh..." Amaraba hugged her close to him, his hands running over her body.
"Hey, I had an idea," Ura said, grinning.
"Huh?"
"Let's go to the tingle sense room."
"Oooh yeah... Great idea. Let's change clothes and spend the rest of our off watch there!"
Ura nodded, and moved to open up the suitcase. Inside, however, she did not find her clothes. Nor did she find Amaraba's. Instead, the first thing she pulled out was a cream colored blouse. A little rooting around produced a pair of lacy red panties. "Um, Amaraba? I don't think this is the right bag."
He frowned and looked in the bag. "What do you mean, 'not the right bag?' It was the only bag in there, and it _looks_ like ours."
"Yeah, but so did the other one," she correctly pointed out. "And this one doesn't have our clothes either."
"Hey, I recognize that shirt." He pointed to the one in question. "That blonde was wearing it when we were standing in line." He looked up. "I just realized something."
"What's that?" she asked, looking at him.
"We got the wrong bag."
She hit him.
"Oww! Hey!" he complained, backing away and fending off her blows with his arms. "Quit it! Now let me explain. The lesbians must NOT be the drug runners. They're probably just boring old salarywomen on a trip."
"Huh. Whoops." She brightened. "Hey, if we got her bag, and she's got the bag with the drugs, that means the drug runner, whoever he is, is going to kill her! Not us! Woohoo!"
Amaraba nodded and laughed in delight. "Yeah! Hey, let's see what else is in this bag." He chuckled evilly. "It's not like she's going to be needing it anymore, not after the drug runner catches up to her!"
Ura giggled agreement, and they dumped the contents of the bag out on their bed to explore. Underwear, skirts, shirts, socks... Most of the bag was just pretty standard clothes, although she didn't recognize any of the brand logos they had on the tags. They must have came from a far off planet indeed.
"Hey! What do you think this is?" Ura said suddenly as she uncovered a strangly shaped squishy purple thing. She picked it up and turned it over, looking at it from all angles. A switch on the end was just begging to be used, so she did. Then dropped it as it came alive in her hand.
"Damn!" Amaraba exclaimed. "That's one freaky thing!"
It squirmed and pulsated as it lay on the bedcover, making a harsh mechanical buzz as it did so. Ura impulsively picked it up again, but made no move to turn it off. She held it by the flared base, pointed up.
"Hey, it looks kinda like a dick," she said wonderingly.
"OH!" Amaraba replied, his eyes lighting up. "I get it now! That's what it is! A fake dick that the lesbians use on each other!"
"EWWW!" Ura cried, dropping it like it was white-hot and compulsively wiping her hand on one of the shirts. "That's sick!"
Amaraba, on the other hand, was fascinated. He quickly picked it up, but finding the vibration to be annoying, switched it off. "Cool."
"Amaraba, put that down! You don't know where it's been!" Ura scolded.
"No... but I've got a pretty good idea," he replied brightly.
"Amaraabaa..."
Knowing he couldn't win, he gave up. "Alright, alright already." He dropped it back in the duffle bag and started putting the rest of the clothes in.
Ura gasped.
"What now?"
"L-look!" Hands shaking, she held out a pen emblazoned with the GP emblem. A rod extended from the side and a thin sheet of transparent material extended with it. The material immediately lit up with the blonde's face and name, Mihoshi Kiramitsu, and rank. Detective first class, Galaxy Police.
Amaraba shook his head. "I don't get it."
Ura grabbed his ears and held his face very close to hers. "We just stole a bag from a Galaxy Police officer! What's worse, we just left a bag with fifty pounds of drugs in its place!" She punctuated each word with a shake of his head. "Our DNA is probably on that bag! GP detectives look for that shit, man! She's going to think the drugs were ours! We're going to be arrested and stuck on an asteroid mine somewhere!"
"Maybe she won't catch us?" he replied weakly, clutching at her hands in an attempt to relieve the pain on his ears.
"The first place they always check is the cleaning staff, moron!" she yelled. "And she SAW us snooping around the cabin! Hell, I opened the damned door for her! You think she's not going to remember that?"
Amaraba straightened himself up with resolve. "Well, there's only one thing to do. We've got to get that bag back."
Ura wanted to cry.
Kiyone kept up a running tab of suspicious looking characters as she sat on a barstool, calmly sipping a light fruit juice cocktail. She had watched carefully as it was made, too, assuring herself that the mixture was the same as that being used to mix drinks for other patrons of the small bar she was in. The bartender, a pale young thing, seemed slightly off compared to the rest of the crew. With few other exceptions, all of the crew and many of the passengers were very dark skinned, with names like Ahmed or Sayyar. The bartender's name was Bill.
"So, Bill, how long have you worked as a bartender?" she asked, feigning sexual interest.
"Oh, a year now, Miss," he replied, pouring multicolored fluids together in a short, fat glass. He quickly dropped in a wiggling brown worm, which immediately dissolved in a flash, setting the surface of the liquid on fire. Finished, he slid it down the bar with a flick of his wrist so that it came to a rest right in front of the intended patron. Unseen beneath the bar, his other hand released a button which controlled the velocity of the glass he had just slid.
"How long on this ship?" she asked. Any new employees might have been planted by the unknown agency, even though there was little time between their decision to travel on the ship and their departure.
"Eight months, Ma'am. My contract was sold shortly after I started working for a dirtside restaurant."
"Oh," Kiyone replied, disappointed. There was a chance he was lying, of course, but she rated it unlikely. "Do you see many new faces around here?"
He snorted rudely.
"I mean, in the crew," she hastily added, feeling proud. A pointed question into the turnover rate on the ship would sound suspicious coming from just a passenger, but, by feigning an awkward and stupid question, she was able to turn it to her advantage without arousing suspicion.
He smiled faintly. "Oh, we get a few new ones every now and then. Most of them don't stay, so I don't pay any mind."
"Most of the crew is permanent?" she asked, faking surprise.
He nodded. "Well, yeah. It's not like we can leave. They own our contracts. The only free workers here get shitty pay, and so they leave after a few months."
Kiyone nodded sympathetically. Contract workers were basically indentured servants. You could get great pay, if you were willing to sign your life away and be put in a position where you'd never get to spend any of it. And, in some cases, your contract could be sold, as in the case with Bill. "How long are you signed for?"
He grimaced and turned away, mixing another chemical cocktail.
"That long, huh?" She took a drink, nearly finishing off her glass.
Bill sighed, slid another drink away on the bar, and turned back to Kiyone. "Let's just say I'm getting slave wages."
Meaning, of course, that he had signed on for upwards of several decades, but would be well on his way to an early retirement upon his release.
"You want a refill?" he asked, pointing to her glass.
Kiyone made a show of looking at it doubtfully, then shook her head. "No, no thank you. This is it for the night."
Disappointed, Bill watched as she drained her glass and set it back on the bar, laying a fifty credit note beside it. "Miss, you don't have to tip. It's included in the ticket," he explained, sliding the bill back at her.
Kiyone smiled and shook her head. "No, I insist. That's for the conversation." She slid off the stool and bowed slightly to him.
"Well, thank you. It was my pleasure. Will I, uh, will I see you again?" he asked hopefully, leaning against the bar.
"Could be," she replied enigmatically, and strutted away. He was a lightweight, of course, just another civilian, but it was still fun to play games with him. Still, although he was easy to get information from, he wasn't very informative. She would have to look elsewhere.
Sungi walked easily back to his room with a casual, rolling gate. A stiff drink or three, followed by a number of weaker ones, had put charm in his tongue and a smile on his face, although it wasn't enough to put a girl on his arm. Loosened up and casual, he was the epitome of an unattached first class traveler.
All part of the character he played.
Now, though, even consummate actors had to sleep. Sungi entered his cabin casually, then turned to double check the door and make sure it locked behind him. Then, finally, he could relax. Immediately, the false charm was gone, replaced by a sober expression. First, he made sure the duffle bag was in the exact same position as it had been, even checking to see if the zippers had moved. It was undisturbed, much to his relief. He stripped as he walked toward the small private bathroom the cabin had, throwing the clothes on the bed. One long, hot shower later, he emerged and started rummaging through the top of the duffle bag.
The first clothes he pulled out were two miniskirts and a slashed up pair of pants. They obviously didn't belong to him, but he pulled out several more, looking for ones that did.
It took several moments for his brain to process the information and realize that this wasn't his bag. He checked the false bottom and found that there was no false bottom.
"Ahhh!" he screamed, short and high. Then, for no discernable reason, he did it several more times.
It didn't help matters. He had still managed to lose many, many millions of credits in highly illegal drugs. The best he could look forward to was a quick death, the worse was a lifetime of detailed medical care.
He had to do something, fast.
He had to find those drugs.
He had to find those drugs, NOW.
Still emitting screams of anticipated pain and torment, Sungi rapidly paced the room, trying to figure out how it had happened. The bag had been undisturbed, of that he was sure. No simple cleaning crew had switched it, of that he was sure. It had to have been a professional with expensive equipment. Nothing else would have duplicated the bag's position and shape so precisely.
He stopped abruptly. Wait, was he even sure that he still had the right bag when he entered the room and put it there? Someone might have switched it in line, although he was sure he'd never let it go...
"Tokimi's dark tits!" he cursed. That little punk-ass kid stumbled into him in line. It was almost beyond belief that he was actually a professional, smoothly switching bags without his knowledge, although Sungi couldn't discount the possibility entirely. No, more likely, he was just a punk and it was an accident, not that that would keep Sungi from slowly and methodically removing all the boy's important pieces bit by bit. He had to be silenced, after all. Oh, and the girl, too. Bitch. She'd been the one to knock the boy into him in the first place.
That stupid kid couldn't have been a professional, why, he'd seen him switch again with the blonde when they bumped heads...
"Why that sneaky son of a bitch!" he announced to the room at large. He'd been suckered, and suckered good! Underneath that stupid, inane exterior lurked the brilliant mind of an experienced professional! And he had a partner.
Sungi's eyes narrowed.
The blonde.
She had the bag, and she would be the first to die. He would take the bag, kill her, kill the kid, kill the other bitch, and blow up the ship, somehow, killing everyone else on board.
Yes, an excellent plan.
He smiled and nodded. Now, to make it happen. Sungi flexed his hands in preparation, then stuck his left ring finger in his mouth and bit down hard on the nail. It hurt like hell, of course, but he didn't stop until he felt a slight crunch in the finger.
Inside his finger was a small calcium deposit which was identical to a sesimoid bone. It contained a small colony of incredibly deadly bacteria, deadly because they secreted a nerve toxin lethal to most living organisms. Sungi had implants which made him immune, but the bacteria would already be mixing with his blood supply. They would be quickly destroyed by his tailored white blood cells, except for the ones that bonded to calcium deposits in his body. Sungi's bones, teeth, toenails, and fingernails were about to become deadly weapons. One scratch would be all it would take to kill the blonde.
It was quick, deadly, and easily traceable if the body was found.
Sungi didn't intend to let anyone find the bodies.
3:45 AM ship time, blinked the holographic display of Ura's little wristwatch.
"Do you think they're still roaming the ship?" Ura whispered quietly as she peeked around the corner and down the hall leading to the lesbian's cabin.
Amaraba shrugged and shifted the duffle bag from hand to hand. They had decided not to go through the effort of dragging the laundry cart around this time. "I dunno, but I hope so, Babe. It's a risk we're going to have to take."
She nodded seriously, a tinge of fear in her eyes. "Let's do it."
Kiyone yawned widely as she walked up the hall leading to her cabin. It had been a long, fruitless night. Nearly four in the morning and she was still no closer to unraveling the nefarious plot to kill, kidnap, or annoy Sasami. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep, and her mental facilities weren't as sharp as they needed to be. She had decided to sleep on it, hoping that the rest would make all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly resolve in her mind and she would know who to confront and get into an action-packed yet stylish final gun fight with tomorrow. She would win it, of course, and finally, that promotion would be hers!
Her mind slowed by fantasies of blood and glory, she didn't register the sight of the two people who stepped out from around the corner at the other end of the hall and started walking quickly toward her. She blinked and shook her head, though, as they immediately spun around and rushed even faster back the way they came. She had just enough time to see the large duffle bag the taller of the two carried, and to note that they were dressed in the standard uniform of the ship's cleaning crew before they disappeared back around the corner.
"Hey! Stop!" she called weakly, her voice getting stronger at the end. Kiyone broke into a run as she attempted to catch up to the suspicious pair, but naught but empty hallway greeted her when she rounded the corner.
"Aww... Hell," she cursed mildly, too weary to put real emotion into it. "So much for going to sleep." With equal parts resignation and anticipation, she hurried along the most likely path the pair would have taken.
"Shit shit shit!" Amaraba said succinctly, but also very, very quietly.
"Don't panic," Ura hissed, managing to remain relatively calm herself. Immediately after rounding the corner, they had sprinted for the very next cabin door, where she had swiped her access card through the reader and jerked her boyfriend through the suddenly open door.
Now they were both pressed back against that very same door, their eyes wide in shock as they stared at the slumbering scene in front of them, barely visible in the dim, flickering light from the holoscreen still on in the cabin.
A fat, hairy-chested man with a bald pate slouched on a plushy upholstered recliner in front of the screen, a trail of drool dripping from his slack lips down to the black satin underwire bra he wore on his chest. A silky, black on gold spotted print panty did nothing for his modesty, as his flaccid penis was pulled out to one side and taped to the shaven skin of his legs, just above the top of the garter hose. A pair of black high heels sat neatly beside his chair, presumably just in case. Most importantly, however, his eyes were closed and he made a soft, gurgling snore every time he breathed.
Amaraba's eyes were drawn to the bright images on the holoscreen. "Oooh! Fantasy Island!" he cooed as he stepped closer for a better look.
Ura hit him. Quietly. "Quit it, Amaraba," she whispered. "All we got to do is wait in here for about ten minutes, then we can make a break for it."
"Unh huh, yeah," he replied absently, still watching the holo.
Ura glanced from him to the fat man, then shook her head. "Men. They never will figure out how to pick matching clothes."
Sungi stood in front of the door that, according to the ship's log, the blonde was staying in. He had already pushed the door summons button repeatedly, setting it for urgent business, but apparently no one was inside.
Strange, he thought with annoyance. It's this early in the morning and no one has come back to sleep.
Giving a little mental shrug, he decided to search the popular party rooms. With any luck, he could draw her away from the crowds into a deserted corridor. It wouldn't take long after that, even if she was a superior fighter.
One scratch would be all it would take.
Steeling himself with resolve, Sungi turned and hurried away down the corridor. He had just arrived at the first corner when he saw two slender figures step in front of him, traveling the opposite way down the corridor.
"YOU!" Sungi cried, recognizing the young man in front of him.
"Huh?" Amaraba replied, shortly before Sungi rendered him unconscious by a sharp blow to the forehead. Luckily for Amaraba, Sungi closed his fist at the last second, deciding against a lethal move.
Ura had time to stumble backwards in surprise before she, too was knocked out by a hard, precise blow to the temple.
Quickly gathering an unconscious body under each arm, Sungi walked away as nonchalantly as possible. He needed to get his poor, drunken friends back to their cabin as quickly as possible.
Amaraba woke up with a short scream of pain and shock to find Sungi's humorless face bearing down on him, his hand raised in preparation for another slap.
"I'm awake!" Amaraba cried, struggling in his newly discovered bonds.
Sungi frowned, then hit him again anyway.
"Oww! What was that for?" Amaraba complained.
"Yeah, hit him again!"
They both turned to look at Ura's bound form in surprise.
She thrust her chin at him viciously. "It's his fault! If he hadn't gotten the bags screwed up we wouldn't be in this mess!"
"Ura!" Amaraba complained, hurt. "I didn't mean to!"
Sungi nodded his head sharply. "So... You do know about the bag."
"No!" Amaraba cried. "I mean, we do know, but we didn't look under the false bottom or nothing!"
Sungi and Ura exchanged a glance, then Sungi smacked him across the face again.
"Hey, quit it! That hurts!"
"Quit it?! QUIT IT?!" Sungi roared. "You little shits, do you have any idea just how much pain I can give you?!"
"Look, man, it wasn't our fault! It's not like I _tried_ to steal your bag! I don't even know how I got it! All I know is that when we got back to our cabin, we found out that it wasn't our bag. WE thought that it was the lesbian's-"
"Lesbians?" Sungi asked darkly.
"The blonde right beside us when we stood in line," Ura supplied helpfully.
"Yeah, and so we was going to switch it back before she noticed and not say anything," Amaraba continued.
"We're REAL trustworthy," Ura added. "We weren't gonna say nothing about the cops."
Amaraba, who had been listening intently to Ura's speech, waiting for his turn to jump in, picked up on her slip of the tongue. Not 'to the cops', but 'about the cops'. Sungi didn't know that the lesbian was a cop. With any luck, he'd try to hit her too, and wind up arrested. Ura had already thought of that, and was telling him not to say anything. "Yeah, really," he added. "We don't like the cops, either. They've got warrants out on us."
Sungi glowered down at both of them. "So where is my bag now?"
They exchanged glances, then:
"PLEASE DON'T KILL US!" they blubbered in unison, tears streaming down their faces.
Sungi slapped his hand over his face, hiding his eyes as he sadly shook his head.
"Gaspweweresoscared-"
"wethoughtshewasgonnakillussob-"
"weusedourallpasscardto"
"sneakinandswitchthebags"
"butshedidn'thaveourbag!" *sniff*
"We got hers! WAH! I'm too good a lover to die!"
"Please don't kill... What?" Ura asked.
Amaraba stopped his wailing to look at her in exasperation. "It's an expression, Babe, work with me here."
"Oh, sorry, man."
"You make me tired," Sungi said.
"Excuse me, have you seen a pair of crewmembers run through here?" Kiyone asked, giving the old woman a perky but unhurried look. "One guy with red hair and earrings, and one girl with purple?"
"Sorry, Dearie, haven't seen them," she replied apologetically.
"Thank you anyway, Ma'am," Kiyone replied politely, and hurried away, quickly disappearing into one of the cavernous public rooms of the ship.
A particularly nondescript bulge of wooden ceiling checked to make sure no one was looking, then shuffled after her, muttering into a concealed audio recorder as it crept along.
"Subject K's behavior since the nearly fatal attempt on Princess S's life two days ago has been erratic to say the least. Throwing herself into her duty with maniac zeal, K has scoured every inch of the ship with an atomic microscope, searching for any possible threat to the young princess. Are her fears justified? One would suppose, given that the ship Princess S was supposed to be traveling on blew up shortly before she was scheduled to board, but an inside source at the Galaxy Police headquarters has informed us that the ship's destruction was not a failed attempt on the Princess's life, but was in fact a result of slipshod maintenance and faulty equipment. Officials at the GP Headquarters have declined to comment on accusations that they have a cavalier attitude towards the safety of our littlest Princess."
"-and finally, there we were, standing before Petroni 'The Eye' Gebbler, the mastermind behind the plot to steal the prescient torpedoes," Mihoshi nattered on to her companion. She brushed one sodden curl of blonde hair from her face and sighed for a moment, enjoying both the hot water she was soaking in and the sonic massage from behind.
"So what happened then?" Robot prompted from where he lay face up directly behind her. Moisture condensed on his cool metal exterior and dripped slowly off onto the polished wooden floor.
"Well, he said, 'Congratulations, detectives, you've finally cornered me. But The Eye can always see a way out.'" she continued, deepening her voice as she tried to mimic his condescending tone. "So _I_ said- Oh no! I'm shriveling up like an old prude!" Mihoshi said with a giggle, lifting her hands from the water for inspection.
After a two second delay while he processed his thoughts, Robot raised himself up, looked, and nodded hydraulically. "You sure are. Come on, let's get you out and dried off. Perhaps a trip to the tingle-sense room next?"
"Oooh!" she replied enthusiastically, quickly rising from the water, gloriously nude and completely unselfconscious.
Perhaps it was an errant power surge through his frame, or maybe a trick of the light, but Robot's eyes glittered as he watched her climb out and stand over him, her damp lower curls, a darker blonde than the rest of her hair, right at visual sensor level.
"Did you get a towel?" Mihoshi asked.
"A towel?" he replied. "A towel! I forgot the towel! I'll be right back with it!" he cried, scrambling upright and hurrying to fetch one. He quickly returned, and with the skill and precision of some of the most advanced programming in the galaxy he began drying her off, eliciting many quiet moans in the process with his amazingly dexterous hands. Matters progressed logically from there as the towel fell to the floor, and soon Mihoshi was glad that they were in a private furo.
A man sneaked into the room behind her, apparently having already crept through the dressing room after bypassing the privacy setting on the outside door.
Robot noticed instantly, of course, and paused his ministrations while he turned to look at the intruder.
"Wha...? You stopped..." Mihoshi complained weakly, her knees shaking and her eyes nearly closed. She barely noticed as the man strode forward with lethal intent, bringing one hand back to strike, fingers rigid and straight.
He never followed through, however, as Robot stepped around and brought one of his slender metal arms up, already charging it with electricity. Sungi grunted in pain and jerked spastically where Robot's small metal hand grabbed his arm, but his agony was short lived. Quickly grabbing hold with his other hand, Robot pivoted and threw him headfirst into the furo.
"Serves you right, asshole," he commented. He gently turned Mihoshi and guided her toward the door with one hand on the small of her back.
Fortunately for Sungi, the furo's automated systems kicked in right after he hit bottom, activating a pressure field which gently turned him over and floated him back to the surface, his head comfortably pillowed on a mound of water.
Through bleary, pain-filled eyes he watched the robot take his hand off the naked blonde's back and extend it back in his direction blindly, giving him the middle finger. Then the wrist spun, pointing the insulting gesture down, and the entire arm swiveled down at the shoulder, swiftly bringing the hand around to Mihoshi's bare butt from below, giving the finger right back to her.
"Oooh!" she squealed.
Sungi groaned.
Sasami stood in a heavily guarded pose before the awesome form of the demon-goddess Tokimi. Despite the translucent blue shield her bent left arm commanded, and the skill with which she wielded the blue energy sword in her right, great rents gaped in her Juraian battle outfit, showing off her very adult body and the deep wounds in it.
Shield=61%, weapon=93%, Jurai=31%, health=43%, Sasami knew. Hopefully, it would be enough.
The demon-goddess stood from her throne, stretching to her full height of thirteen feet and twiddling the wicked claws on her misshapen hands in anticipation. She was an incredibly ugly being, all muscle and sinew, with only a few rudimentary traces to indicate sex. Great flat teeth gnashed in the gorilla-like skull, and a heavy brow overhung the mean, piggish eyes. There was no tail, but the hunched over posture and shambling, rolling gait as she stepped down the rock steps leading up to her throne suggested a simian origin. "You're going to die here, Champion of Tsunami," she rumbled, twitching her claws.
Sasami didn't bother to reply, as it wouldn't affect the outcome of the fight. Instead she leveled her sword at the beastess and started a slow, meandering path around her, ready for anything. Would it be a physical attack? A ball of dark power? Minions?
Quicker than the eye could register, Tokimi crossed the rough-hewn floor of her asteroid throne and slammed one large- knuckled hand across Sasami's face, causing a bright flare in her shield as she was sent hurtling into a stone wall. Sasami dropped out of the crater to her knees on the floor. She quickly stood and felt her jaw in surprise, her hand coming away bloody in her simulated sight. "Oww!" she cried after a moment's pure shock. That had actually hurt!
Shield=60%, weapon=92%, Jurai=30%, health=42%.
Tokimi chuckled, a low coughing noise. "Surprised, little heroine? I know that Tsunami's power won't let me kill you, just as you know. But I also know that nothing my sister can do will prevent me from causing you the most exquisite pain imaginable." She grinned, and it was not a nice sight. "I'll just have to make sure I don't cause you so much damage Tsunami whisks you away from me."
A thrill of fear danced along Sasami's spine. Death was the endgame, and a new beginning. She had already died over a dozen times to get to this point. But actual pain, well, she hadn't counted on that.
"Well?" Tokimi sneered. "Most of the other would be heroines called for Tsunami right away. I'll give you a little time to decide."
For a moment Sasami wanted to do it, wanted to reach for the spot on her left shoulder which would bring her back to the real world. Then Tokimi darted forward, crushed her throat with a one finger blow, and danced back, her simian awkwardness abandoned for the grace and form of a master of unarmed combat.
Sasami gagged, dropping her weapon as she choked and fought for air. Her health had dropped to 3% from the blow, and another point was taken away as she choked. Panicking, she spent ten points of the Jurai power at a one to four ratio to bring her health back up to where it was before she was struck the second time, feeling her throat smooth and fill out, once again allowing air to flow. She quickly grabbed up her sword and spent five Jurai points on a jump, sailing far over Tokimi's head to land on a tiny ledge above the profane throne.
"Running?" Tokimi growled. "Without Tsunami's help, you cannot escape me." She loped forward in deceptively gentle bounds, leaping up twenty feet to dig her claws into the stone wall and climb.
Sasami stepped off and pointed her sword down, falling towards the advancing goddess, who was currently paying more attention to her footing than the young heroine. With perfect grace, Sasami brought the hilt between her legs and pointed the blade behind her as she crossed paths with the demon-goddess, scoring a line from shoulder to mid-thigh. She hit the ground and sprinted away, her eyes on the air above her, fully expecting Tokimi to jump and land in her path to intercept her. Twenty meters away she whirled and braced for impact, her sword at the ready.
Tokimi snarled at her from the base of the wall, her eyes glowing green with rage.
Sasami giggled.
Eyes narrowed, the beastess gestured with both clawed hands and sent a solid wall of coruscating energy to meet the princess's stand.
Her sword flashed out, but did nothing to stop the wall of power before it enveloped her. Sasami screamed in pain, feeling as if she was being boiled alive, yet still aware that all of her points, shield, weapon, Jurai, and health were being drained away. Panic set in, and suddenly the pain was no more.
Before her startled eyes Tokimi glitched and froze, vanishing a second later as a wide red rent appeared in the scene in front of her. Moments later her entire vision went black and she became aware of the sensory headband's pressure on her forehead. It felt hot, and fell off before she could remove it.
Sasami blinked and started as sight was returned to her, as well as her other senses. The fumes of burning plastic assaulted her nose, and she was uncomfortably aware that several drips of molten metal had burned through her clothes and were now pressed into her skin like sharp metal cockleburrs. Quickly, she fished them out and let them fall to the floor, where they hissed and burned into the plastic.
A disembodied voice spoke from nowhere. "For damage to Eden Corporation's Dead Man Walking GameSim, a sum of 'four- thousand, two-hundred and six' credits has been deducted from your account. Please be more careful next time."
"Whoops," Sasami said ruefully, realizing that in her panic she had lashed out the only way she could. "I guess that's one way to beat Tokimi," she added with a nervous giggle.
She carefully stood up, nearly losing her balance at first as her body realized that she wasn't the charming, voluptuous, and, most notably, tall chosen of Tsunami anymore. She left the tiny closet and walked from the gaming arcade with only one nervous glance behind her.
She sighed, aware for the first time that it was early in the morning of the next day. She had been playing the game for nearly ten hours, although it had been far more in the subjective reality that the game had created. Her tummy rumbled, reminding her that it had been a long time since the last drink and sweet bar.
Deciding to eat a real meal before she went back to her cabin to change clothes and sleep, the young princess hurried along the corridor to the ship's dining hall, a route marked in a holographic image at every junction.
The dining hall was nearly deserted at that time of night, with only two men inside, talking quietly beside a series of decorative animal pens far to one side of the room. Despite the lateness, the three long banquet tables were set with elaborate metal dining ware, and several pots and covered dishes still steamed. Sasami happily looked in and sniffed each of these in turn, grateful for the ship's custom of an always ready table. Fresh food was only set out just before the designated mealtimes, and latecomers had to make do with the leftovers until the next change. The tastiest dishes were always eaten first, resulting in a fair amount of competition among diners, but there was a pot of sour-tuber soup left that smelled wonderful, so Sasami gladly helped herself and settled down to eat. The soup was very, very good, especially since it had been simmering for hours.
The conversation between the two men grew louder, and soon Sasami couldn't help but eavesdrop, going so far as to move her place as close as the closest table allowed. She looked back for a moment, taking in the row of pens enclosed by both ornate fence and a faintly shimmering shield. Each pen held a different group of animals, pigs, birds, lizards, and a small group of furry, amorphous blobs. The pen with the birds, large, mottled brown ones with red rings around their necks, was the most active, with many of the birds fighting each other and raising small storms of loose feathers as they flapped around. The two men, one tall, one short and stocky, argued close to the bird pen.
"I'm telling you, Nat-" continued the tall one before he was interrupted.
"Do not call me that."
"-you've got to do something. The captain ordered the birds brought in for the guests last meal tomorrow, well, today really, but some stupid bastard forgot to order feed for the manifests. Now we've got two dozen very hungry birds who are starting to EAT each other! If we don't feed 'em something soon, Nat, none-"
"Natze! My name is Natze!" growled the other man.
"Yeah, anyway, Nat-ZE, these damned birds are gonna look like shit by tomorrow, and no one is going to want one. Why don't you just go make some more bread?"
"No! For the thousandth time, no!" he barked in a strange accent. "We got stale bread left from meal, fine, feed it to birds. People eat all, then no bread for birds. Find something else. Pigs eat dregs, let birds eat them, too. I vill not make fresh bread to give to stinking, filthy birds!"
"Dammit, Nat, unless you can find some grain aboard this ship, turn meal back into corn, or give me some goddamn bread, YOU have to go tell the captain that her thousand credit a neck dinners are going to be a bloody pile of feathers by tomorrow night!"
Sasami winced at the strong language. Their argument was getting pretty heated for no good reason that she could tell. Why wouldn't the short man just go make a few loaves of bread for the hungry birds? Sighing in exasperation at the madness of it all, she returned her attention to her meal. Movement drew her eye, however, as two assistant cooks emerged from the large double doors leading to the kitchen, each bearing a large tray piled with pastries, bagels, and breakfast cakes.
Or, as it appeared in Sasami's eyes, trays full of birdfeed.
"Excuse me, Sirs?" she spoke loudly, turning to address the two men.
"Huh? What?" the tall one replied, looking around.
The cook was more astute, zeroing in on the only guest in the place. "Yes? What is it, little girl?"
"They just brought out a bunch of pastries for breakfast, why don't you throw some of them to the birds? I don't think they could eat more than one or two a piece, and they brought out _dozens_." She indicated the large piles.
"No," Natze replied curtly, shaking his head before returning his attention to the animal handler.
"Hey!" she protested, leaping to her feet. "Why not?"
"Cakes are for guests, like you," he replied, half turning. "Eat your soup and be quiet." Then, to the other man, he added, "Little girl has good point, though. If there are any left after breakfast, give them to the pheasants."
"Well," she muttered to herself, "if they're for the guests like me..." Furious at his uncaring attitude, Sasami strode over and grabbed several bagels, lobbing each one in turn at the birds.
Unfortunately, each one bounced off the shimmering field which kept them apart from the rest of the room and landed on the floor, much to the cook's anger.
"What you do?!"
"Don't be such a meanie!" she yelled. "If the pheasants are hungry, let them eat cake!"
Natze glowered at her. "Little girl, you know nothing of this matter, so mind own business. My people overthrew Queens who said such things."
"Oooh!" she cried, exasperated. "That is so STUPID!"
"Fine!" he said angrily, striding towards her.
Sasami bowed up resolutely, firm in her conviction.
Natze, however, stopped by where she had been sitting and grabbed her soup toureen. "No soup for you!"
Sasami stared in disbelief. "What?!"
"No soup for you! Now go!" he barked, pointing towards the exit.
"Oooooh," she cried in frustration, "FINE!" She whirled, stalking away. As she passed the trays of breakfast, she whirled and grabbed a pastry, taking a defiant bite and daring him to try and take it away. Then, on an angry impulse, cried, "It was nasty soup, anyway!"
Natze's iron mask crumbled before her eyes, and he was bawling before she could even begin to apologize. "I try, *sniff*, so hard..." he sobbed, setting the tureen down and sagging to the floor, burying his face in his hands.
"Aww... I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," Sasami said softly, her anger gone in an instant and her heart full of regret for her rash words. "It was good soup, really."
"It was terrible soup! I know it was terrible, you know it was terrible, everyone knows that it was terrible! No one wanted any! Look how much was left!" he cried, tears streaming down his face.
Sasami sighed. It was turning out to be a long night.
"o/~I'm Henry the Eighth I am, I'm Henry the Eighth I am I am...o/~" Amaraba sang lustily, belting out the words with the forced intensity of someone determined to amuse himself.
"Oh, come on, anything but that!" Ura called in annoyance. "You know I hate that stupid song."
Sighing, he stopped. "Well fine then. How about... Hmmm." He cleared his throat, then started singing again. "o/~I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...o/~"
"Ooh! I like this one," Ura replied happily, singing along for a moment. She quickly stopped, however, as the door to the cabin changed to opaque grey.
They both looked up interestedly as Sungi entered. Fear of death and pain had quickly been replaced by boredom as they waited for their captor to return.
Sungi staggered in in a foul mood, a large lump on his head from where he had hit the bottom of the furo. He growled unintelligibly at them.
"Didn't go so well, huh?" Ura asked.
Sungi punched her in the nose.
"OWWWB!" she cried, her eyes tearing up and a thin trickle of blood pouring from her nose. She squirmed in her bonds, obviously wanting to clutch at her nose in pain.
"New plan," Sungi announced. "I untie you, you get my bag from the bitch, give it to me, and I let you live. Is this a good plan?"
They nodded quickly.
"One, uh..." Amaraba wilted under Sungi's glare, but continued anyway. "There's just one problem. The blonde chick's got a partner, and she's always snooping around. We've already had to run from her once, and I don't think we'll get away a second time."
"Partner?" Sungi asked dangerously. "As in 'Helped her steal my bag from you idiots' partner?"
With a hurried glance in Ura's direction, Amaraba quickly replied, "Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, but yeah, I guess."
Sungi drew himself up, muscles tense with anticipation. "Fine. You get my bag while I take care of her... partner. And if you try to run, well, just keep in mind that there isn't anywhere on this ship I can't find you, and I _will_ make your last few hours as painful as possible should you give me any trouble."
They gulped and nodded.
"You know, I'm beginning to think that we shouldn't have taken this job," Ura complained, lightly rubbing her sore nose.
Amaraba said nothing, instead bumping the bag, Mihoshi's bag, against his hip thoughtfully.
Together the two of them glanced up and down the hall, checking for any sign of the green-haired menace to criminal society. Seeing nothing, they abandoned stealth and ran to the cabin door. Amaraba turned to watch the hall while Ura used her passcard and universal code to open the door. As soon as the door changed to grey she grabbed her boyfriend's collar and jerked him backwards into the room, ignoring his choked squawk.
The bag was right where they'd left it, so they both hurried over to grab it. Ura, having had a sudden thought, put out an arm and stopped Amaraba from carelessly picking it up. "Wait," she commanded. "I want to look at it first."
Amaraba waited obediently as she inspected the bag from every angle, crossing his arms in annoyance.
Finally satisfied, Ura slid the bag away from its corner and exchanged it with Amaraba for the original, setting it down in the same place. "Good, it hasn't been disturbed. I don't think the cop knew we switched. Now, if I can get it looking exactly like the other one..." she murmured, tugging and pulling on the material to put it in shape.
Amaraba stopped her, confused. "But wait, Babe. Don't we WANT the cops to know that we switched bags?"
Ura stopped and frowned. "Of course not, why would we want that?"
"But..." he replied, confused. "I thought..." He hesitated. "We want them to know so they can save our asses? Mr. Short-temper is gonna kill us when we get back, you know."
Ura's brow wrinkled. "He'll let us go if we do this right... Won't he?" she asked plaintively.
The breakfast gong filtered in through the open doorway, having been muted in the cabin.
"*snort* Huh?"
They both turned and looked at the bed, which at first glance, all they had spared, had been piled high with pillows and blankets. Now there was a green-haired woman sitting up in it and rubbing her eyes, a bra dangling from its strap at her left elbow. Even as they watched, the sheet slipped down, revealing her nude breasts.
"Aww, shit," Amaraba complained. "Not her again."
Ura nudged Amaraba in the ribs. "I thought she was supposed to be being taken care of right now?" She frowned at his helpless shrug.
Kiyone blinked blearily at them, leaning forward as she attempted to focus.
"Nice tits, though, for a lesbian," he added.
Kiyone gasped as the full import of what she was seeing and what he had said penetrated her sleepy consciousness, quickly grabbing the sheet and covering herself.
Ura grabbed Amaraba's arm and quickly started dragging him out of the room.
Realizing what a silly thing she had just done, Kiyone attempted to leap out of the bed and onto the fleeing suspects. Unfortunately, she was still wrapped in the sheet, which was still tucked under the bed at the bottom edge. Her strong legs and agile body allowed her to make an impressive roll and jump, one that stood a good chance of allowing her to at least reach Amaraba's trailing legs, that is, if she hadn't run out of sheet first. And if her arms weren't still caught up in the sheet, she might have saved herself a sore nose.
Amaraba collected himself just outside the door, and was soon running under his own power at Ura's side as they, once again, attempted to lose their pursuer in the halls of the ship.
Kiyone struggled along behind them at a fair clip, having solved both the immediate problems of what to do about the sheet and her state of undress by hopping on one foot for a moment and wrapping the sheet around her like a toga.
"Want to duck into another cabin?" Ura asked, puffing as she ran.
"No!" he replied quickly. "Everyone is gonna be awake."
"Well what, then?" she replied tersely.
"Stop! Thief!" Kiyone called from behind them, running as hard as she could. Low growling sounds came from deep in her throat.
Ura risked a glance back. "Shit! She's gaining on us!"
"Run faster!" Amaraba replied, putting on a small burst of speed.
"I am running faster, asshole!"
By now a few people were starting to fill the corridors, and they were all murmuring in surprise at the chase winding through their midst. They had to think of something, fast.
"Quick, in here!" Amaraba gasped, grabbing her arm and jerking her in the wide archway leading to the refreshment center.
"There! We can hide behind the bar!" Ura exclaimed, pointing.
"No way, Babe. That's the first place she gonna look. Here, under this table. Watch for her legs."
Together they ducked under a booth table near the door and huddled there together.
Sure enough, someone with no shoes and no pants ran in and spun quickly, obviously looking around the room. Then, just as Amaraba predicted, the legs ran silently over to the bar with little prancing steps.
"GOTCHA!"
"AHHH! KIYONE!"
"Mihoshi!? What in the world are you doing back there?!"
"Ah, me." There was a rhythmic hydraulic sound, similar to laughter.
"Is that a bottle of rootbeer? MIHOSHI!"
*POP* *FSSSH*
"Oopsie!"
"Nice toga. You two know each other?"
"Sheet."
"You shouldn't curse, Kiyone, that's not nice."
Amaraba tapped Ura's arm and indicated that they should go. They quickly crawled out from under the table and began a low, crouched run across the short distance separating them from the door. Just as they reached it, though...
"There you are!" Kiyone cried. "STOP RIGHT THERE!"
"Sheet!" Amaraba replied, grinning.
Ura bapped him in the back of the head. "Run."
They ran. Fortunately for them, they had more of a head start this time.
"I got an idea," Ura said suddenly, eyeing the upcoming archway into the banquet hall. "We've done nothing wrong as long as she can't find the bag, so... Hide the bag!" she cried, giving him a rough shove sideways as they passed the archway.
Caught off guard, Amaraba couldn't help but stumble and lose his balance, tripping and sliding at an angle through the doorway into the banquet room, which already had two dozen breakfasting passengers. Clutching the bag to his chest, Amaraba came to a screeching halt at the feet of a startled man in a white casual robe.
Lurching to his feet, he grabbed the man's pastry, crammed it in his mouth, and ran for the kitchen, dragging the duffle bag by its strap. The kitchen doors were designed to keep out the casual passenger, however, and Amaraba ran smack into them. Grumbling in annoyance and fright, he quickly fished out his card and held it to the reader. The doors swung inward slightly, and he pushed his way through just as Kiyone entered the hall and spotted him.
A long double row of burners set in the middle of the kitchen greeted him, most of which had pots simmering or boiling on top. Counters, sinks, griddles, and ovens lined the sides of the room, with doors leading to storage rooms and freezers scattered along the walls. Several men and women in white outfits and aprons tended the pots or chopped ingredients, but none of them paid him any mind. More notably, a short man in a chef's hat stood nearby, arguing with a young girl who Amaraba was sure wasn't a member of the cooking staff.
"I'm sorry, Sasami, but we did not receive any fresh seafood for this journey," the man said.
The little girl sighed. "Well, okay, but this recipe won't be as good as when everything is fresh. Anyway, you start-"
"Hold on one second, please," the man interrupted, having looked up and saw Amaraba standing there with a blank look on his face. "You! What are you doing in my kitchen? Speak now!"
Thoughts racing, Amaraba said the first thing to come to mind. "I, uhhh, brought the... spice you requested!"
"Spice? I did not request any spice." He stared piercingly at the young man holding the duffle bag.
"Whatever, man, I just deliver stuff." Amaraba shrugged, as if it didn't matter. Years of not really giving a damn really helped his unconcerned act.
"Ehhh... Put it in there. The containers are marked." The chef indicated with his hand before returning his attention back to the young girl.
"Gotcha," Amaraba replied with a wink before walking into the indicated storeroom.
Once inside, he looked around quickly for a place to hide the duffle bag. Most of the room was too packed with large metal canisters of spices and seasonings to find a place to stick the duffle bag.
There was a loud banging outside on the main double doors. "GP POLICE! LET ME IN!"
Sweat broke out on Amaraba's brow. There was no way he was going to escape this time. He HAD to find a place to hide the bag. Then, his words to the chef came back to him. The drug did kind of look like salt, if you weren't looking too closely...
Kiyone pounded urgently on the doors, screaming her authority. Finally the door opened to show a very irate chef and, surprisingly, Sasami. "Sasami?" Kiyone asked, her thoughts derailed. "What are you doing in here?" After a moment's thought, she added, "Please tell me it has nothing to do with rootbeer."
Sasami shook her head. "Ummm, no..."
"Oh, thank god," Kiyone cried, dropping to one knee and hugging the princess.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"Why are you wearing a toga?" Sasami wanted to know.
Straightening, she replied, "My name is Kiyone Mabiki, Detective first class of the Galaxy Police. I am in pursuit of two criminals, a male and a female. The male has red hair and is carrying a grey duffle bag, and the female has purple hair and a large earring. Have you seen them?"
"Unh huh!" Sasami said brightly. "The man just walked in here. He went in..." she said turning.
Amaraba walked up, carrying the duffle bag.
"Umm, he's right there," Sasami finished lamely.
"Looks like you were already full," Amaraba said mildly to the chef. "I'll just carry this back to the hold-grrk!"
Kiyone released her sleeper hold after she was sure he was weak and dazed, and she had him face down on the floor with his arms pinned behind her back. "Sasami, could you carefully open that bag and tell me what's in it?"
Nodding, Sasami slowly unzipped the top of the bag, revealing snowy white powder. Curious, she dug around in the bag for a moment, but only found more powder.
Kiyone, who had watched, twisted Amaraba's arm a little more, getting a small cry of pain. "Drugs, is it? What were you planning to do with the drugs, hmm? Answer me!"
Sasami stuck her finger in her mouth before Kiyone could stop her.
"No, Sasami!"
Licking her lips for a moment, she proclaimed, "It's salt."
"Owww! Of course it's salt! That's what I was bringing, owww!, but they were already full!"
"Salt?" Kiyone said in disbelief. "What the hell were you doing in our room with a bag full of salt?!"
"We were the cleaning crew! I stopped to help my girlfriend on the way up here, and you blew it way out of proportion! I'm just trying to do my job!"
Everyone looked up as two more people approached, Ura and a large, greasy man who huffed as he walked.
"Oh, there's Amaraba," Ura said.
"Boy, you're late for work," wheezed the man.
"Sorry! I was on my way, but this crazy chick jumped me!" he gasped out.
"They were prowling through my room," Kiyone offered weakly when the large man glared at her.
"They're maids, lady, that's what they do. Could you please get off of my employee so he can get to work?" he said dryly.
Blushing furiously, Kiyone climbed to her feet. Amaraba stood up a moment later, rubbing his sore shoulder. Ura winked at him.
"Now that that's settled, you've got rooms to clean. Get to it!" he bellowed, prompting a jump from the couple as they ran to get started. He nodded once to the chef, one professional to another, then turned and wheezed away.
"I'm... Going to go get changed," Kiyone admitted.
To be continued in part c...