Hyeruu'lia, Planet Hyeruul
	April 19, 2355

	Mid-afternoon

        In the modern galactic society, few will dispute that there is
a powerful force or energy source in the universe which the average
sentient being cannot comprehend. The exact nature of this energy, on
the other hand, is intensely debated, especially by those groups who
attempt to understand, decipher, and manipulate them.  Some hold that
the energy field is dualistic or pluralistic in form, with aspects of
Light and Dark, Order and Chaos. Others hold that the field simply is,
and that the paths of good or evil are determined only by the
individual who taps the power.
        No one knows which belief is more accurate.
        Throughout the galaxy the power has many names, many
applications. One person, a twenty-year-old young woman named Rianna
Santova, knew it as the Force, or more specifically, the Dark Side of
the Force.
        In ancient days, while Alexander the Great had his brief spark
of glory on Earth and the Salusians took their first, tentative steps
into the orbits of their homeworld, the mighty Santovasku Empire had
ruled over most of the worlds of the Outer Rim and beyond for
thousands of years. This was the Golden Age of the Jedi, and likewise
the Golden Age of their counterparts, the Sith. The Empire finally
collapsed when its Princess rebelled against her father, bringing the
ruling planet of Coruscant to ruin, dropping the Galaxy into a dark
age.
        That Princess had survived, however, and in recent times Kahm
Santova had borne a child, who today sought to refine the skills her
mother had taught since her infancy, as she had been taught by the
infamous Darth Vader himself.  The Dark Side gave her the power to see
the unseen, to sense feelings incomprehensible to those who did not
touch the Force. It gave her knowledge for defense, strength for
attack, fear in the enemy's heart... the decisive edge which meant the
difference between victory and defeat.
        Theoretically, anyway.
        Although Kahm had taught her all she knew, all she could,
Rianna knew her own control over the Dark Side, even over herself, was
still uncertain. That was one of the reasons she spent most of her
afternoons here, in the Royal Palace's Quiet Room, meditating through
the Dark Side, seeking the balance she needed... a balance without
which she might succumb to the devouring, chaotic nature of the Dark
Side.
        It also gave her an excuse to daydream, to plan for the
future, when she would walk free among the stars... like her father...
        On this particular day, she was touching the Dark Side through
a basic meditation exercise, using it to expand her senses beyond the
seen world, pushing her awareness outward from the Quiet Room and into
the world beyond. As she meditated, she sensed several Hyelians
passing by,  through the halls of the Great Palace of Hyeruul, each on
their own errands. Each shuddered as they fell under the scrutiny of
her mind's eye, without knowing or understanding why, but gave it no
thought; this day, a typically bright and gentle spring morning, was a
day to be savored and appreciated, and not one to worry about
imaginary shadows.
        One, however, brushed through her gaze without the tiniest
twinge. Rianna sensed the urgency in this one, the anticipation, a
touch of fear, a greater measure of mischief than seemed healthy. Most
of all, she sensed this one's inner sense of Purpose- a purpose which,
she felt, rather specifically involved her.
        She eased herself out of her trance, opening her eyes as the
door opened to admit a young-looking woman with long, flowing red
hair, cheerful blue eyes, long, expressive elven ears, and a totally
inane grin. "Mayl," she said softly, nodding in greeting.
        "Rianna!" the elf half-whispered, not quite running across the
room to her friend. She lifted her gaze as the dark-haired, horned
woman stood to her full height; Mayl Popp'fl stood nearly a full head
taller than most other females of her race, but Rianna stood half a
head and more taller than that. "Rianna, c'mon!" she urged, pulling
on the Santovasku woman's sleeve. "We're outta here!"
        "Calm down, Mayl," Rianna replied, smiling in spite of herself
and holding her ground as the Hyelian tugged at her arm.  "I was just
doing some of my Sith control exercises, I should only be another few
minutes in here before I can--"
        "No, nonononono," the other grinned, waving her hands in an
incoherent effort to explain. "I don't mean outta -here-... I mean,
-outta- here!" she finished, swooping her hands upward with a
flourish.
        Rianna's smile faded, and she fixed Mayl with a suspicious
stare as she asked in measured tones, "What do you mean... 'outta
here?' "
        "I mean -gone!-" Mayl seemed about to burst with excitement- a
telltale sign of Yet Another Mayl scheme, ill-considered and
poorly-planned... and this one, Rianna suspected, would likely top
them all. "Away!  Zing!  History!  Just like-- ...um, that old Earth
movie, can't remember, starts with a 'G' ... never mind." Mayl grabbed
her by the arms, looking directly into her skeptical brown eyes.  "Ri
... tonight, we are -off- this little chunk of rock!  We'll show 'em
-- we'll show 'em all!"
        I have, Rianna quietly decided as Mayl pulled her out into the
corridor, a -very- bad feeling about this.

	VARIOUS LUNATICS PRESENT

	A tale of Undocumented Features

	PRIVATEER: ONE FINE MESS

	starring

	Rianna Santova
	Mayl Popp'fl
	Kris 'Redneck' Overstreet

	screenplay by J. Conrad Spade, Martin Rose, and Lawrence Mann
        Benign neglect by Benjamin Hutchins and MegaZone

        with enormous thanks to Jojii Manabe, Shigeru Miyamoto, Chris
        Roberts, George Lucas, H. Beam Piper, JMS, and Lois McMaster
        Bujold

        This fanfic is dedicated to the memory of two people, one who
        we knew and one who we didn't, both of whom left this
        existence far too early. To the memories of Brian Daley,
        sci-fi writer possibly best known for his series of Han Solo
        novels in the late 70's, and Derek Bacon, a human being known
        for having possibly the most expansive sense of humor in
        existence, this story is dedicated.
        We who remain carry on.

	*	*	*	*	*

	Hyeruul Royal Spaceport
	Not that much later

        "C'mon!  Not much farther!"
        "Uh... Mayl," Rianna said, as the cold foreboding in her guts
grew more intense with each step, "tell me something: how did you
manage to pay for this without alerting your parents?"
        Mayl stopped for a moment, suddenly unable to look Rianna in
the eyes.  "Well, I did have some money saved up..."
        Rianna stared coolly at Mayl. "I know very well you can't have
had more than a tiny little bit saved up." Mayl, for all her virtues,
simply could not resist an impulse to buy something she liked.
"Where's you get the money?"
        "Well... you know that little trust fund your dad sent you?"
        The churning in Rianna's stomach abruptly contracted into a
cold, tight knot. She'd given Mayl the passwords to access her
accounts, but they were only to be used in a dire emergency... "If you
say what I think you're about to say..."
        "I kinda spent it."
        Mayl grew nervous as she watched Rianna's face slowly darken;
when the taller woman's voice returned, it came low and full of
tightly controlled menace. "...This had better be a good ship, Mayl...
for your sake."
        "You'll like it! I swear!" Mayl reassured her angry friend,
smiling with slightly less confidence than before. "Here we go! Right
over here!"
        Rianna followed the elf into the hangar and watched as she
skipped over to one of the slips. When she saw the hulk awaiting
inside, her heart plummeted lower than the deepest Underworld cavern.
        The ship sitting in front of them was a Taurus light
freighter, a product of an Earth-based manufacturer, ostensibly named
for its strength and power. However, most experienced spacers knew it
by another name: Tarsus, or Big Toe, as in 'handles like one.' The
ship had one, and only one advantage- it was extremely cheap... but
you got what you paid for, and usually less. Any pilot or independent
captain with an ounce of self-respect avoided the monstrosity like the
Denebian Plague.
        This ship in particular was a truly miserable example of the
species, with minimal-strength, cracked and pitted grey armor plate,
equally understated shield emitters, and a lonely single-barrel laser
turret towards the aft. The ship practically had a sign reading PLEASE
HIJACK.
        "Isn't it just so COOL?" Mayl gushed, demonstrating her
complete lack of knowledge in the area of starships.
        "You.  Bought.  A *Tarsus*." Rianna's low, incredibly angry
tone brought Mayl down to earth in a heartbeat. "You spent all our
money... on a TARSUS..."
        "Um... not exactly..." Mayl murmured.
        "What do you *mean*, 'not exactly?'" Rianna growled.
        "Well... our money wasn't enough for more than a down
payment..." Mayl said. "I kinda hadda take out a loan..."
        "A... loan..." Rianna glowered at the redhead. Rianna had been
taught since the first time she'd held money in her hand to avoid
borrowing whenever possible, and pay off debts in full. The very idea
of being in debt disturbed her. "You... took out a loan... for THIS??"
she hissed, waving an angry hand towards the Tarsus.
        Mayl's ears twitched nervously.  "Um, Ri... are you gonna hurt
me now?"
        Before Rianna could tell Mayl in no uncertain terms just what
she intended to do to her, a short, overweight human approached them.
The slimy air he seemed to exude was only accentuated by his greasy
black hair and pencil-thin mustache. Rianna's guard went up at first
sight.
        "Ah, hello," he said with a grin that failed completely to
hide his deceit. "You must be this young lady's partner."
        "Um, for the moment," Rianna answered.
        "Allow me to introduce myself," he said, bowing deeply. "I am
known in certain circles as Ploovo Two-For-One.  I am renowned for
aiding enterprising young businesspeople gain their first start in the
dangerous world of interstellar commerce.  Your friend was kind enough
to show me a picture of the two of you and I couldn't help but feel
compelled to be of assistance."
        Rianna knew blackmailing slime when she saw it.  "Mayl, please
tell me you didn't sign anything."
        "Um... well, yeah... and I kinda signed your name too."
        For a moment, Rianna's screech of outrage lodged in her
throat, unable to escape. She finally managed a shocked gasp,
"YOU *WHAT*?!?"
        "I didn't think you'd want to worry about it!"
	"YOU... COMPLETE... AND... *TOTAL*..."
	"Ahem, excuse me, ladies-"
        "*WHAT?!?*" Rianna roared at him, giving Mayl a brief respite
from the lashing she so richly deserved.
        "Well, you might have noticed the clause in Subparagraph 17,
line four... failure to make the first payment on the loan results in
a state of indentured servitude by contract for a period of seven
years."
        Mayl went pale.  "Um... isn't that illegal?"
        "Not in Hutt space, which is where you ladies would be
headed."
        Rianna's already grim expression became truly horrible.
"Just try it, little man," she growled, and her hand came to rest on
her lightsaber.
        The threat rolled right past Ploovo. "Ah ah ah," he said,
wagging his finger in warning at them, "Subparagraph 19 specifically
calls for a death-mark on your head should I die by your hand!"
        ".....NNGRRRRRRRAAAHHHH!!" Rianna screamed, frustration
welling up in her with no place to go. She was trapped. Things could
not get more fucked up if they tried.
        "Um, looks like I by'phed it again, Ri," Mayl said timidly.
        Rianna whirled on her and growled.  "To say you'd biffed it
would not begin to describe what you just did, you *stupid* *bitch*."
        "But... but... aw, Rianna, all I wanted was for us to have our
dream... get off this backwater and see the galaxy... just you and me,
aw RIIIIII....." Mayl's tearing eyes met a glare that might have
melted lead. Mayl imagined she saw a dark aura encircling the Sith
woman... or maybe it was the tears...
        "Ah, well, ladies," Ploovo said, deciding to vacate the area.
"It's wonderful doing business with you. Remember, first payment is
due in two weeks- and remember the late penalty!"
        "...HOW MUCH is the first payment?" Rianna snarled.
        "Um... CR20,000 Salusian," Ploovo said, "with four monthly
payments of the same thereafter." Enough to have bought a brand-new
YT-1700 Corellian stock freighter... three times as much as any Tarsus
was worth.
        When neither woman said anything in response, Ploovo decided
to depart while he could. Rianna just stared after him, beside herself
with helpless rage.
        Somewhere in the core of her being, a crying and helpless
child screamed out for POWER.
        And the Dark Side answered.
        Suddenly, the terrible rage on Rianna's face was replaced by
an equally terrible calm. Rianna looked directly into Mayl's eyes, and
the elf shrank from the gaze, which if anything seemed angrier than
before. "Get your things. We're leaving immediately," Rianna barked.
        Glee at the prospect of adventure overwhelmed Mayl's fear.
"YAAA-urk!" she almost cheered, but was cut off by the painful,
invisible chokehold which suddenly enclosed her throat. Rianna's voice
whispered in her ear like a cold midnight breeze;
        "And while we're in transit you will not speak to me unless we
are in mortal danger, understand?"
        Frightened, Mayl remained silent.

        Fenris was not exactly what one might call a vacation spot,
unless of course your idea of a vacation included associating with a 
hostile environment (the planet had a 70-day rotation, with scorching 
and freezing temperatures attained at the peaks of day and night), 
hostile indigenous life (notably the sea dragons known as
"Jormungand's Brood"), and people who'd just as soon shoot you as talk
to you.
        And even then, you would probably get more for your money's
worth by going someplace like Tatooine.
        The colony on Fenris had been founded on a dilithium mine,
during the advent of the Cochrane warp drive, one of dozens of boom
towns on improbable worlds during the great dilithium rush. The quick
exhaustion of the main dilithium vein, plus the discovery of how to
manufacture synthetic dilithium, ended the short boom, and now the
only attraction this world held to entrepreneurs was the meager profit
to be had from the sale of the blubber of the sea dragons, which could
be refined very cheaply into various grades of oil.
        The combination of a small port, a populace desperate for
money, and virtual anonymity throughout the rest of the disintegrating
United Galactica made Fenris an ideal candidate for a Wretched Hive of
Scum and Villainy, and true to form it had become such, a place for
the desperate, the amoral, and the greedy. In a few places, signs of
upstanding civilization could be found... but not often.
        Possibly the most uncivilized place in the colony lay just off
the main concourse of the spaceport- a nameless half-lit bar, chill or
warm with the surrounding bedrock (Fenris City being entirely
underground). Here avarice and fear ran side by side; only the
desperate, the foolish, or the completely lost wandered into this
place, and fewer left it than entered. The place was steeped in
centuries of the Dark Side.
        It made Rianna Santova feel at home, despite never having set
foot in a place like this until just recently.  She sat against the
wall in her booth, drink in hand, glowering at nothing in particular,
just feeling the black energy of the Force flowing around her,
blending with her, giving her the mental armor she desperately needed.
        A quiet but insistent voice deep within her protested her
being in a place like this. It was summarily told by the rest of her-
the angry, hurt part of her- to shut the fuck up. This was her future,
whether she liked it or not.
        An offensive sound invaded her ears, renewing her anger and
lending it strength. The elf was speaking.. "C'mon, Ri, we spent a
whole week in hyper just getting here, don't tell me you're still--"
        "Didn't I tell you not to talk to me?" Rianna growled, not
even looking at the redheaded fool sitting next to her. She briefly
entertained the thought of killing the bitch- for the fifty-second
time that morning- and rejected it; it would only make an already
fucked-up situation even more complicated.. The stupid woman couldn't
even pay her own way- she'd put all her ruupis, and most of Rianna's, 
into buying that accursed ship, and if it hadn't been for the small
amount left in Rianna's accounts, neither of them would have gotten as
far as low orbit over Hyeruul.
        "But we only have one more week," the whining airhead
protested. "And then we'll get taken to Nal Hutta and sold as dancing
girls or something!  Oh, I can just see myself chained to one of those
slimy beasts, forced to wear almost nothing, leered at by--"
        "Mayl, if you do not shut up, right now," Rianna's eyes
swiveled and directed a few thousand icy daggers at the redhead.  "I
am going to cut your tongue out, and send it to your family.  Are we
clear?"  Her hand closed loosely around the lightsaber strapped to her
belt; she meant every word of it right now.  The Hyelian recognized
this, and shrank back into silence.
        Rianna released her grip on her lightsaber and returned to her
brooding. Damn the stupid little bitch.  Damn her into all the Hells
to burn for a thousand eternities.  If it weren't for her total
stupidity, none of this would have happened.
        The quiet, insistent part of her mentioned that Mayl  was
not completely to blame for the troubles, and that she was trying her
best to help. Rianna promptly told that part of herself to shut the fuck
up.
        From another angle, movement.  Rianna adjusted her attention
to see who was drifting toward them... a human male, on the short
side, graying hair and a look in his eyes which Rianna might have
distrusted elsewhere.
        "Pardon me," the man remarked.  "I couldn't help overhearing
your companion's discussion of your... difficulties, young lady."
        Rianna didn't particularly like his tone.  "What makes you
think we're having any problems, Mister, uh..."
        "Sandoval," the man replied.  "Ernesto Sandoval.  And problems
or no, you look like a girl who's hungry for work."
        "I suppose I might be looking for work," Rianna remarked. The
man's voice reminded her of a weasel.  In another time and place
Rianna might have told the slime to buzz off, but now... now she
didn't really give a shit.  "I'm listening."
        "I'm in need of a courier," Sandoval began, sitting down
across from the two women.  "One of my clients on the CFA New Orleans
requires delivery of an oils shipment.  Strictly legit."
        "I've heard that song before," Rianna still had the presence
of mind to say, her intellect having not abandoned her totally.
"What's the catch?"
        Sandoval's mouth seemed to quirk upward ever so slightly.
"You're very quick.  I admire that.  My client is also expecting a
rather special delivery, an artifact I recovered from a dig recently.
I'd like you to deliver it to him as well."  Reaching into a satchel,
he produced a metal box about the size of a standard tissue holder,
and opened the lid.  Inside, protected by a thick shell of padding,
lay a large ovoid object, apparently made out of obsidian or onyx,
with silvery trim.
        Giving them only a brief look (and noting the way the
redhead's eyes lit up), Sandoval closed the box lid.  "Once delivered,
my client plans to sell it for a considerable sum.  You would receive
a commission on the sale for delivering it safely to him- say, five
percent," he finished with a grin.
        "If this is as valuable as you say it is," Rianna asked,
folding her arms, "why are you asking a stranger in a bar to ship it?"
        "I have every reason to believe," Sandoval said after a
moment, "that you are a more trustworthy pilot than those I know here.
And there are some who would like to get this artifact; it would be
better if they didn't know where it was."
        "So in other words, this thing is hot and you need to distance
yourselves from it."
        "Perhaps, but you would be well compensated for your time and
trouble.  And I couldn't help but notice that lightsaber of yours; I'm 
sure you can handle any trouble that might come up.  The run itself
pays twenty thousand SalCred," Sandoval again noted the Hyelian's
sparkling eyes.  "And as I said, you can expect a percentage from the
sale of the artifact.  At the very least, you could expect Cr250,000."
        "Oo! That's enough to pay off Mr. Ploovo..." Mayl trailed off
as she felt Rianna's glare boring into her again.
        Damn bubblehead talks too much, Rianna thought to herself.
        "The way I see it," Sandoval went on, not missing that
exchange at all.  "We could all be quite helpful to each other.  You'd
be helping my client obtain something which is very valuable to him,
and my client would be helping you with whatever your own problems
might be.  I assure you, miss, you have nothing to lose.  How about
it?"
        Last week, and a lifetime ago, Rianna might have told this
piece of slime to buzz off. This deal sounded way too good to be true,
or at least trouble-free.
        That was then; this was now. Rianna had nothing to lose, or so
she figured... and any chance at avoiding a life on the run, or in
slavery on Nal Hutta, was better than none at all. "I *could* use the
money. ... All right, I suppose you have yourself a pilot, Mr.
Sandoval."
        "Excellent," Sandoval replied, looking ever so slightly
relieved.  "I'll arrange for the oil shipment to be delivered to your
ship.  My client will be waiting for you at the New Orleans spacedock.
Don't worry, he'll know who to look for." 
        "All right," Rianna said,  "though I get the feeling I'll wind
up regretting this."
        "Go with God, my suspicious friends," Sandoval smiled a
weasel's smile. He pushed the box across the table, along with a shipping 
disk containing the manifest data, shook hands, then departed.
        Deep down, that insistent small voice suspected that this
might have been an error. Yet again the rest of her ignored it. What
other choice was there, she thought?
        After all, she kept repeating to herself, it can't possibly
get any fucking worse.

        Sandoval walked out of the Monster Hunters' Union office,
having made all the arrangements for the cover on the artifact's
transport. Fifty tons of monster blubber, unrefined, in containers for
transport to agents at the Confederate Freespacer Alliance branch
office on the CFA New Orleans, payment on delivery. And, unmentioned
on the official manifest, one artifact from the mines beneath the
city.
        Mr. Lynch's men had been chipping away at the last remnants of
the dilithium mines beneath Fenris City, using their gem-quality
dilithium mining company as a cover for Lynch's less legal affairs,
when the workers had uncovered a secret chamber of some sort within
the living rock. Inside, the men found a handful of artifacts from
some ancient civilization or other- Sandoval didn't know or care about
the details- including The Egg, which according to the scientist Lynch
had bought off was an incredibly powerful and valuable item, in the
right hands.
        Unfortunately, the scientist had leaked the find, and Lynch
had been forced to liquidate him... and shortly thereafter, the
chamber had been collapsed. With the workers inside. Anyone who
uncovered the site again would find a bunch of ambitious grave-robbers
who'd gotten unlucky, plus a few crushed artifacts of minimal
importance. They would find no hint that the respected businessman
Roman Lynch had had anything to do with it.
        Now, between Lynch and his rivals, Sandoval was the only
member of the Lynch family still alive on the planet. This wasn't
reason to be lonely so much as it was reason to be deathly terrified.
He'd have to justify his continued employment to Mr. Lynch, while
keeping one step ahead of the other families' goons, until things
cooled off on Fenris long enough to recruit new hands and resume
Lynch's normal trade, drug-running.
        The hair on the back of Sandoval's neck stood up as he passed
a dark alleyway. Pausing, he looked down the alley and saw a cloaked
woman, brilliant blonde hair pouring into the lowered hood of her
robes. Her eyes met his, and she smiled a cool, arrogant smile.
        <<Come here,>> she husked, and Sandoval found his feet
carrying him towards her. Why shouldn't he go near her? She was very
pretty, and God knew he hadn't had any in a while.
        <<Look into my eyes,>> she said, and he stared blankly into
her grey eyes, seeing nothing aside from their haunting loveliness.
<<Now, then, who did you give the artifact to?>> she asked.
        "A couple of dumb girls," Sandoval admitted cheerily. "They
needed a wad of money bad enough that they didn't ask questions.
They're flying the Tarsus berthed in Bay 14."
        The woman smiled, saying, "Thank you. Let me show you my
gratitude." Sandoval smiled gleefully, awaiting the surprise.
        Sandoval felt a pressure around his throat. His larynx seemed
to be crushing itself; his feet no longer touched the ground, but
nothing held him up. The alley began to spin around him, and the light
dimmed even further. His last coherent thought was; sure enough, he'd
been surprised.
        The last thing he heard, though, was the woman's cold,
chuckling voice, saying, "How like a man, simple minded and weak to
the core."
        Finally, Sandoval's neck snapped, and his lifeless body fell
dead to the streets of Fenris. The woman touched a finger to her lips
and laid it upon his forehead, and then she faded into the shadows,
laughing as she vanished from sight.

        Rod Silverton checked his tactical display for the fifteenth
time, grateful that this time the Godforsaken R-41 Starchaser was in 100%
working order. On too many missions, something would die on startup
and he'd have to fly half-blind, mute, or with half his weaponry
disabled.
        Behind him, eleven more Starchasers flew in a loose and sloppy
formation. Rod grimaced at the totally unprofessional laziness in the
fighters he led; if his employers would only give him free reign to
train and cull as he wished, the fighter squadron might be able to
take on something besides the totally helpless prey it pursued at the
moment.
        Ahead of him, the old Tarsus freighter his superiors had
ordered disabled chugged slowly away from the night side of Fenris,
slowly aligning its trajectory for a hyperspace jump to Salusia. His
employers knew the destination, knew the pilots, and had ordered Rod
to take the ship intact, without a fight if at all possible. And then,
once the small freighter well behind them docked and relieved the
occupants of one little item, they were ordered to blow the ship to
Kingdom Come.
        "Top to Coral Flight," Rod said into his headset, "move into
attack position. Lock lasers onto target and await my signal."
Switching to hailing channels, he said, "Tarsus number R18-NAL, this
is Coral Flight. Cut engines and prepare to be boarded. If you do not
cut engines you will be disabled and boarded. You have ten seconds to
comply."
        A very irritated feminine voice replied, "May I ask _why?_"
        "No. Five seconds," Rod replied, fixing his HUD on the Tarsus'
engine compartment. A second later, the Tarsus charged its shields and
armed its lone laser turret. The hell with a countdown, Rod thought,
and he switched back to the command channel. "Coral Flight, fire by
wings. Target engines -only.- If that ship gets blown up before I say
so, I'll take it out of your asses."
        In four groups of three, the Starchasers surged forward,
easily overtaking the crawling Tarsus and throwing round after round
of laser fire into its stern. The Tarsus' gun fired frantically,
trying to find one of the ancient fighters. The flights wheeled,
evading collision at the last second, gained distance, and repeated
the attack run, driving bolt after bolt into the old freighter.
        As Rod dove down onto the Tarsus, blasting away, one of his
wingmen's ships burst into a fireball; the Tarsus' gunner had
apparently found his or her aim. A second Starchaser reported total
weapons systems failure, and with a groan Rod ordered him back to
base. Dammit, he thought as he wheeled away for a third pass, how do
the bosses expect us to perform to expectations with such crappy
equipment?
        As Rod pulled into his third attack run, he saw the aft
shields on the Tarsus finally flicker, and one Starchaser got three
shots in on the hull directly above the main thrust vents. The Tarsus
slowed, but still plodded on, and Rod adjusted his aim and fired
again.

        The Tarsus rocked violently as the last salvo of lasers
slammed into the rear quarter.  Mayl shrieked as a power box on the
starboard wall exploded, spraying sparks and burned wires across the
consoles. As the lights flickered and dimmed, the surviving
instruments reported the rather bad situation: rear shields down, rear
armor compromised, sublight engines damaged.  One more good hit...
        Mayl kept firing the laser cannon, trying to gain a fix on
another of the nasty fighters. The problem was, the stupid fighters
kept avoiding her shots! As she adjusted her aim yet again, the gun
quit firing, and another red light joined the horde on the
panels.
        "Ri, the gun's out!!" she cried, searching frantically for an
override switch or something which would give her fire control again.
There wasn't one.
        "crap... fucking port maneuver jet's gone!" Rianna growled,
mostly to herself, fighting the controls to make this infernal ship --
anything which could be outclassed by a frigging R-41 Starchaser
qualified as infernal -- actually do something useful. The ship
refused to obey, and another round of laser blasts struck the engines,
shaking Rianna in her chair. The damage display on the engines went to
red.  one more hit...
        "No," Rianna growled, and Mayl suddenly wanted to put distance
between herself and the horned woman with the angry- were they
glowing?- eyes. <<They are *NOT* taking this ship!>>

        Rod watched with satisfaction as yet another stream of laser
fire flew towards the freighter. His smug attitude crumbled as his
shots, rather than striking home, bounced off into empty space- as if
the ship had reflective shields. That was ridiculous- reflective
shields required multiples of the power simple absorption shields
took- but for whatever reason, the shots were bouncing off.
        Off of NOTHING.
        Right, Rod grumbled to himself, pulling out of his attack run.
Switching to missiles and hoping his launcher wouldn't jam like it had
the last two times he'd tried this, he armed both concussion missiles.
I don't care if I do blow the bitch up, Rod thought, I am taking that
damn freighter out!
        Swinging around for another pass, he targeted the freighter
and waited for the lock to take hold. The HUD blinked yellow, scanning
the ship ahead for perfect lock...
        ...and the Tarsus' sublight engines died, then surged, and the
ship streaked away, vanishing into nothingness.
        Crap, Rod thought, the bosses are not gonna be happy with me.
Switching to a secured channel, he said, "Top to Black Queen. Target
has escaped, repeat target has escaped, mission scrub. Orders?"
        "Return to base," a thin voice on the other end hissed. "We
suspected something of this sort might happen, but it was worth the
effort. We shall simply have to rely on our agents currently within
the Freespacer Home Fleet."
        "Roger that, Black Queen, Top out." Switching back to the
command channel, he grumbled, "Coral Flight, mission scrubbed, form up
and return to base." Damn, he thought ashamedly, we lost a man for
nothing. And after this, the odds of getting any new equipment are
nil.
        What's a pro supposed to do?

        "Are we away?"
        The ragged voice matched its owner, face bloodlessly pale,
sweat glistening. Mayl had no reply, still too rattled to speak.
        "...are we away..." Rianna echoed, even weaker than before.
Her leaden eyes met the smeared blue-white unreality of hyperspace
with a vacant glaze; the hyperdrive's annoying vibration, one of her
outspoken pet peeves since the day they'd left Hyeruul, no longer
seemed to disturb her in the least.
        "Y-yeah..." Mayl finally found her voice.  "Yeah, Ri...
we're... we're away."
        "Good," Rianna mumbled. Her eyes slowly rolled back in her
head, and suddenly she fell forward onto the console, sliding down to
hit the deck with a thud.
        "RIANNA!" Mayl cried, bounding out of her own chair to kneel
over her friend.  She was still alive, thank Tz'ldah, but out cold.
Boosting the shields on the ship must've taken everything out of
her, Mayl thought. She shivered as she remembered the dark power
crawling around her, protecting the ship from harm. She knelt silently
for a long time, wondering what to do next.
        Finally it occurred to her that maybe she should try to make
Rianna more comfortable. She picked Rianna up and, with some
difficulty, carried her back into the living quarters and tucked her
in the lower bunk.
        With Rianna sound asleep in bed, Mayl went back to the cockpit
and surveyed the mess. Burned-out control panels outnumbered working
ones, thanks in part to the blown-out power junction. Checking the
damage control readouts, Mayl learned that not only was the sublight
drive half-fried, so were the maneuvering jets, the aft shield
generators, and just about everything else in the aft quarter of the
ship.  That would cost a pretty ruupi to fix... a ruupi they might
not have...
         Unable to think of anything else to do, Mayl sagged back down
into her chair and stared listlessly out at hyperspace, elbows resting
on the charred edge of the console, ears drooping disconsolately.
Bh'ots, she thought, this was supposed to be easy......

        Mayl paused as she reached the deck of Hangar Bay 4, CFA New
Orleans CFA-919, looking around her new environs.  Taking a deep
breath, she stretched her long limbs, pushing up onto her tiptoes,
knitting her fingers and grunting with a stifled yawn as many of the
joints in her body made noises that would have been unwelcome back
home.  With that done, she let her arms drop back to her sides while
her breath escaped in a long sigh, expressing her satisfaction far
more succinctly than any words.
        "Hey, Ri--" she began, turning around to see if her companion
was leaving the ship yet.  A nearly tangible memory of the unseen hand
of the Dark Side strangling the breath from her silenced her almost
immediately.  "Oh, yeah," she muttered, "I forgot.  You're not talking
to me."  She heaved another, far less satisfied sigh as she paced away
from the Tarsus, trying to brush the wrinkles out of her flight suit
as she made her way toward the bow and the exit corridor beyond.
        The remainder of the flight, once Rianna had recovered, had
been dominated by an alternately depressing and oppressive silence, as
the two women worked almost wordlessly to clean up the interior of the
cabin and get some of the consoles operational.  That, at least, had
kept them too busy to mope about their situation en route.  Now,
without the constant tension of keeping the ship intact, Mayl was
certain she'd end up subjected to another of her friend's seemingly
endless supply of angry glares.
        "Noyyj'tat," Mayl hissed to herself, her frustration turning
from depression to anger as she bent down to give a pull at the legs
of her loose-fitting coveralls.  "If it isn't one thing, it's
everything," she continued, straightening up to give a tug at the
tails of her bright blue headband.  No further epithets escaped her as
she pulled at her cuffs, finally getting a few annoying folds out of
her sleeves.  A shake of her head sent a brief wave through her long
hair, and, reasonably satisfied that her appearance wouldn't send any
passersby screaming in terror, she turned the corner and started her
way up to the main deck.
        They had dropped out of hyperspace close to the night side of
Salusia, trading the mottled tunnels of hyperspace for the gleaming
crescent of the planet and the tiny sparkling lights which represented
the hundreds and thousands of stations and ships surrounding one of
the most powerful worlds in space. Almost immediately they were able
to pick out the Confederate Freespacers Alliance Home Fleet; a tight,
organized three-dimensional pattern of over two thousand ships,
ranging from the tiniest scoutship to the huge drydock ships, was
blatantly easy to notice. Gratefully, the Freespacer ATC guided them
through the approach to the center of the formation with good will and
a gunship escort, partly to lead the way and partly to keep an
inexperienced pilot from getting into trouble. One ship after another
had passed by the bridge ports, few if any alike... and in the center,
a giant grey hulking behemoth with the name in giant letters along the
sides; CFA NEW ORLEANS CFA-919. Now, Mayl would see for herself what
the inside of this enormous ship was like.
        Her pace slowed, and then she stopped entirely, finally taking
in the sight.  She was aware that the CFA New Orleans was a truly
immense ship, somewhere on the order of the late WDF Wayward Son.  As
such, she was expecting to be greeted with a large and busy corridor,
almost large enough to give the illusion of being out-of-doors,
teeming hordes of people milling here and there, and, further inside,
a busy commerce center.
        What she wasn't expecting was to find herself almost directly
next to a boothload of brand-new clothing, complete with a pushy
salesman doing his best to convince four or five browsers that his
wares were exactly what they needed, and a tremendous bargain to boot.
        Her head turned a slow arc as a smile spread across her face.
The sterile deckways she'd anticipated had turned out instead to be an
enormous bazaar, stretching as far as this adjoining corridor would
reach.  Every piece of open wall was covered in some way by a
merchant, either outside in a ramshackle hand-constructed booth, or a
bright, colorful doorway with big lettering and a bell that jingled
happily to announce you.
        In its own way, it reminded her of home.  She remembered
sneaking out of the palace complex numerous times in a special
non-regal outfit she'd assembled just for that purpose, taking a small
sack of ruupis with her just in case something special caught her eye.
One such outing gave her the rumor and half-made map that eventually
led her to one of her world's great lost treasures, the legendary
'Master' Sword of the first Lyn'k ... and yet another was how she
first met Rianna, only a small child at the time...
        Mayl shook her head to push the reminiscence from her mind,
just in time to hear the telltale clank of Rianna's boots on the
gangway of their Tarsus.  She ventured out into the thinning crowd and
made her way up the corridor, hoping to lose her worries in a quick
bout of browsing before she had to face her friend again, if only to
deliver their cargo and get on with the task of paying off Mr. Ploovo.
        She was only a few steps onto the lower deck proper when she
noticed a group of six rough-looking men, each wearing light blast
armor, each carrying a blaster pistol in his hand, each scanning idly
through the crowd as it moved clear of them. She stopped, watching as
one of them noticed her, looked down at a slip of paper in his hand --
probably a photograph, she reasoned -- and then barked something at
the other five, pointing at her.
        They all turned to look straight at her and fanned out to
form a wall, advancing in her direction.  Only the group's leader (she
guessed) had his weapon aimed at her, and his unshaven face bore a
smile she didn't find pleasant at all. Swallowing, she started backing
away, and far too soon found herself leaning against someone's booth.
        "Now, girlie," the lead goon said in a thin, menacing voice,
"you're gonna come with us, an' you're gonna come real quiet-like, ya
get me?"
        Mayl wondered why she hadn't bothered to put on her sword
before leaving the ship, and then remembered she'd've had to go past
Rianna to get it.  "Um," she stalled, wishing she didn't sound so
scared as her hands groped around on the table behind her, "wh-where
would you, um, I mean, where are we--"
        "Don't ask questions, girlie," he replied in that same voice.
"You'll find out when we get there.  Now do ya come nice, or do we
hafta make it tough for ya?"
        "Well ... I suppose you can take ... THIS!"  With a quick
swing, Mayl threw the second-heaviest object she could find and grasp
on the table -- the hardcover, full-length novelization of _Butcher_,
the film drama based on one director's version of the events leading
to, including and following the infamous Musashi incident, complete
with liner notes, director's commentary and a large "50% OFF" sticker.
        The lead goon quickly identified himself as an apt literary
critic as he fired on the incoming tome, his well-placed shot reducing
it to leaflets and confetti.  He coughed as the litter smattered over
his face, and then staggered backward with a yelp as an author's-uncut
edition of _The Stand_ slammed hard into his chest, nearly knocking
him off his feet.
        "YOWP!" Mayl shrieked as she dove to the side, avoiding the
fire of the rest of the goon squad as they brought their blasters to
bear on the unfortunate bookseller's wares, filling the air with tufts
of paper.  "HEEEEELLLLLP!" she elaborated as she broke into a full
run, and within moments all seven of them were dashing down the
corridor, making no small mess and an equal amount of noise.
        Rianna's head snapped up at the first sound of blaster fire.
"Oh, hell," she mumbled, knocking away the change the hangar chief was
trying to hand her from the landing fees and refueling deposit.
Lightsaber in hand, she ran from the hangar, plunging into the crowds
in Mayl's wake.
        Stupid, stupid bitch, she thought, can't she go five minutes
by herself without getting into trouble?

        Redneck sat in one of the several cafe booths in the galaxy's
largest flea market, the CFA New Orleans, hiding from the masses of
paperwork lurking on his desk. Today, instead of either the CFMF duty
uniform or the dress uniform he used as Vice Admiral commanding, or
the bomber jacket he wore when taking command of a starfighter
squadron, he wore the blue windbreaker, light shirt and jeans he
preferred when about to go on a smuggling run or on a commando
operation. 
        Sitting across from him at the table were two Centauri
smugglers, who like him were smuggling RebelTech and ExoSalusia
weapons to Narn, where the natives were rebelling against the colonial
rule of the Centauri Empire. The younger-looking of the two, Londo
Mollari, was the owner of their ship, whereas the somewhat older,
stockier Centauri, whose name Kris had already forgotten, had hired on
as a pilot in exchange for transportation.
        It was this other man who attracted Kris' attention. Even
across the table, Kris smelled a mixture of sweat and hair starch. He
watched as a tiny bit of the headdress came loose and fell limp to his
shoulders. The face beneath the bad hairstyle looked somewhat
familiar, and mentally Kris added wire-frame spectacles to it. The
result was a face instantly recognizable on hundreds of worlds,
provided one had a history book or a wanted poster to compare it to.
        Kris ignored the resemblance. If he decided to recognize the
"Centauri" sweating in front of him, he'd have to make some choices he
really didn't want to make. He turned his attention back to Mollari, a
wanted criminal back on Centauri Prime and any number of other places.
"I still don't see why you won't join, Londo. The advantages of
Freespacer citizenship are obvious. Protection, freedom, allies..."
        "I am sorry, Admiral," Londo smiled, "but I look at your
proposal, and all I see is a prison. A very comfortable prison, with
few rules and no guard, but a prison nonetheless."
        "I'm sorry you see it that way," Kris replied. "We could
certainly use you, and you could do a lot worse than give us a shot."
        "That is what it comes down to in the end, isn't it?" Londo
said. "People using each other to get what they want? I left Centauri
Prime to get away from that sort of thinking."
        "That's a cynic's view of life," Kris said.
        "But all too accurate," Londo said. "I have much enjoyed this
conversation, Admiral, but I do have a cargo to deliver, and time is a
fleeting thing... for most of us, anyway," he said, quirking an eye at
the effectively-immortal Redneck.
        "For all of us," Kris replied. "Good luck, Londo. Don't catch
any bugs," he added, shaking the Centauri's hand warmly as he uttered
the old Klingon smuggler's good-luck phrase. As the other "Centauri"
stood to leave, he added, "Oh, and by the way..."
        The stocky man stood absolutely still.
        "Your friend here has a remarkable face," Kris smiled.
"Reminds me... of absolutely nobody at all."
        The man relaxed and said, smiling, "Enjoy your lemon twist,
Admiral."
        For two seconds, Kris scrambled for the reference. When he
found it, he chuckled, then giggled, and struggled not to go into
convulsions. Londo looked at him in obvious confusion.
        "What is this about a 'lemon twist?'" he asked his companion
as they paid their bill. "I do not understand."
        "When you're older, Londo,"  Benjamin Hutchins replied,
still smiling.
        Behind them, Kris finally recovered his composure, still
chuckling a bit to himself. All things considered, he thought as he
sipped his cola, it looks to be a nice, peaceful day.  Nothing to
worry about except some angry patrols trying to shoot me down. No
bureaucrats, no Condorcets, no angry politicians...
        ...no red-headed elves running down the corridor screaming for
help...
        Redneck ran that back through his mind and checked it.
Red-headed elf??
        "HEEEEELP! HEEELLP! Beautiful young woman in danger! HELP!"
        Yep. Really tall redheaded elf, running past the booth,
screaming for help.
        ZARK ZARK ZARK ZARK! Blaster bolts sped past the booths, as
customers and tourists dodged for cover beneath the racks of Bantha
throw rugs, CDs, and Harlequin Romance novels (used). Five or six men
in blast armor ran past the cafe, blaster rifles firing ahead of them.
        Redneck sighed to himself. So much for that relaxing day.
Reaching into his pocket, he removed a decal and stuck it on the lapel
of his windbreaker, the twin wreathed stars for Vice Admiral. Then he
slapped a five- mark note on the table and ran into the corridor-
        WHAM!
        Kris found himself entangled with a youngish woman, maybe an
inch or two taller than him, long black hair tickling his face. A
magnificent set of horns poked out from her head, and large brown eyes
glared at the clodhopper who had so carelessly gotten into her way.
Kris brushed the hair from his eyes and looked back-
        BBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..... Bad-vibes out the yang-yang,
Kris thought. Whoever this woman is, she's playing with gas. Calming
himself, he reached out to the Force- one of the few tricks he'd
learned during his years of wandering, before his Jedi Master had
refused to teach him any more- he felt a noble spirit, surrounded by a
solid aura of darkness. Anger, pain, and a controlled blood lust
radiated from the woman, bleeding into Kris and triggering his
defenses. Yyyyokay.
        The woman picked herself off the floor (and Kris) and checked
herself. Over on the deck a few paces away lay a lightsaber,
deactivated. Kris felt the Force flicker, and the lightsaber leaped
into the woman's waiting hand. Kris thought of what might have
happened if it had been activated... OUCH. I don't like regrowing
limbs, nope nope nope.
        The young woman growled, "Excuse me," and ran off down the
corridor, which was refilling with curious bystanders. Kris stood up
and dusted himself off. Terrific, he thought. A redheaded elf being
chased by armed thugs and a possible Dark Jedi. On the most populated
ship in the entire Confederate Freespacers Alliance Home Fleet.
        Yessir, he thought as he ran after them, it's going to be
a _fun_ day...

        Rianna rounded the corner into a half-deserted residential
block, searching for the slimeballs chasing Mayl. The corridor
appeared empty, at least to someone not resonating with the Dark Side.
Her instincts led her down the corridor, past several apartments, to a
small single apartment, door locked. Inside, she could hear Mayl
whimpering and the goons muttering some demand or other. Extending her
senses to the limit, she heard... "...just give us the egg, girlie,
and we'll be on our way."
        "Riii-annnnn-aaaa....."
        Rianna's anger flared to new heights, fueling the darkness.
Her lightsaber flashed to life, slicing the door to the apartment open
easily. Beyond, the five goons pivoted and swung their blaster rifles
towards the hole, firing wildly.
        Rianna leaped through the bolts untouched, saber flashing and
deflecting shots here and there. Somersaulting over the heads of the
goons, she placed her body in front of Mayl's. "All right, assholes,"
she growled, "who wants to be first?"
        One goon stepped forward, swinging his rifle back on its
shoulder strap. From his belt, he produced a beamsaber of his own, a
store-bought weapon rather than the delicately hand-crafted item Rianna
used. Igniting his blade, he twirled it gracefully around his body,
over and under shoulders, under the leg, behind the back and over the
head. Finally, he snapped it into a guard-ready position, smirking at
Rianna.
        Rianna reached through the Force, drawing her
shoulder-holstered Bryar holdout blaster into her hand, and before the
goon could react she shot him between the eyes. The fancy swordsman
fell wordlessly to the carpet. The other gunmen aimed carefully at
Rianna and prepared to fire.
        "STOP!" a voice called from the doorway. The goons all
swiveled and fired at the new target- the man Rianna had clobbered by
accident in the corridor. The blaster bolts met a red wall of energy
and bounced away, as a staff of light about seven feet long appeared
in the man's hands. The anticipation Rianna felt from the man
vanished, replaced by a careful, controlled calmness; Rianna glimpsed
for a moment a Force aura around the man as he advanced on the gunmen.
All of which she assimilated as she decapitated the closest
goon to her, reminding the surviving goons of their original opponent.
As they tried to decide on a target, the man with the beamstaff sliced
away one goon's arm while Rianna knocked out another with a left cross
to the chin.
        The lone remaining gunman looked at the Sith Adept, then at
the staff-wielding man, and he finally settled on the woman, swinging
the rifle towards her.
        Too late. Two red beams, one from the lightsaber, one from the
beamstaff, lanced through his body, and withdrew. The man staggered,
turned to run, took one step and fell dead.
        Relative silence crept back in, filling the jagged spaces left
by the fighting, but it was only a moment before the horned woman had
deactivated her lightsaber and stalked toward the thug she'd felled with
her fist.  Said goon happened to be lying next to the whimpering elf,
who looked like she was in a bit of pain.
        "You all right?" the Dark Jedi asked the elf testily.  Not
giving her time to answer, she reached down and lifted the thug up by
his collar, smacking him in the face with her other hand.  "Come on,
wake up," she growled.  "I didn't hit you that hard."  The speed and
strength of her slaps increased.  "Come on, asshole!  Who are you and
why are you after us?!"
        "Put him down."
	The horned woman stopped and fixed a flinty glare on Redneck.
"Who the hells are you?"
        "Kristan Overstreet, Jedi Knight. You can call me Admiral
Overstreet."
        The woman scanned him up and down and didn't look particularly
impressed. The power might be there, but definitely not the training,
nor even the right skills. "Jedi Knight?  Bullshit."
        "Maybe," Redneck said levelly, beamstaff still shining in his
hands, still in battle mode. " Put him down anyway... or else."
	"This does not concern you, Admiral," she growled.  "Leave now."
	"I said put him down!"
	She looked at Redneck, then at the thug she was still holding up,
seemingly indecisive about who she should throttle first.  Glaring at
Redneck, she growled "Do you intend to make me?"
	"RI! LOOK OUT!" the elf cried out, a bit too late as the
thug suddenly brought one knee violently upward, catching the brunette
in the gut.  She staggered backward, her concentration broken for one
critical second as the dropped thug regained his balance and whipped out
a combat knife, preparing to strike, but before he could act, the beam
staff flashed again, and the thug's arm fell to the floor as the rest of
him collapsed in a screaming heap which was quickly silenced by a good
swift kick to the head by the elf.
        "...rgh... fuck!" Rianna swore as she shook her head, trying
to clear her senses. Glancing around at the fallen bodies, it became
obvious that none of them would be able to answer questions anytime
soon- and most of them, never again.  "Oh hell," she grumbled.  "Now
how're we gonna find out who they were working for?"
        "Ever consider maybe handing him over to the authorities?"
Overstreet said.
        "Oh, yeah, sure," Rianna whirled to face him.  "And how am I
supposed to trust the cops?"
	"See these stars?" Overstreet pointed to a decal on his jacket.
"I -am- the authorities."
	"Ooo, I am *so* impressed," Rianna quipped, her voice dripping
with sarcasm.  "Yeah, I can *see* just how far I can trust you!"
        "Well, EXCUSE ME FOR BEING ME!" he roared, patience gone.
	"Owww...."
	At the sound of Mayl's groan, both Rianna and Redneck turned
toward her and asked in stereo: "Are you all right?"
	"I think I twisted my ankle..." Mayl winced, trying to stand up
straight and failing miserably.  "owie... this is embarrassing..."
	"C'mon, Mayl," Rianna said, hooking Mayl's left arm around her
shoulders.  They had to get out of here before anything *else* happened.
"Let's get back to the ship."
        "Wait," Redneck interjected.  "Let me take her to the Lab, it's
closer." 
	Rianna glared at him, her eyes narrowing to slits, and the Force
welled up from her throat in an angry growl. <<We don't need your
help.>>
        Instead of agreeing with her, as he was supposed to,
Overstreet suddenly bristled, glared right back at her and growled,
<<Yes you DO need my help.>> A faint red aura danced around him as his
eyes bored directly into Rianna's.
        Rianna pulled back, shocked. This
was impossible! How could he resist?
        "Wow, he can do that funny voice too!" Mayl remarked.
        "Uh, whuh," Rianna stammered. Her control vanished; she
clutched at the remaining shreds of her concentration and tried to
pull herself together.
        "Now listen," Redneck said in a more normal voice. "I don't
know who you are, what your business is, or why the hell you had to
run into my life. But I think it's blatantly obvious that you could
use some help, so if you'll take care of your friend, I'll take a
couple of these toughs, and we'll see what Washuu can make of things."
        Rianna struggled to think. Her resolve had fractured for a
critical moment, and now all the little doubts, the quiet little
voices, that had plagued her since Fenris echoed in her ears. Her
clarity of thought was gone, replaced by a cacophony of doubt. "uhh...
all right, all right," she said at last. Anything if this man would
just go away.
        "-THANK you.-" Overstreet said, relaxing as he bent down and
picked up an unconscious tough under each arm.  "Follow me.  Let me
know if I'm walking too fast for your friend."
        "I'll let you know, believe me," Ri answered, glaring at her
companion, who felt about two centimeters tall.

	*clatterclatterclatter*
        The crab chime made its usual noise as Redneck stepped through
the main door of the Lab, calling out:  "Hey, Washuu?"
        "Kris! Hi! How's it hangin'? I thought you had a gun-run to
make..." The small, red-headed mad scientist had not immediately
turned to greet Red, but as soon as she did, and saw who was with him,
her smile abruptly vanished.  "Um... who are your friends?"
        Redneck blinked.  "Actually, I never got their names."
Dropping the two goons he'd been toting, he said, "And these two don't
appear to be talking to anyone, ever again, it seems."
        "Rianna," the raven-haired horned woman answered, sounding
tired. "Rianna Santova.  And this," she glared at her companion,  "is
Mayl Popp'fl."
        "hi," Mayl said sheepishly, edging slightly away from Rianna.
        "Charmed, Ms. Popp'fl," Washuu answered, now totally serious.
"And you, Lady Santova. It's been a while since I've had a Dark Jedi walk
into my parlor." Her light-hearted voice failed to match the icy stare
she gave Rianna.
        "EXCUSE ME?!?" Kris shouted, looking at Rianna and missing
Washuu's glare.
        "Uh... right," Rianna said.  "Though I'd rather be somewhere
else right now."
	"Um..." Red's brain revved in neutral.
       Rianna's eyes narrowed at the wave of pity she felt from
the blonde man..  "And quit feeling sorry for me.  I'm perfectly
*fine*, thank you." 
        "Um... sorry, but I'm not buying that."
        "Excuse me," Washuu interjected. Looking up from her
examination of Mayl's injured ankle, she continued,  "But this young
lady has a strained tendon, can one of you help me with her?"
        "Where?" Rianna asked bluntly.  Washuu gestured in the
direction of her main examination table. Without ceremony, Rianna
picked up Mayl and hauled her across the foyer, finally seating the
elf firmly on the examination table.
        "Thank you," Washuu said politely. "If you like, there's a
lounge through that doorway on the right where you may wait."
        "Fine, whatever," Rianna growled.  "I don't want to see her
for a while." Glaring one final time at Mayl, she strode through the
door, slamming it behind her..
        Kris watched the door settle in its frame, sensing Rianna's
turmoil fade slightly as she walked away., "Washuu, can you see to Ms.
Popp'fl? I need to talk to that young woman." Without waiting for a
reply, he followed Rianna into the lounge, leaving Mayl and Washuu
staring after them.

        The room Washuu had blithely referred to as a lounge could
easily have been used as an auditorium, at least from the standpoint
of sheer size. The room extended at least thirty meters to a side,
with the ceiling arching far overhead. In the center of the room stood
a small tree, and beneath the tree sat a cluster of park benches.
Behind the tree, one of the many waterways which ran through the
forward area of the lab burbled happily.
        In the bench closest to the tree sat Rianna, hands in her lap,
slumped forward in what appeared to be deep introspection- and
although Kris had learned long, long ago to distrust all appearances
when inside the lab, he could feel the truth of this one. The young
woman before him held on to composure only with an effort, and her
confusion bled outward towards him like dye in a lake.
        "Hey, um, Ms. Santova," he called to her, careful to give her
space and time to react.
        "What do you want?" Rianna barked, almost pouting.
        "Well..." Kris struggled to think of something to say. "I
wanted to apologize for reacting so badly back there. I didn't mean
to... well... hurt your feelings..."
        "My feelings are just fine," Rianna murmured angrily.
        "Like hell they are," Kris said. He sat beside her on the
bench, a discreet space between them, and gently continued, "Now come
over here and tell me what's really wrong. Please."
        Rianna shrunk away from him and said, "Give me a good reason
why I should."
        "Well, that's a tough one," Kris said lightly. "Let me think
about this," he smiled, ticking off points on his fingers: "This guy I
run into out of nowhere, with delusions of being a Jedi, challenges me
during a firefight, then bitches me out, and now he wants me to trust
him. Hm...," he frowned, doing an deliberately bad job of acting
serious. "Well, I could try using my irresistible charm... nononono,"
he smiled, trying to lure a smile from the young woman.
        It didn't work.
        Sighing, Kris slipped out of manic mode and said, "You want a
good reason? All right, here's a good reason. I don't like it when
people start shooting at young women. In fact, it pisses me off. And
quite frankly, when I try to help those young women get out of their
jam, I don't appreciate being told to blow off, -especially- when they
need every friend they can possibly get. I'm not asking for anything
other than a little trust here. Is that a good enough reason?"
        Rianna didn't answer; she focused her attention on an
undefined point in the air, careful not to let her confusion show to
this near-stranger. Part of her, the part that had been shouting
against the darkness for the past week or more, wanted to trust the
man, to accept his help, and just let the madness end. The darkness
within her shouted back that she wanted to stay angry, she _had_ to
stay angry... but this voice no longer overpowered her mind;
instead, it seemed hardly louder or more overbearing than the first
voice.
        Rianna could no longer tell which voice was her. The thought
frightened her.
        For a moment she squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear escaped
from one corner before she could do anything. Shaking her head
violently, she grated: "I want to be alone right now."
        Kris reached out a hand and grasped Rianna's shoulder gently,
saying, "It's all right. Let it go." 
        Rianna struggled to maintain control, to stay angry, to keep
the walls which protected her in place... The cracks grew larger,
wider... and the walls collapsed, and she buried her face in her
hands, sobbing quietly.
        Kris took the young horned woman in his arms and hugged her,
feeling her pain flow over him, trying to comfort her. Then, the flow
of emotions became something more; one by one, a series of images
flowed through Red's mind, images of Mayl bouncing up and down with
excitement; images of Ploovo Two-For-One with his pallid face and
slimy grin; of the dozen or so Starchasers which had hounded them from
the spaceport on Fenris; more and more, large and small, telling
the story of how two women had managed to get into so much trouble.
        And the images flowed...

        The jeering voices were behind her.
        Her legs were tired, but she kept running.
        Why did it have to be like this?
        She turned a corner, her heart pounding in her ears, not quite
loud enough to drown out the taunts of her pursuers.  She didn't look
back, only forward, ignoring the disdainful glances of the few adults
who took one look at her and quickly found something else to hold
their attention.
        She squeezed her eyes shut as she ran, trying to drown out the
panic, trying to call on that power her Mother was teaching her about.
Every lesson stressed caution, and preparation, and control, and a
thousand other things that she either couldn't remember, couldn't
pronounce, or didn't care about right now.
        Anger.  Fear.  Aggression.  She had plenty of the first and
second one, and was tired of being the target of the third.
        Her panicked young mind screamed for power.
        None came.
        A soft spot in the ground caught her foot.  The rhythm of her
gallop broken, her eyes leaped open as she flailed and tumbled to the
ground, skidding painfully on her forearms and knees. She moaned and
scrabbled a bit, her feet slipping in some loose sand as she attempted
to get back up, but a sudden weight on her back put her stomach to the
ground.
        "Got you, Horny!"
        "Ow, lemme go, lemme go!"  Her eyes teared up as she wiggled
futilely.
        "Forget it, Horny!"
        "Yeah, we got you now!"  The gang laughed and mocked,
surrounding her with a wall of hurtful noise.
        "Here, lemme get 'er!"
        "OW!"  One of the boys grabbed her by her curled horn -- it
was small, but enough for a handhold and not yet very sturdy! "Oww,
OWW!"
        "Hey, let's see if it comes off!"
        "OWW, lemme GO, OWW!"  Her eyes were squeezed shut as she was
led around blindly by the hand on her horn, dragging her around until
more hands came and grabbed her roughly, holding her still.  "Quit it,
lemme GO, OWW!"
        "Hey!"  The pull on her horn relaxed suddenly at the new
voice's intrusion.  "Knock it off, you little lee'vrmytes!"
        "Beat it, lady!"
        "Yeah, 's none'a your business!"
        "I'm -making- it my business!  Leave that girl alone!"
        "Figures someone like you'd help someone like her!"
        "Yeah, freaks gotta stick together!"  A brief moment of unkind
laughter ensued.
        "WHY YOU LITTLE--"
        The laughter turned to impotent, angry panic as the voices of
her tormentors became a hurricane around her, and she was dashed to
the ground like a forgotten toy.  She lay as still as she could,
listening to the mob retreating, save for one lone, infuriated voice.
        "I KNOW WHERE TO FIND YOUR PARENTS YOU KOUR'IAT-BRAINED LITTLE
PUGGS!"
        In the ensuing silence, she decided it was safe, and slowly
righted herself, pushing up with her fingertips to avoid touching her
raw, skinned palms to the ground.  Now that the rush of fear and pain
was over, she sobbed in frustration, sniffling through her nose and
wiping at her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
        She wanted to get back to her Mother.  She wanted to learn
more about how to call on that power.  Then she'd show them.
        She winced when she felt someone touch her.
        "It's okay."  It was the newcomer -- the one who broke up the
fight.  "They're all gone now.  It's okay."
        "Th-thanks," she mumbled between sniffles.  She tried to look
up, but her eyes were all teary and she only saw a large flesh-tone
blur framed by a red blur.
        "Hey, no trouble ... now, what say we get you cleaned up?"
        "'m fine."  Her arms stung, but she didn't want anyone's help,
especially not someone as cheerful as this.
        "No, you're not.  Look.  Look at your arms."  She blinked,
wiped and looked down; her young eyes, finally able to see clearly,
widened at the mass of red she found.  The injury suddenly seemed to
sting a lot more.  "You got scraped up pretty badly.  Must've been a
nasty fall."
        "Yeah," she replied gently, still in a daze about the whole
ordeal.
        "Come on, we'll go get you all washed up at the doctor's." The
hands were lifting her now, pulling her up onto her feet. She was a
little unsteady at first, but the newcomer didn't let her go until she
was stable, and even then it was slowly.
        She lifted her gaze to her benefactor, and was greeted
immediately by a pair of bright, cheerful blue eyes on a pretty,
smiling face.  Bright red hair filled out the edges of her vision,
interrupted on either side by the long ears she'd come so accustomed
to seeing here.
        "What's your name?" the girl asked.
        "R..."  She was reluctant at first, but decided it was all
right.  "Rianna Santova."
        "Very nice to meet you, Rianna," the girl chirped happily.
"I've met your mother.  She's a very nice person, and I can see you're
a lot like her.  I'll take you back home after we've got you washed
up, and got some clean bandages on those arms."
        The newcomer's cheerfulness was impossibly contagious, and
Rianna smiled.  "An' what's your name?"
        "I'm Mayl.  Mayl Popp'fl."

	The solid blue of the clear skies began to change, fading to a
deep purple which grew darker with each passing moment.  A few points
of sparkling light began to appear as the blue and purple melted  into
a thin halo following the curving horizon of the blue-green planet
below, leaving inky blackness in their wake.
        Rianna stood up in the chair, her small hands resting on the
console as she leaned forward, her eyes wide in fascination, as they
had been ever since the shuttle had left Hyeruul's surface.  She'd
never been off the ground before, had always thought the sky was the
ceiling of the world and the stars were decorations.  Now she was
above the sky, and the stars were even prettier than before.
        "wow..." she breathed.
	"It's pretty, isn't it?" said the deep, soothing voice of her
father, who sat beside her.  Rianna didn't answer, far too busy
looking at the place she called home from a whole different
perspective.  Her father chuckled at the sight.  "Let me show you
something *really* pretty."
        The low rumble of the shuttle's engines grew louder, and the
surface of the planet passed more quickly beneath them. Presently
darkness crept across the surface of the planet as the shuttle
glided into Hyeruul's night side. A moment later the Hyelian sun
vanished, and the spaceship grew dark, lit only by the distant stars.
        Her father's hands moved across the panel, bringing the
shuttle to a relative stop. The interior lights dimmed and died,
leaving only the light of the consoles to illumine the cockpit.
Rianna felt herself being picked up, lifted into his lap.
        "Watch this," he grinned as he reached around her and touched
a few more controls. Like a developing photograph, a sea of
multicolored stars and nebulae, unlike anything Rianna had ever seen
before, appeared before the little girl's enraptured eyes.  Her jaw
went slack, and she just stared and stared.  It was one thing to hear
bedtime stories about her parents' travels among the stars, about the
things they'd seen, but to actually see them herself...
        "whoa....." the little girl breathed.
	"Pretty, isn't it?" her father asked softly.
	"uh-huh," she answered.
        "See that big yellow one?" his shadowed finger pointed towards
one of the larger yellow stars.  "That's where I live.  Someday I'll
take you there."
        "Really??" the girl turned excitedly to face her father, who
was shrouded in darkness at the moment, but that didn't matter.  All
that mattered was it was her daddy.
        "Uh-huh," he answered.
        Rianna grinned widely.  "Daddy, when I grow up I wanna be a
*space pilot*, just like you!" she chirped.
        He chuckled, ruffling her hair.  "Heh.  You can do anything
you want, sweetheart."
        Rianna wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as tightly
as she could.  "I love you, Daddy."
        "Love you too, hon," he said, encircling her with his own much
bigger arms.

	"There's something here..."
        The words slipped from Rianna's mouth almost before she knew
it. She and her mother had paused for a rest after a long and
strenuous jog through the Kak'aryk'o Forest when she felt the
disturbance, the sensation that something was fundamentally not right
here. In the infamous 'Lost Woods' that was not unusual... but this
was much different, and much darker.
        Rianna extended her senses, focusing on the source of the
darkness. After a few moments, she found herself facing an ancient
tree, old, huge and hoary, with a gaping hole large enough for an
armored man to pass through in its front. The hole seemed to attract
her, dark, deep, apparently bottomless; the darkness seemed to flow
from it like a spring. She had heard of such places, gateways into the
underground caves and passages crafted by the ancient Hyelians. The
Underworld had been abandoned almost since the beginning of written
history on Hyeruul, and it was now home only to the subterranean
creatures of the realm. Hyelian children's stories, and a large part
of Hyelian history, centered around these caves...
        And here was a real one.
        "I feel... darkness..." She turned to face her mother, a
well-built blond woman with a prominent set of thick, curled horns.
She looked youthful, but her sharp green eyes bespoke ages upon ages
of life experience... and those eyes now regarded her with the gaze of
a Master.
        "This place," she said quietly, "is strong with the Dark Side, a
domain of great power." She cocked her head toward the tree.  "Go
inside."
        Rianna paused, looking toward the tree for a moment before
turning to face her mother again.  "... What's in there?"
        "Whatever you take with you," her mother answered evenly, and
gestured toward the tree again.
        Steeling herself, Rianna approached.  Wood and rock shaped
themselves into rough steps which Rianna could find footing on.  For a
moment the steps seemed to lead down only into so much blackness, but
as her eyes began to adjust, a faint blue glow, and a large open
cavern, could be seen beneath her.
        The light, such as it was, came from bioluminescent mosses
which clung to the walls, bathing the room in their eerie blue light.
Sounds of dripping water and scuttling animals seemed to echo all
around.  A small b'hot slithered past on a nearby rock ledge, pausing
to regard the young girl with shining red eyes before moving on.
Rianna fought back a shiver, starting to feel as if a thousand pairs
of those red eyes were on her. She felt herself being drawn forward,
toward the center of the large cavern...
        >Horny!<

        Rianna jumped at the voice, which hissed out of nowhere,
echoing in the darkness.
        >Got you, Horny!<
        Rianna looked around quickly, trying to ignore the way the
shadows seemed to be shifting, the way the glowing red eyes seemed to
glow brighter.
        >Little half-breed freak!<
        They were acquiring definition and shape in her mind, taking
the form of Hyelians, still dark except for those glowing red eyes.
Rianna found herself wanting to back away, but suddenly realized she
had no idea which way the escape was.  Panic surged.  She fought it
down.
        >Aww, gonna cry?<
        They closed in, and now some of the shadows seemed to blend
into one larger one, like an ogre, with a much bigger set of gleaming
eyes......
        Ghan'nyn.
	>Let's see if those horns come off, fellas.<
        She tried to back away, felt herself bump into a rock wall,
felt the fear welling up and threatening to come flying out in a
terrified scream......
        Fear.
	Wait...
	...Fear...
	...'Control your fear.  Release your anger.'...
	She remembered.
	<Go away.>
	>*You* go away, you little freak,< the jeering continued.  >We
don't want you on our world!<
        <No.> Rianna answered, her deep-seated anger at all the times
she'd been wronged by cruel children coming toward the fore.  <You
can't make me do anything!>
        Suddenly she felt as if the shadows were physically pressing
against her, the evil red glow of the gleaming eyes... and was that
the smell of foul breath?... right in her face.
        >You're gonna die, you little horned alien bitch.<
	<NO!> she roared right back.  <<GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!>>

	Dead silence.  An empty cave with glowing blue mosses on the
walls...
	An illusion.  It had been an illusion...
        As she reemerged into the brighter, warmer air of the surface
world, she found her mother seated on a fallen log nearby, a long twig
in her hand, with which she poked at the dirt, making random scrawls
in the soil.
        Her mother said nothing, only looked at her for a moment, many
thoughts obviously passing through her mind but which she chose not to
share with Rianna.  Then her mother's gaze went back to the ground.
Gingerly Rianna sat on the fallen log next to her, not knowing what
else to do, not knowing whether she'd passed or failed the test which
she knew had just confronted her.
        Her mother would tell her sooner or later, of course.
	But right now she didn't know...

        The flood of images slowed and stabilized, becoming a rapport
between the Jedi and the Sith. Kris and Rianna looked into each
other's souls, to the innermost depths. Rianna's confusion and sadness
flowed through Kris, forming words: <...everything my father did for
me, prepared for me... gone in one moment of stupidity... i want to
hate her for this... but she is too much my friend...>
       Kris returned a wave of compassion to Rianna, and through it
words of his own: <Your friends make mistakes sometimes. Washuu is my
friend... but once, she made a mistake too...> One by one, Kris sent
his own images, of himself at the WDF Academy, of his mysterious
tutor, of the experiment which had changed his life forever. <I did
hate her for a long time,> Kris sent, <but I couldn't hate her
forever. She's my friend, just like Mayl is your friend... and so am
I.>
        <I did want to get out... I had plans... they were
destroyed...> Rianna sobbed mentally, frustrated, angry, and
frightened. Quietly, the thought whispered, <I don't want my father to
see me like this...>
        <You will see your dreams realized,> Kris sent firmly, <and
your father will be proud of you. And I will help you.> Forcing the
mindlink closed, he said aloud, "Rest here, please. I'll see what I
can do about finding your attackers." With a final hug, he said, "You
are perfectly safe here. Rest, and relax."
        Rianna nodded, not being capable of much else anyway. The fog
of emotions was lifting, fading away... and with it, a lot of her
strength. Rianna felt as if she were awakening from a nightmare...
only the nightmare was real, and she was still here, with no idea what
to do next.
        Slowly, the despair Rianna had held off since leaving Hyeruul
returned, unchecked by the dark power which had protected Rianna, and
almost destroyed her. Kris felt her sinking into self-pity, fear, and
pain, withdrawing into a cocoon of misery, as her emotions faded from
his senses.
        Sighing, Kris released her and left her to her sadness. He'd
done all he could here; now it was time to take care of the other half
of the problem.

        The door opened as Washuu was finishing up the last bit of
repair to several ligaments in Mayl's upper ankle. The man- Admiral
Overstreet, Kris, whatever- seemed a bit tired, even sad, to Mayl, who
wasn't feeling all that cheerful herself. "Washuu, can you leave us
for a moment?" he asked quietly. "I need to talk for a moment with
Miss Mayl."
        "Sure, Kris," Washuu smiled, putting the cellular stimulator
away. "I'll just go check and see if my protiase cultures are ready."
        "Right..." Kris said as Washuu skipped off into the depths of
the Lab. Once the mad scientist had vanished, Kris turned to face
Mayl, looking at her with a stare Mayl hadn't seen since the time
she'd tried feeding a cookie to a wild ok'to'ryk. "Now then," he said
very quietly, "Mayl, do you know why I asked Washuu to leave?"
        Mayl cringed on the examination table. "...don't tell me
you're mad at me, too," she moaned, ears drooping. Things just kept
getting worse... and it seemed to be all her fault.
        "No, I'm not mad," Kris said, softening his gaze and
laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.  "And your friend isn't mad,
either. But she is feeling pretty miserable right now."
        "Miserable?" Mayl asked. The cold feeling she'd had ever since
they left Hyeruul suddenly exploded, like a iceberg appearing from
nowhere in her gut.
        "Yep," Kris said. "She's sad, and scared, and lonely, and she
needs a friend really bad about now." He smiled faintly. "You know any
around here?"
        Mayl gaped at him in shock. "But... you can't mean me, she
hates me now, I just make her angry and I can't do anything right and
I keep messing up and I-" Kris touched a finger to her lips, and she
watched mutely as he smiled a gentle, friendly smile.
        "Listen to me," he said very quietly. "Rianna needs a friend.
And you are the best friend she has ever had, virtually the -only-
friend from what... what she told me." For a moment, he seemed
uncertain how to proceed. "Tell me," he said at last, "how do you feel
right now?"
        "How do I feel?" Mayl bent her head and thought for a moment,
finally saying, "Guilty. And stupid. Really stupid. No, first stupid,
then guilty. Wait, no, stupid and guilty..." Mayl slumped, ears
drooping almost straight down. "Oh, b'hots, I just ... I'm such a ...
such a j'ttaten, krelb-eating ... khonk-headed dinn'gam'orf," she
finished, mumbling into her lap.
        Kris gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and said, "Look,
people make mistakes. You make some. She makes some. It happens. Right
now, though, you need to go in there and work it out with her. She'll
listen now... and she needs her partner."
        "Yes, sir," Mayl whispered. She trudged to the door and eased
it open slowly, relaxing slightly when it failed to squeak. The
immense room on the other side grabbed her attention, totally
occupying her mind for a few moments. It took her dazzled eyes several
seconds to find Rianna sitting on the bench beneath the tree, looking
more miserable than Mayl had ever seen her.
        Rianna sat on the bench, head leaning on her folded arms,
which in turn leaned on the elbows atop her legs. Her horns kept her
hair from covering a face which contemplated her feet with severe
disappointment. The discipline and strength that Mayl associated with
Rianna had totally deserted the Sith woman, replaced by misery and
helplessness.
        Mayl quietly eased the door shut and leaned against it,
keeping her eyes on Rianna all the time. She still couldn't believe
that Rianna felt this bad. She just seemed... so totally miserable.
Mayl stood and stared, unable to retreat and unable to step forward
and face what she'd done to her best friend.
        Rianna. Strong, confident, indomitable Rianna. Mayl had spent
her late adolescence watching fascinated as Rianna had grown from
young childhood into womanhood almost overnight, at least by Hyelian
standards. She'd shared Rianna's growing pains and awkward stages with
no little joy, as Rianna's body had sprung up and out, finally
surpassing hers in almost every way.
        She had smiled and watched as the alien girl, put-upon by
children who had not yet learned to accept differences, grew both in
courage and in maturity with the knowledge that, somewhere among the
strange faces and pointed ears she had a friend who would always look
out for her. As Rianna's mother had taught discipline, patience, and
the ways of the Sith, Mayl had taught her advanced mischief-making (as
if that needed to be taught), as well as her love for history and all
things ancient. They'd dreamed together of leaving Hyeruul one day,
seeing the galaxy they could only hear about at home, maybe even find
the pieces of Rianna's heritage...
        ...and Mayl had gone and made a total disaster of it.
        Mayl finally stepped forward, ears drooping almost low enough
to touch her shoulders. The gentle sound of her bootheels tapping the
Lab floor caught Rianna's attention, bringing her eyes up to look at
her. Mayl froze, stomach churning, as she saw the track of Rianna's
tears still fresh on her face. She couldn't believe it. Rianna -never-
cried. Never... except for now.
        After a long, tense moment, Rianna returned to examining her
shoes, and Mayl found the nerve to continue walking, down the path and
under the tree, beside the bench. Slowly, carefully, she turned and
sat down beside Rianna- on the other side from where Kris had sat,
although she had no way of knowing that.
        The subtle background hum of the Lab seemed to echo in Mayl's
ears. Mayl wanted to whine and beg and plead and generally make a
total infant of herself, but she managed to control herself. No
begging, no whining. The Admiral had been nice enough to calm Rianna
down, and she couldn't waste the opportunity he had given her.
Unfortunately, she had no idea what to say, and after a long,
uncomfortable wait, she sighed and moaned, "Rianna... I -really-
by'phed it this time, didn't I?"
        Rianna glanced up at the elf, equally uncomfortable, and she
answered the only way she could: honestly. "Yes, Mayl... you biffed
it."
        "Stupid," Mayl huffed, pounding her fist on the bench beside
her. "I was so -stupid.- First sign of even the kuffiest ship
available and I act like that krelb-eater wants to hand me the
Righteous Indignation. Khonk could only wish to be this stupid." Mayl
folded her arms over her chest as she moaned, "Never think, just jump,
just like the Queen tells me I shouldn't do... same as I always do."
        The corner of Rianna's mouth turned slightly upward. "Like
that time you took me to visit the kour'iat pens?"
        Mayl glanced over at her friend, and her nose snorted a laugh
that the rest of her failed to acknowledge.  "Yeah ... and thought I
could ride one of them out to show you how neat they were up close.  I
think I still have some bruises from that."  Her eyes closed as she
fell back into silence.
        "Or the time you wrapped up my horns in bandages because I was
complaining about them hurting, when they were only going through
another growth spurt?"
        Mayl nodded, still silent.
        "Or the time you wanted to show me the Heart of the Triforce,
and the guards marched us right up to Tz'ldah's throne?"
        Mayl winced, but nodded agreement, unable to deny her own
history, no matter how painful.
        "Just one thing after another," Rianna said softly.
        Mayl breathed a long, weary sigh, and turned to face her
companion.  "Ri ... Rianna ... I just want to say ... I'm sorry.  For
everything.  For ... for being a pest ... getting you in all this
trouble ... spending your money without even asking! ... I just..."
She looked away again.
        "You saw your dream," Rianna stated quietly, into the brief
pause.  "You knew I'd want to be part of it, so you grabbed it."
        "Exactly!  If I'd stop to j'ttating -think- once in a while
we'd have a lot fewer bruises!"
        "And a lot less fun," Rianna said, smiling secretively to
herself.
        "Maybe..." Mayl shrugged, not really believing it. "I don't
know, maybe you'd be better off without me. There's nothing I'm good
for but well-meaning screw-ups, and look where those get us -- Lyn'k
knows how far from home, with a ship that barely works, a cargo that
must be illegal in -some- way and everybody and his pet greppa trying
to kill us..."
       Mayl felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Rianna
sitting tall and straight, looking at her with eyes no longer clouded
by tears. This was the Rianna Mayl remembered: confident, capable, and
ready to take on the world.
        "But I'm doing it with my best friend," she replied, "helping
her find her dream ... just as she would help me find mine."  She
chuckled for a moment, and noted softly, "if only I could have seen me
now, a month ago..."
        Mayl slumped forward, propping her head up on her arms.  "If I
saw me a month ago, I'd slap me and tell me not to listen to greasy
used-ship salesmen."
        Rianna snickered, then laughed, loud and long, as Mayl looked
at her in astonishment. When Rianna finally managed to recover, she
turned to face the elf, smiling as she said, "Mayl, listen... you've
made some mistakes, but I'm willing to forgive you, on one condition
-- from now on, -I- handle the money."
        Mayl stared blankly into Rianna's eyes, not understanding.
        Rianna held out her hand and said, "Deal?"
        At last, comprehension dawned in Mayl's mind. Her ears perked
up, and her eyes began to sparkle as she smiled and took Rianna's hand
with both of her own.
        "Deal."

        A few minutes later, Rianna and Mayl returned to the
examination room, where Kris and Washuu sat waiting.  "Feel better?"
Kris asked softly.
        Mayl nodded. "Thank you, Admiral, sir."
        Rianna walked past the elf and leaned close to Kris' ear,
whispering, "If you tell anyone about what you saw in that room, I'll
kill you."
        Kris nodded. "Do you trust me now?" he asked, hoping for the
best.
        "Yes."
	Washuu's eyes narrowed dangerously.

        "So, this is the little object that has everyone hopping,
hmm?"
        Washuu directed her question to the small object now lying
before her on a table. Rianna had produced it from a pocket in her
flightsuit; she hadn't trusted the Tarsus to not be burgled in her
absence. The Egg seemed undamaged by its trip, except for a touch of
lint along the inlays.
        "That's it," Rianna said. "Do you have any idea what it is?"
        Washuu stared at the Egg for a long, long moment. "Well... I
haven't seen one of these little babies in a very, very long time."
Carefully, she pressed one of the silver inlays and pushed gently
inward on one tip. The top of the Egg popped open and flipped up to
reveal a small display and keypad, labeled with faint, unfamiliar
characters. Washuu tapped a few keys, and the display came to life, 
beeping cheerfully as a short scroll of the same
strange characters rolled up the display screen.
         "And it still has power! Very interesting!" Washuu said, lost
to curiosity, typing in commands as the others watched.
        Rianna mumbled, "Ah... I don't suppose you'd mind telling me
what exactly that thing is?"
        Washuu snapped back to reality. "Oh! Sorry," she said.
Gesturing to the egg, she said, "What we have here dates to the latter
days of the ancient Mandalorian civilization. This is an extremely
powerful military-grade decryptor. Very big-league stuff, only a few
of this model were made before Mandalor vanished." Looking intently at
the casing of the device, she whispered, "This may be the only example
of its kind left in the galaxy!"
        Rianna whistled, impressed. Here and there, from world to
world, legends arose of protective demons in ancient ruins, of magic
weapons, of armor with incredible properties. At the heart of a lot of
these legends lay the cast-off equipment of the most ancient star
empire known to modern historians, Mandalor. A great deal of the
secrets the Weaponsmiths of Mandalor had known were still mysteries to
contemporary scientists. "Mandalorian, huh?  Ten to one this thing
would make every encryption code in the galaxy useless."
        "Well, you'd have to adapt this to modern communications
systems..." Washuu sighed, "...but the Mandalorians were great at
adapting."
        "Shit," Kris moaned. "No wonder you're getting chased. With
this thing, a body could run roughshod through every security system
in the galaxy as we know it?"
        "Not -every- system, but most of them," Washuu emphasized the
qualifier.
        For a few minutes, the little group just stood and stared at
the decryptor. Now and then, Washuu would look at its readout, nod,
and punch in a new command. Finally, Rianna succumbed to curiosity.
"Tell me, Dr. Washuu-"
        Washuu smiled slightly, not looking up from the decryptor.
"Just call me Washuu."
        "Have you studied Santovasku artifacts?" Rianna asked, trying
to keep any hint of eagerness out of her voice. "Do you know anything
about them?"
        Washuu, still occupied with the decryptor, grinned widely. "I
would think you knew more about the Santovasku than I did, being one
yourself," she chuckled. "Besides, the Santovasku never really
interested me. Too recent for my tastes."
        "Right, well, thanks anyway," Rianna mumbled. Washuu's answer
didn't ring quite true in her ears. Strangely, though, she couldn't
'read' Washuu, like she could most people, to see if she was lying. In
fact, trying to read this mad scientist's surface emotions, stray
thoughts, anything, felt like a blind, deaf man trying to read a book
by feeling the indentations left on the paper by the ink.
        If she knows anything, Rianna thought, she's not gonna tell
me. Something to remember, I suppose.
        "Something bothering you?" Kris asked.
        Rianna jumped slightly. Not only was she not used to not being
able to read a person, she wasn't used to people (besides her mother)
who could read her back. Covering quickly, she grumbled, "I'm quite
fine, Mr. Admiral, sir." In a milder voice she added, "I'd like to
know who I was actually carrying this thing for.  More to the point,
who set us up?"
        "And I'd like to know where Mayl went." Washuu said, still
checking out the decryptor.
        Kris and Rianna looked at each other. "Mayl?" they chorused.
        Sure enough, Mayl had vanished. Someone had thoughtfully
stuffed a handkerchief in the crab chime above the lab door, silencing
it- obviously so as not to disturb the others. "Aw, shit..." Kris
groaned.
        "She has the most exceptional sense of timing sometimes..."
Rianna grumbled.

        A placid stream of casual shoppers flowed idly through the
corridors of one of the more organized sections of the Bazaar. The
cobbled-together stalls of the smaller vendors, ubiquitous through the
major traffic areas of the ship, gave way to tidy, well-ordered
storefronts and illuminated signs as the corridor drew closer to the
great central Promenade.
        The throng of casual shoppers, tourists, and galactic
businesspeople parted slightly to allow a young woman in a
loose-fitting flightsuit with long, bright red hair to pass, as she
strode purposefully through the Bazaar along the path of least
resistance. Her blue eyes darted to either side of the road, a gesture
amplified by the movements of her long, elven ears as she scanned the
storefronts for one crucial word.
        Donuts.
        "Reconciliation makes me hungry," she muttered under her
breath as the shops' signs slid by her view at a fair clip. She didn't
intend to eat them all herself, of course. Everyone else was busy back
at Dr. Hakubi's lab, and they'd probably be about ready for something
to nibble on by the time she was able to find a good pastry shop and
get back.
        A strange sound amidst the background of mumbling, music and
aggressive salespeople stopped Mayl in her tracks. She turned her head
and pricked up an ear, straining to identify whatever noise had
startled her. The new sound, a deep, ominous muttering voice, seemed
to be coming from nearby, and Mayl whirled to face the source of the
voice just as its owner, a tallish man built like a kour'iat wrestler,
turned to look at something across the corridor. She just barely
caught a glimpse of a hand communicator as he slipped it into his
trenchcoat. With a shrug, she continued on her way -- after all, if he
wanted to shop, that was his business.
        She picked up her pace a bit, though, just in case.
        A few moments later, her eyes caught the friendly light from a
Dunkin' Donuts sign, squeezed between a Biscuit Baron and Cyberware
Etc. "Ah, finally!" she sighed.  "I was beginning to wonder whether
this place really was civilized." She took a quick glance behind
herself as she walked through the door, and strangely enough there was
that big man again, this time with a friend- maybe his brother, there
was a strong family resemblance- and both were turning to look at the
newest in GENOM's line of cyberplugs.
        Should I be worried about them? one part of her mind asked.
        I'm hungry, another replied.  Everyone's waiting for these
donuts, remember?
        And, with that issue settled, she ducked into the store.
        She settled on a moderately-diverse dozen -- three plain,
three sugar, three glazed, three chocolate -- and a frosted raspberry
danish for herself, which she held in her mouth. Juggling the box in
an effort to find some way to carry it one-handed, she eased out the
door and started walking back the way she had come. The
hastily-assembled donut box bulged and sagged threateningly depending
on where Mayl held it; if she held it by the side, the bottom
threatened to fall out, and if she held it by the bottom, the ends
hung down and the donuts threatened to erupt through the lid in a
sugar-glazed Krakatoa.  She began to entertain the prospect of walking
all the way back to the lab foyer with the danish in her mouth.
        Naturally, with her mind absorbed by the physics of paper
donut box engineering, she didn't notice the fellow standing in front
of her until she'd walked right into him.
        "Mmf!" she muttered through a mouthful of danish, staggering
backward a step and regaining her balance, somehow without dropping
the box.  "Mmh, efhuvv mmm," she tried to say, and then realized that
she'd never be able to properly apologize with pastry on her tongue.
She tried to make a one-moment-please gesture with the box, chewed as
quickly as she could manage, and swallowed.  "Whew!" she stated.
"That's better.  Look, I'm terribly--"
        "You're coming with us," the man replied flatly.
        Mayl blinked, and for the first time the sheer -bigness- of
the man she'd run into registered in her mind. It was the same man
she'd seen before, although at this range he seemed a lot bigger- he
towered more than a full head over her own height, and the smeared
raspberry and glaze on his barrel chest did nothing to soften his
appearance. She glanced around, first with her eyes, then her head,
and finally she spun her whole body around, looking for escape and
finding only the goon and his four twin brothers. Everywhere she
looked, the scenery of the New Orleans Bazaar had become wall-to-wall
Neanderthal.
        She wished she'd taken her initial misgivings a little more
seriously.
        She wished she had her sword with her.
        She wished Rianna were present.
        She wished she could have the rest of her danish back.
        And she realized, as the men started closing in around her,
that she couldn't always get what she wished for.
        "um," she said weakly, "anybody here want a donut?"

        Rianna paced back and forth, worried, waiting for some word
from Admiral Overstreet. A few hours ago, she could have killed the
man for interfering; now she trusted him to bring her best friend back
safely. Oh, she still wasn't all that fond of the man- damn
interfering know-it-all! - but the link had shown her that, despite
his abrasive nature, his motives were perfectly clean. 
        None of which helped her wait for news. She itched to rush off
to look for Mayl herself, but the Admiral's reasons for her staying
put were sound. She simply didn't have his experience or the
connections he had on and off the New Orleans. Also, if someone had
captured Mayl, that made Rianna's safety top priority, at least until
Mayl could be located. If Rianna were captured by the same people, the
chances were neither woman would be heard from again.
        This left Rianna fretting the minutes away in the lab while
Washuu attempted to track down records on the two goons Red had
brought in. So far, a search of the Freespacer data base had revealed
that both goons had been turned down for Freespacer nationalization,
and that one had been ordered away from the fleet. Unfortunately, that
was all that turned up; nothing existed to link the two goons to
anyone higher up. Washuu refused to accept defeat, though, and she
hacked into one law enforcement database after another, looking for
clues.
        The crab-chime clattered as the Lab door opened to admit a
worn-looking, frustrated Redneck. "Well, apparently Mayl went out to
get some donuts," he said. "Problem is, she was last seen walking off
down a corridor with a danish in her mouth. Nobody knows where she
went after that."
        Rianna's face darkened again, this time with worry more than
anger. "She would've come right back... something is not right here..."
        Washuu's terminal chose that moment to interrupt, beeping
loudly over Rianna's words. Washuu quickly silenced the alarm, then
called up a diagram of the interior of Rianna's Tarsus. Several
thermal trails flowed in and out of the hold, but one reading, in the
living quarters, remained motionless. "Hm... Ms. Santova, were you
expecting someone in your ship?"
        "...no, I most assuredly wasn't," Rianna replied uncertainly.
        "Then it looks like there's a man who's making himself
comfortable where he isn't wanted," Washuu said, punching keys and
scrolling through data in three windows at a fantastic rate. "I read
him as human, mid-30s, thirty or so pounds overweight. And he smokes
cheap cigars."
        Rianna reached down and unclipped her lightsaber. How dare
someone invade -her- ship. "I hate cheap cigars," she growled.
        "Calm down," Red said, "Washuu, we'll be back for the egg
later. Rianna, would you mind if I accompanied you?"
        Rianna shrugged. "I suppose I could use your help, Admiral."
        Kris sighed, and Rianna caught a stray thought from him:
<Kris, you can be such an idiot sometimes.> "Please..." he said aloud,
"call me Red."
        "Red." Somehow, it seemed to fit, even better than his given
name. "Let's go. I want to know what the hells I'm jammed in the
middle of, and I don't want my ship smelling like burned tobacco."
        "Lead the way," Kris said, following the angry Santovasku
woman out the door.
        Neither one noticed the unpleasant look Washuu gave the back
of Rianna's head as they left.

        The gangplank of the Tarsus lay open on the hangar deck, as
did the larger cargo hatch in the rear, where supercargoes scurried
around unloading the sausage-like tubes of monster blubber and
stacking them on a cart. The hangar officer stood nearby, watching the
proceedings but not interfering. Red made a mental note to himself to
have the officer in question transferred to Maintenance; six months of
keeping the 50% of the New Orleans which was classified as 'habitable'
in condition should teach him to keep a closer eye on ship security.
        Meanwhile, Rianna eyed the workers uncertainly, trying to
figure out exactly what was going on. <I don't like this,> she
whispered mentally to Kris.
        <Don't worry,> Red reassured her. <I've got your six (and a
very nice six it is, too- ...um... ah... ahem.> He blushed slightly
as he realized the stray thought had bled through the rapport.
        For a moment, the rage boiled up anew in Rianna's heart...
then, she shrugged it off. Unlike a lot of males she'd known on
Hyeruul, Red actually meant it as a compliment rather than a come-on.
He was actually trying to be objective. <You have no idea -how- nice,>
she sent at last, walking forward with slightly more sway than was
strictly necessary. The increased embarrassment she felt through the
link was more than ample reward.
        "Um, shall we...?" he said at last, following her across the
hangar to the ship.
        "Certainly," Rianna replied, serious once more. She couldn't
resist one last little tweak to Kris' prurience, though. <I'd watch
your six anytime, Red,> she sent, winking.
        For a moment, Kris glowed a dull red to match his blush.
Pulling his composure together, he mumbled, "Right. Here we go," and
followed Rianna up the gangplank.
        The metallic thump of Rianna's and Kris' footsteps echoed in
the close quarters inside the Tarsus, broken only by dull thumps from
the cargo hold. A few steps took the pair into the small living area,
where an average-looking man, sitting on the lower of the ship's twin
bunks and smoking a foul-smelling cigar, awaited them. He stood as
soon as they entered, automatically smoothing his short-cropped brown
hair and impeccably-groomed beard before extending a hand in welcome.
        "Ah, good afternoon, Ms. Santova," he smiled amicably, barely
flinching when she ignored his greeting. In turn, he held out his hand
to Kris, saying, "And to you, good sir... I don't believe we've
met..."
        "No, we haven't," Kris said icily. The man struggled to
maintain his smile, ignoring the others' open hostility..
        "Ah, well," he said nonchalantly, "in any case, my name is
Riordan. I represent the interests of a certain respected businessman
here in the Freespacer Home Fleet... and I was just by to take
delivery of the cargo his agent on Fenris entrusted to you to
deliver."
        Rianna's glare intensified. In a cool, controlled voice, she
said, "Several people have been trying to take possession of my cargo
in the last couple days, Mr. Riordan, not to mention destroy my ship
and intimidate myself and my partner.  I don't suppose you'd care to
explain what's so special about this cargo."
        "Ah, well, you see my employer is a collector and broker in
rare and curious things, particularly artifacts of the more ancient
star empires." Riordan knocked a bit of ash off the end of his cigar,
and Rianna glared at it as it drifted down into the small pile lying
at Riordan's feet. Unperturbed by Rianna's glare, he continued, "In
this case, he has already had several offers for the artifact in
question, and he is quite anxious to see it delivered safely so that
he may complete a deal."
        "Yes, I'm sure he is," Rianna said. "You haven't answered my
question, though. Why am I being attacked by several different
parties?  Your boss seems to have quite a few enemies for an honest
businessman. For that matter, I never did find out the man's name.
Sandoval never mentioned it."
        Riordan's smile faltered. "Ah, well, I am afraid that there
are several people whose motives are, shall we say, less than pure-"
        "The name, asswipe. Now." Kris barely shifted as he spoke, but
the shift telegraphed a lot of messages, mostly promises of imminent
pain, to the man smoking the stogie.
        "You don't have to be hostile about it," Riordan said,
freezing his smile in place. "After all, anyone who bothered to track
the manifest on your shipment would note that the shipment is on
consignment for Roman Lynch Enterprises, Fenris Branch."
        "Roman Lynch..." Kris scowled deeply as he spat out the name.
        Rianna glanced in surprise at Kris as she felt the contempt
and disgust he felt, along with a sense of... not fear, but caution.
<Something tells me I don't want to know who Roman Lynch is, exactly,>
she thought to herself.
        Kris stepped forward and looked Riordan straight in the eyes.
"Right, buddy, you can drop the respectable businessman crap right
now. It was ludicrous in the 20th century, much less the 24th.
Something tells me you're behind the attacks, and most especially
behind this young lady's friend disappearing. Care to offer any...
suggestions?"
        <Crime boss?  Somehow I'm not surprised.> Rianna bapped
herself mentally as she considered how deeply she'd gotten herself
into trouble. <If I ever get out of this, I am never taking a
commission on a whim again.>
        Riordan flustered, "My dear sir, I honestly don't know what
you're-"
        ZRRRM. A beam of light extended from Kris' fist past a point
roughly half an inch above Riordan's thyroid. "Cut the bullshit or
learn to breathe through a tube," Kris growled. "I'm not angry yet,
but you are REALLY pushing it, get a grip?"
        "Ah, well... that does put a slightly different- erk!" The
energy blade edged closer to Riordan's neck. "Right..."
        <.....Nice,> Rianna sent to Kris, as she allowed a smile to
flash across her lips.
        Riordan slowly slid back on the bunk, gaining a small bit of
space from Red's blade. Rubbing his throat nervously, he said, "Well,
I must admit- although not in court, mind- that the attempt on the
lives of Ms. Santova and Ms. Popp'fl here on the ship was our doing.
However, I am honestly unaware of any other attacks on your person."
         Rianna bristled at the obvious lie. <<Are you sure
you don't know anything else?>> she Voiced.
        "Well, there is a young woman upstart in the industry whom we
suspect has been tracking you," Riordan answered automatically. "We
last saw her shortly before you left Fenris, and about that time we
lost our last agent there." Riordan shook his head in confusion as the
compulsion ran its course. "Um, now then, shall we make arrangements
for the-"
        <<What is her name?>> Kris Voiced.
        "I'm afraid I don't know," Riordan shrugged. "Nobody knows for
sure, we just call her the Black Queen."
        Rianna opened a full link to Kris. <That name ring any bells,
Red?  Doesn't for me.>
        <Nope. Wish it did,> Kris sent back. <Not one of the
established bosses, though. That worries me.>
        <So now... do we agree to a meeting place to exchange the
artifact for the payment?>
        <I don't have any better plans. Hopefully, the exchange will
draw out our Black Queen- hopefully with Mayl in tow.>
        Rianna closed the link and said aloud, "Well, Mr. Riordan,
thank you very much for explaining the situation.  I understand a lot
better now, and I'll be happy to hand the artifact over -- provided I
receive my commission at the same time.  I don't have the artifact
with me at the moment, so shall we arrange a meeting?"
        "Ah, certainly," Riordan smiled. "I shall await you at
Fiorelli's Starship Repair Bay, Level 347. I do hope you will be
prompt."
        "Fiorelli's, Level 347." Rianna paused to commit the location
to memory. "Not to worry, Mr. Riordan.  I pride myself on being
prompt."
        "Very good, very good. I'll be waiting."
        "I trust you can find your own way out..." Kris stepped aside,
flashing the energy blade meaningfully.
        "Um. Right." Riordan took the hint and left.
        Once the sound of footsteps faded from the gangplank, Rianna
sniffed loudly and grimaced. "Guh... wonder what it'll cost to clean
that smell out?"
        "I'd worry about the exterminator bill myself," Kris drolled.
"You have to fumigate for roaches, y'know."
        Rianna smirked for a moment. "Yeah," she chuckled. Her smile
faded as she slumped back onto the bunk, rubbing the bridge of her
nose, and sighed. "I'm just now realizing just how deep this shit
really is.  If I still have my life after this is over, I'm checking
every single deal out beforehand."
        Kris sat down beside her, unsure of what to say, what to do
next. The silence began to stretch, moments, minutes passing by
without a word. Finally, Kris muttered, "You realize of course that
we'll be walking right into a trap."
        "Maybe so," Rianna said, "but we're not unarmed.  And at the
moment, I have very little to lose."
        Kris gripped her hand tightly, saying softly but firmly, "That
ain't so."
        Rianna smiled slightly, and Kris felt her depression fade as
she regained control.. "Maybe... maybe this was a test," she said at
last. "Mom always said I had yet to really know the power of the Dark
Side. Now I have... and I didn't handle it real well. I have to see
this through to the end, Admi-- er, Red... whatever that end is.  I
let the Dark Side control me.  Now I have to prove that I can still
control it."
        Kris struggled to stifle his acute discomfort at the concept.
"I understand," he said at last. "We'd better get ready, then."
        "Right," Rianna said, standing. "I think we need a plan, aside
from walking down there and being ready for anything."
        "There's nothing we can plan for," Red sighed. "We don't know
what the opposition is, what the battleground is like, or even what
our priorities will be when the time comes. I know it sucks, but there
really isn't much we can do except walk right in and bull our way
out."
        "Let's get on with it, then," Rianna said. "Sooner this is
over with, the happier I'll be."
        "Hm..." Kris' eyes lit up as an idea hit him. "Actually...
there is -one- thing..."

        Fiorelli's Starship Repair Emporium (and Snack Bar) consisted
of a small front office, a smaller snack bar with overpriced food, and
a hangar roughly sixty meters cubed.  High shelves ran up the sides of
the empty ship bay. The hangar doors were locked and, from the
corrosion and dust on the opening mechanism, had been locked for quite
some time.  Riordan could have picked a more disreputable place to
have a meeting, but he would've had to go to the uninhabitable parts
of the ship to do it.
        Red and Rianna sat alone in the office, watching the
hangar through the window for signs of life. After several minutes of
watching, Red stood, adjusting the large broadsword strapped to his
back, and walked over to the window for a better look. Pointing at the
high, wide shelves on either side, he mumbled, "I couldn't possibly
think of a better place for a trap, could you?"
        "Nope," Rianna mused, picking up the strap of the cargo box
containing the Egg and walking over to stand beside him. "Wonder where
the tripwires are?"
        "They wouldn't use tripwires," Kris muttered. "A bomb or mine,
or even an automatic rifle, might damage the Egg. No, I suspect it'll
come from gunmen, hiding there," he pointed to the tops of the
shelves, "and there." Sighing, he whispered, "And people wonder why I
hate my job."
        "Doesn't lend itself to brimming with optimism," Rianna
nodded, fighting down the dark knot in her stomach. In her head, she
kept repeating the First Rule of the Sith; Control the darkness, or be
controlled by it. I am in control. I am in control...
        "Nope," Kris sighed. "Only one way to find out, though..."
Slowly, he reached for the door control and keyed it open, relaxing
visibly when nothing exploded. "Okay, looks good so far," he said.
        Rianna and Redneck stepped out into the hangar, watching for
the least sign of movement. Their footsteps echoed off the metal deck
as they walked towards the center of the hangar. Kris kept looking up
uneasily at the shelves around them. <I get the distinct feeling we're
surrounded,> he sent to Rianna.
        <I know,> Rianna replied, trying not to let Kris' anxiety
infect her, <but it's their move.> Almost as she thought it, she felt
the faintest disturbance, a hint of movement...
        "Good afternoon." Kris and Rianna spun around to see Riordan
step out from behind one of the shelves. "I believe you have something
which belongs to my employer," he said quietly, holding out a hand.
"Would you be so kind as to hand it over?"
        "If you don't mind, Mr. Riordan," Rianna replied.  "I'd like to
receive my payment for the artifact first."
	"But of course," Riordan smiled. "Twenty thousand, as per the
agreement.  Your commission will be paid when Mr. Lynch sells the
artifact."  From a pocket he produced a large wad of currency and began=20
pulling off bills.
        "Save your money, old man," a melodious voice called from the
office door, "you won't be needing it anyway." A tall blonde woman
walked through the door, wearing a skin-tight black dress beneath an
even darker cape. Behind her stood several thugs in long trenchcoats,
two of whom held a certain very angry redheaded elf by the arms,
dangling over the deck.
        Red took one look at the newcomer and immediately felt a wave
of unreasoning terror; at the same time, Rianna's eyes widened
momentarily as she sensed the blonde woman's power, dark and strong.
<Trouble,> the two echoed mentally.
        "Now then," the woman smiled, <<why don't you give me that Egg,
hm?>>  Her smile seemed to grow wider, her features more attractive.
	Rianna tensed and forced herself to relax, not moving at all.
<Control, control...>  "Would you care to tell me why I should, Miss...?"
	The woman's smile vanished. "I am Jina Menesch, the Black Queen,"
she growled.
        "Queen of Mary Kay," Red quipped. "Tell me, have you won your
pink shuttle yet?"
        "SILENCE!" Jina raised her hand, and Red flew across the
hangar, slamming hard into the bay doors, which rang with the impact.
He slid to the floor, shaken but uninjured. "Be grateful I don't kill
you now, insolent man!" the Black Queen growled before turning back to
Rianna. "Now then, little girl... you will hand the Egg over to me...
or  the elf gets to find new definitions to the words, 'pain,'
'torment,' 'suffering,' and 'death!'" Gesturing to one of the hulking
brutes holding Mayl off the floor, she purred, "Here's a small taste,
child..."
        The Neanderthal holding Mayl tightened his grip on her wrist.
"OOOOOOOOWWW!!" Mayl cried, squirming as the thug bent down, grasped
her ankle, and began pulling up and back on her leg. Tears streaked
down Mayl's face as her foot was pulled higher and higher, and Rianna
flinched as she felt the excess pain flow into her.
        "Enough," Jina said, and the Neanderthal released Mayl's leg,
leaving her to dangle by her wrists again. Jina smiled sensuously and
cuddled up to another of her goons, who stood impassive. "Aren't my
pretties wonderful?" she cooed. "They always obey orders, they never
worry about satisfaction... and you can use them up and throw them
away. But still, only men." She pulled away from the goon and walked
over to Mayl, running a hand along her trembling, tear-streaked cheek.
"So... you will give me the Egg now... won't you, child?"
        "Hand *me* the egg," Riordan barked. With a snap of his
fingers, roughly twenty gunmen appeared atop the shelves, surrounding
the hangar with blaster rifles. "Or nobody leaves this hangar alive."
        Rianna looked back and forth from the gunmen to Jina's goons.
<Problem...>
        "Gentlemen and lady," Kris said before Rianna could say
anything. "Perhaps we could just collect our friend, leave the Egg,
and let you settle this dispute between yourselves. There's really no
reason for anyone to get hurt..." Silently, he said to Rianna, <We
aren't gonna get out of this one without a fight.>
        <I didn't expect any different,> Rianna sent back, unobtrusively
readying herself.
        "Bedamned with your talk!" Jina shouted, "I will have the Egg
*now!*" At the wave of her hand, the cavemen not occupied with holding
Mayl reached into their trenchcoats and removed laser rifles, snapping
them into firing position in unison.
        "Shoot 'em all, men!" Riordan shouted, "but DON'T HIT THE
EGG!" Twenty laser rifles opened fire. The Neanderthals returned fire,
filling the hangar with laser bolts, a few of which ricocheted from
the magnetically-sealed bay doors. Red threw up an energy shield and
dodged for cover, barely deflecting the first volley in time.
        Rianna froze for a split second as blaster shot after blaster
shot flew around, but nowhere near, her; neither side wanted to take a
chance with damaging the Egg. Suddenly, the cargo box leapt into the
air, straining against the shoulder strap, struggling to fly into
Jina's outstretched arms. Reaching out to the Dark Side, Rianna
countered Jina telekinetic pull, pulling the box back towards her.
        Jina smirked as she felt Rianna pull the cargo box back. "So,"
she purred, "finally an opponent worthy of my attentions." The
invisible pull on the cargo box vanished. From the depths of her cape,
a lightsaber dropped into Jina's hands, and she ignited it with a
sinister-sounding hiss. The purple blade hummed menacingly as Jina
stepped cautiously forward, closer and closer to Rianna.
        Rianna dropped the cargo box gently, sending a quick <Take
care of this thing> to Red as she unclipped and ignited her own
lightsaber. The red beam swished to life to meet the purple, humming
in quiet discord with the Black Queen's sabre. The two women circled
amidst the firefight, still untouched by the bolts, as Rianna probed
her opponent for weakness. Almost immediately she sensed Jina's total
insanity, a mind which had bent and broken under the weight of the
Dark Side. The Force is strong with her, she thought to herself. I
must be very careful, must keep control. Anger, fear, aggression... use
them, or be used by them. Like her.
        "Prepare to become one with the Dark Side, little girl!"
Jina's blade flashed down into Rianna's, striking sparks as the
lightsabers clashed again and again. The red blade blocked stroke
after stroke, slash and parry and block, as Jina tried to break
Rianna's defenses. Slowly the two women moved away from the Egg,
swords blurring, ignoring the continuous rain of blaster fire.
        Redneck peered around the end of the shelves closest to the
outer hangar doors, looking through the glowing red haze of an energy
shield at the now-abandoned cargo box, sitting alone in a laser-filled
No Man's Land. He glanced over at Rianna, who was holding her own with
Jina, and then to Mayl, who seemed to be getting more uncomfortable by
the second hanging by her wrists.
        An idea flashed full-grown into Red's mind. Part of him called
it foolish, if not suicidal, but the rest of him quickly shouted down
that tiny voice of reason. Surrounding himself with shields, he ran
out into the firefight, scrambling forward and scooping up the cargo
box on the run. He popped the box open and removed the Egg, waving it
overhead for everyone to see. "Hey, you with the elf!" he shouted,
catching the attention of the two guardian toughs holding Mayl above
the deck.
        "CATCH!" Kris lobbed the Egg in a lazy arc through the gunfire
at the guards, over Rianna and Jina, over Riordan, unscathed. One goon
let go of Mayl's arm, leaving her to hang by the other, and prepared
to catch the Egg. As soon as Mayl's arm fell free, Kris drew the huge
broadsword and shouted, "MAYL! Think fast!" and HURLED the sword at
her.  Please, just once, he thought, let her not screw up...
        Mayl, seeing the point of the sword coming straight at her,
swung herself out of its path, pulling her remaining captor's body off
balance. The sword plunged through his throat and out the other side,
and with a gurgle the Neanderthal released Mayl and fell lifeless.
        Damn, Red thought as he watched, that worked out better
than I thought.
        Mayl landed on her feet- an act which would have shocked
Rianna speechless if she'd seen it- and quickly drew the blood-stained
sword from the Neanderthal's throat. The blade glowed with a blue aura
as Mayl moved to the attack, slashing first one goon and then another
from behind, making quick work of Jina's henchmen.
        As Mayl disposed of her captors, Red turned his attention to
the gunmen atop the shelves. Leaping up onto one of the shelves, he
reformed his shields into twin energy blades. He landed atop the
shelves, sweeping the blades through the gunman closest to him. The
other gunmen quickly moved to the hangar floor.
	Mayl's sword flashed through the fifth and last of Jina's
heavies as she shouted,  "The -next- time you slimy rhop'ps want my=20
donuts, you ASK!"  Nodding with satisfaction, she reached over to pick
up the Egg from the fallen goon's still fingers. As her right hand
grasped the artifact, one of Riordan's gunmen decided to take the
opportunity to pick her off. Mayl heard the first couple of blasts
miss, spanging away at the deck just in front of her, and
instinctively raised her hands to block the shots.
        Unfortunately the hand which blocked the next shot was not the
one holding the sword.
        ZARK ZARK ZARK *ZSCRUNCH*.
        "ACK!" pretty much summed up Mayl's entire stream of thought
as the artifact crumbled in her grasp.
        The quiet sound of the Egg crumbling to the deck echoed in the
abruptly silent hangar. Rianna and Jina, lightsabers crackling softly
against each other. stared in open astonishment at the whimpering elf,
who was stifling curses as she tried to hold the remnants of the Egg
together by sheer force... and failed miserably. Riordan's gunmen
lowered their weapons in confusion, as Riordan gaped slack-jawed in
utter shock. Red, alone of all the people in the room, was smiling.
        "Well," he said weakly, "looks like we have a classic example
of d=E9tente.  We don't have it.  He doesn't have it," he said, pointing
at Riordan, "and she doesn't have it," and he pointed at Jina. "So,
how about we all cut our losses and try to forget all this ever
happened?"
        The deadly silence gave his proposal all the answer it
deserved.
        "GET THEM!" Jina and Riordan both shouted, and the fight
resumed hotter than ever.
        Rianna moved back a few steps as Jina attacked once more, this
time with an almost rabid ferocity. Rianna reached out to the Black
Queen's mind for a moment and recoiled at the raw, overpowering rage
flowing through the horribly twisted mind and into the Force. Whatever
tiny shred of sanity Jina had ever possessed had vanished, replaced by
the pure devouring fury of the Dark Side.
        Rianna felt a powerful darkness snake through the room,
feeling the raw fury coming from the dark woman. Rianna sensed the
madness spread outward, probing the room around them. A large object-
perhaps an old laser cannon housing- rattled on one shelf, then flew
across the room towards Rianna's head. She spun around and cleaved it
in half, then swung back just in time to parry a crushing blow from
the purple blade.  More objects began to rattle and take to the air,
and Rianna quickly found herself being buffeted from all sides.
        Red forced himself to ignore the ebb and flow of Dark Side
energies around him, concentrating instead on dodging the concentrated
fire of Riordan's goons. Across the room, Mayl dodged her own group of
gunmen, rolling and leaping from hidey-hole to hidey-hole barely ahead
of the blasts. As Mayl's dodging brought her into the open, Red
focused his concentration, dropped his shield and channeled a blast of
power at the cluster of goons focusing on Mayl. The nearest gunman
vanished in a flash of heat and vapor, and the others turned their
attentions to the greater threat, forcing Red to raise his shields and
duck behind a shelving unit.  Shit, he thought to himself, that
HURT!
        Rubbing his shoulder, which had caught two blaster shots
full-on, Red watched as Mayl ducked behind another set of shelves.
After a moment, she nodded to herself and stepped out into the open,
deflecting the occasional blaster bolt with her sword. Then, as Red
began to wonder just what Mayl was up to, she leveled the blade of her
sword and pointed it at one of the snipers. The blade's glow flared,
and a brilliant bolt of energy shot from the tip straight into the
gunman, blowing a giant hole in his chest and ruining his day.
        As Red leaped over the heads of the remaining gunmen,
scattering them with random blasts, he thought to himself:  When we
get out of this, I am going to go brush up on my Hyelian military
history.
        Rianna stumbled as yet another Force-levitated heavy object
hit her, this time in the back between the shoulderblades, almost
forcing her into her own lightsaber blade. Bruises covered her arms,
legs and back, and her eyesight had begun to blur from repeated blows
to the head. Through it all, she kept on, focusing on the Dark Side,
using it to turn away Jina's blade at the last moment time and again.
Staggering, Rianna closed her eyes, drawing her awareness inwards as
the raw power of the Dark Side buffeted her.
        Damn it... control, must keep control...  Rianna thought.
She was not as strong as Jina... no sane person could be... but if
Rianna could keep control, Jina's strength might be negated.
        Control... or be controlled... she thought, reaching deep
into herself.  <<Give me only what I need, no more, no less.>>
        The Dark Side responded, not with the raw power she had felt
on Hyeruul, or the uncontrolled storm Jina wielded, but a cold,
refined, controllable strength. The power flowed into her, bringing a
strange, preternatural calm, much like the feeling her mother had
taught her to seek and which had eluded her before. With the merest
thought, the objects which had been battering her flew away. A second
thought shoved the Black Queen, forcing her backwards, stumbling, out
of reach. =20
        Recovering, Jina found herself staring into the eyes of a
woman calm, controlled, and powerful. "I don't -like- people who throw
things at me," Rianna whispered.
        Jina felt the steel in the voice, the determination in the
eyes, and faltered. The debris still floating around the hangar fell
to the deck, and Rianna sensed a tiny spark of panic growing in her
opponent.
        "Now, are we going to fight, or am I not worthy of your time
anymore?" Rianna asked as she began to circle closer, the glowing red
blade of her lightsaber rock steady.=20
        Jina screamed wordlessly, swinging her lightsaber wildly,
forcing Rianna back once more.  This time, however, there was not a
trace of skill or concentration in the mad woman's attack.  She was
running on raw rage... and she left herself wide open.
        Guided gently by the Force- not forcibly, as she had been
before- Rianna smoothly stepped away from one of Jina's thrusts. The
Black Queen found herself overextended, arm hanging out in space...
and Rianna's blade slashed down and through it.
        The firefight paused as a shriek of primal agony rent the air,
as Jina's lightsaber clattered to the deck, followed by most of her
arm. Jina grasped at the stump of her arm, cauterized by the slash,
and howled with pain and anger as Rianna stepped closer, saber held at
guard.
        Ignoring the humming blade pointed at her throat, Jina glared
at Rianna, and gasping from the pain, she husked, "I...am not... going
to lose... to a little GIRL!" Reaching through her pain and
desperation, Jina took hold of the very essence of the Dark Side
itself and flung it all at Rianna.
        Blue-white lightning flew from Jina's hand and severed wrist,
striking Rianna, driving her to her knees. Rianna screamed as the
Force lightning struck her body and soul. She tried to deflect the
bolts, to push them away with the Force, but the bolts kept coming.
She fell to her knees, trembling and spasming with pain, and in her
mind she screamed for help. <RED! MAYL!>
        The Force seemed to twist and knot around the hangar, and Red
shook behind his shields as if someone had knifed him in the gut. He
looked up to see lightning- pure Force energy, perverted into this
form- striking Rianna, while the maimed Black Queen smiled
triumphantly. A moment later, Rianna's mental scream exploded in his
mind, blowing his concentration for a moment and allowing several
blaster shots to connect. Reeling, he forced his shields back up and
shouted, "MAYL! Cover me!" Reforming his shields into a beamstaff, he
ran from his hiding place and ran forward towards Jina, shouting,
"CHAAAARGE!!"
        "Cover him?" Mayl gasped, ducking between two shelves and
drawing the fire of the five or so remaining gunmen.
        Jina glanced away from her primary victim, noticing the man
charging towards her, and raised the stump of her arm towards him. The
lightning which bathed Rianna's body branched off to touch Red, and
his scream turned from defiance to pain. As he struggled forward
through the onslaught, Rianna felt her pain ebbing, as Jina's
attention turned from her to her new opponent.
        Red fell to one knee, struggling forward through a growing
storm of blue-white rage. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself back
to his feet and staggered forward another step. Jina responded by
adding to the storm around him, forcing him back to his knees, drawing
more and more power away from her attack on Rianna...
        ... until, with every ounce of power she could muster, Rianna
reached out through the Force and shoved the remaining lightning away.
For a split second, Jina's concentration wavered, and Rianna dove deep
into her enemy's open, vulnerable mind...
        ... she saw a young woman, intrigued by the promise of magic,
betrayed by years of rape, abuse and neglect... saw the same woman,
scarred and angry, lash back at her master, snapping his neck during
yet another rape... saw the hatred, blind and all-consuming, of all
males... and finally, the callous disregard of other lives. The
student had, truly, become the master... soul devoured by the power of
the Dark Side.
        The onslaught returned, but now Rianna was able to block the
pain as she looked for a final opening. She regretted having to kill
this woman, who the universe had so wronged... but now, nothing
remained of Jina Menesch except a shell controlled by the Dark Side.
For the benefit of the Force as a whole, Light and Dark, she had to be
destroyed.
        Rianna gathered her power in, focusing on the energies dancing
between her, Redneck and Jina... <control or be controlled... use her
strength against her... give me the strength, for the greater good...>
        ... and the pain vanished, the lightning flying harmlessly
away from her- and back into Jina. <<NOW!>>
        Jina reeled again as Rianna shattered her control. The Force
lightning struck her, racking her body with new pain. Before she could
recover, she saw the Santovasku woman leaping up from the deck,
lightsaber flashing back to life, rising above her, striking...
        ...And that was the last thing she saw.

	Rianna knelt on the deck before Jina's fallen, smoking corpse,
eyes closed, saber still humming in her hands, apparently calm and
peaceful. Red stood up, jacket and shirt smoking from the lightning.
Behind them both, Mayl stood cleaning her sword, having disposed of
the last few gunmen herself.
        Red patted out a couple of smoldering spots on his jacket and
walked over to Riordan, who had a small holdout blaster in his
trembling hands. He smiled,  "Mr. Riordan, I really don't think that
will do you much good."  He walked unconcernedly past the quivering
mobster to the pile of metal and circuitry which had been the Egg and
gathered it up into a ball and squeezed.  The resulting lump was about
half the size of the original shape, and much less regular.  "Hm, not
much to look at," he said. "I'll offer twenty thousand for it."
        "Why should I accept?" Riordan growled, putting away the
blaster.  "Sooner or later, we'll catch up to these two where you
can't protect them... and then it'll be your turn."
        "Oh, I don't think so," Red smiled.  "As it stands, Mr. Lynch
has a large amount of assets tied up within the Home Fleet.  It would
be a shame if they were confiscated and he were prosecuted for
racketeering without a license, wouldn't it?" From his hip pocket, he
produced a small plastic badge, which he tossed over to the gangster.
        Riordan caught the card in mid-flight and looked at it, eyes
widening as he finally recognized the man standing before him. "You
wouldn't," he said flatly.
        "In a heartbeat, asswipe," Kris growled, smile vanishing.
"Twenty thousand and status quo.  Or take your hunk of silicon and get
out of my fleet. Your choice."
        Riordan looked at the lightsaber in Rianna's hand, at the
Hyelian broadsword in Mayl's grasp, at the still-smoking but intact
Admiral Overstreet.  He evaluated his chances of leaving alive if he
didn't accept.  "Sir," he whispered at last, "you just bought yourself
an egg."
        Red reached into his pocket and pulled out a checkbook.  With
a few strokes of a pen, he filled out a voucher for twenty thousand
Salcreds and handed it to Riordan.
        "Thank you," Riordan grumbled, returning Red's ID badge and
preparing to leave. "It's been a distinct displeasure doing business
with you." He took one step towards the door before freezing in place,
eyes locked on the enormous length of steel rising from the hands of
an annoyed-looking elf to a point directly tangent to his Adam's
apple.
        "Aren't you forgetting something?" Mayl asked quietly.
Riordan stared blankly back at the elf, not knowing what she meant.
        "Payment for services rendered," Red said.  "I believe it was
twenty thousand plus a five percent commission on the sale. That comes
to twenty-one thousand credits, if I've got my math right."  He
smiled.
        Grumbling, Riordan pulled out his wad of bills and peeled off
the twenty-one thousand.  Throwing them behind him to Rianna's feet,
he barked, "Can I go now?"
        Red graciously gestured towards the door.  "By all means,
don't let us keep you here any longer," he grinned.  Still glowering,
Riordan skulked out of the hangar.
        As soon as the door shut behind the mobster, Kris walked back
and knelt down beside Rianna, who remained frozen in the same
post-attack position. "Ri, are you all right?" he asked.
        At the quiet sound of Red's voice, Rianna finally opened her
eyes and deactivated her lightsaber. "The Force was with me," she said
quietly, relieved.
        Red looked carefully at Rianna. She seemed different, older,
more mature...  and she felt much different than before, when he'd
been tackled by her... yesterday?  Only that long,  he thought.
Yesterday, her aura had been a storm of darkness surrounding a bright
core; now, it was almost entirely light, a beacon supported by an
obsidian pedestal.
        "How ya doin', then?" he asked at last.
        "Better...  I have control again." Rianna reached down
and picked up the Salcreds at her feet, standing up and counting them
out. Cr21,000, all right.  "Great..." she sighed, and her calm face slipped
a bit.  "That covers the first payment."
        "Hm..." The corner of Red's mouth jerked upwards in a sardonic
grin. "I think I could help a bit with that..."
=20
       Ploovo showed up at the Tarsus, along with a lawyer and two
hired thugs, at precisely noon the next day. Rianna, Red and Mayl were
moving the privateers' belongings onto a hovercart when the slimy loan
shark walked up and said, "Ah, ladies, I knew I'd find you here. Now,
I do understand if you don't have the money available for the payment,
but after all, we do have a contract, and-"
        "Ah, Mr. Ploovo.  Good to see you again." Rianna set down the
box of supplies she had been carrying and dug out her wallet. From it
she drew a small credit-stick and handed it to Ploovo. "Here," she
smiled pleasantly. "Payment in full for the ship, and thank you."
        "Uh?" Ploovo fumbled through his suit pockets, finally
producing a cred-stick reader from his inside breast pocket. He
slipped the stick into the reader and checked the amount; one hundred
and ten thousand credits. It was actually a bit more than the amount
his interest and payment schedule would have yielded... except that he
wouldn't get the two prizes he'd been after in the first place.
        "Er, ah... yes, yes, of course," he managed to say, pocketing
both reader and credit stick. "A pleasure doing business with you
young ladies... I suppose..." He began to recover his composure, and
he smiled as winningly as he could at Mayl as he said, "You know, this
is a wild and dangerous world we live in... who knows when you'll need
further assistance... perhaps I'll be seeing you real-"
        Redneck strode over to Ploovo, managing to loom over the oily
man as he growled, "Listen here, pond scum, if I had so much as one
piece of evidence that you'd committed a crime- even jaywalking- I'd
call the 3WA to come haul your sorry ass away. As it is, I want you
clear of the Home Fleet in one hour, got a grip, asshole?" To
underscore his remark, he dropped his windbreaker down off his
shoulders, revealing his duty-uniform tunic... and the rank insignia
on it.
        Ploovo, unimpressed, puffed up like a
greasy bantam rooster. "How dare you-" he began to rant, bulling up to
Kris indignantly.
        The quiet fsssh of Rianna's lightsaber igniting silenced
Ploovo quite effectively. The appearance of a beamstaff inches away
from his nose stifled whatever fight remained in him. "Ah," he said,
looking from red beam to red beam. Finally, he smiled and said, "Be
seeing you." With a tiny shred of vanity remaining, he strutted out of
the dock, lawyer and goons trailing behind.
        "*Thank* you." Rianna said, smiling as she shut down her
saber.
        Red dissipated his beamstaff as well. "Well, it's nice to be
able to do something about that bastard," he said. "Unfortunately,
he's only one of the smaller fish around these days. Ever since the
Solo twins hit him, he's lost most of his pull in the underworld. Oh,
well."
        "Whew!" Mayl grinned, dropping her last suitcase on the
hovercart. "That's everything, Redneck, sir! The ship's all yours!"
        Rianna took the pink-slip from her pocket and handed it to
Red, who smiled as he pocketed it. "Pleasure doing business with you,
Ms. Santova, Ms. Popp'fl," he grinned.
        "So, Red," Rianna asked, "what do you plan to do with this
ship, anyway? A hundred thousand is a lot to pay for a run-down
Tarsus."
        "Well then," Red grinned, shucking his windbreaker and rolling
up the sleeves of his tunic, "I better get my money's worth of
enjoyment, shall I?" With that, he re-ignited his beamstaff and strode
resolutely towards the bulky ship.
        Rianna sensed Red's emotions as he approached the freighter;
playfulness... eagerness... a great deal of anger and frustration,
very carefully controlled and locked away... above all, the
playfulness. Whatever he's about to do, she thought, it's gonna be
good.
        Red walked up to the ship, looked it up and down, and grinned
even wider. Suddenly, the beam leaped forward, growing into a huge red
plane of energy, slicing through the hull. Red's hands moved, guiding
the giant blade in a set pattern, slicing away a section of the hull,
then slicing a section from the smaller piece. Slowly, the engine core
of the ship was revealed, superstructure peeling away with delicate
precision. With the huge mass of engine revealed, Red dissipated the
energy blade. Then he walked over and, with an extreme effort, lifted
the thing up from the side.
        Red took one slow step after another, carrying the engine core
in front of him, until he finally set the block of metal and wire onto
a huge cargo carrier. He shoved the cargo carrier hard in the
direction of the bay doors, sending it speeding across the hangar,
through the airlock forcefields, and into open space. Once it was a
safe distance from the ship, Red concentrated, and the engine core
exploded in a brilliant red flash.
        Red walked back to the Tarsus, tossing a small ball of light
from hand to hand. Rianna looked over at Mayl, who was gazing
slack-jawed at Red as he built up the ball in his hands, finally
sending it spiraling into the pile of wreckage which had been their
ship. The ball grew into a huge sphere, surrounding the ship. Then, a
second sphere appeared inside the first, hovering for a split second
before detonating. The deck shook with the blast, and Rianna flinched
before she noticed that the first sphere- a forcefield of some sort-
contained the blast.
        Through the force sphere Rianna could see the smoking,
half-melted remains of the ship. As she watched, small blades of
energy flew inside the sphere, slicing up the remaining chunks of
wreckage into smaller and smaller pieces. The clattering sound of
pieces falling to the deck grew louder and louder as the blades flew
faster and faster within the sphere. Finally, the blades slowed and
stopped, and Red let the sphere dissolve into nothingness.
       The Tarsus lay in millions of roughly hand-sized slices and
chunks piled here and there on the hangar deck. Red waded into the
closest pile, selecting pieces here and there and slicing them with a
smaller, hand-held energy sword. At this point he was blatantly
showing off, even taking the chance to try some trick-shooting stunts.
        He was enjoying himself immensely.
        Finally, his sword fizzled, and Redneck waded out of the pile
of wreckage. Mayl just stared in shock at the pile, registering Total
Comprehension Failure. Rianna grinned widely, sharing in the intense
pleasure and satisfaction Red was feeling. He grinned right back at
her. "Yeah," he said, "that was worth a hundred thousand credits."
        Rianna's smile faded. "Well, that was fun to watch, but now
what?" She thumbed through her wallet, counting carefully. "With that
twenty-one thousand from Riordan, Mayl and I still came out in the
red... and nobody sells starships for twenty thousand, at least not in
flyable condition."
        Mayl's ears drooped. "I guess we'll just book passage back to
Hyeruul," she moaned. Rianna didn't like the idea any better, but at
least they had come out of this misadventure alive, and wiser. There
would be other opportunities.
        "Well..." Red obviously had something in mind, but Rianna
couldn't read it from his emotions. "I -could- sell you my
freighter..." he said at last.
        Mayl's ears perked up. "You have a ship for sale?"
        "Here we go again..." Rianna groaned.
        "Oh, yeah," Kris said. "Twenty thousand would make a nice down
payment... and I could finance the rest, at a much more reasonable
rate than Ploovo was charging..."
        "Let's have a look at it," Rianna said.
        A few minutes later, Red keyed open a private ship bay opening
out onto Docking Bay One, the main entry for bulk freight into the New
Orleans. The ship berthed inside gleamed with fresh red paint,
polished to a shine. It had the vague lines of a Z-95 Headhunter
starfighter, only very much enlarged and modified into a gunboat. Four
turbolaser barrels hung beneath the wide wings, and a particle-cannon
turret sat near the rear of the arrowhead hull, between the four main
engines. Twin missile launchers finished off the weapons load.
        Rianna looked around the hangar, ignoring the ship. "So
where's our ship?" she asked.
        Red gestured to the gunboat. "That -is- your ship."
        Rianna's jaw dropped. "You're selling us a Centurion?" she
gasped at last.
        "Bought it off an ex-WDF pilot last year when he retired from
the CFMF," Red smiled. "After this mission, I was going to sell her
back to the Fleet for parts... but I think you'll do much better by
it."
        Mayl stared in complete rapture at the Centurion. Slowly, step
by step, she walked on tiptoe towards the ship, eyes locked on its
crimson finish. Red could imagine little hearts replacing her eyes as
she ran her hand lovingly along its surface.
        "I hope this isn't too small for your needs," Red said.
"Unfortunately, I really can't justify selling you ladies a
Plymouth-III corvette or a Defiant-class gunship. This ship does have
a job that comes with it, although I think you'll be able to handle
it. And you'll have to buy an astromech droid, but that shouldn't be
too much trouble." Smiling as Rianna joined Mayl in inspecting the
ship, he added, "Maybe you'll be able to work with it."
        "It's PERFECT!!!" Mayl squealed, reaching out and hugging as
much of the ship as she could.  Without warning, she leaped over and
hugged Red just as tightly, except that she could actually get her
arms around him.  Then, she pecked him on the cheek-  and danced away,
back to her true love, her new ship.
        Red smiled wryly as Rianna returned from her more sober
inspection of the ship. "I've been jilted for a gunboat. Thank God,"
he chuckled.
        Rianna chuckled as well for a bit before saying soberly, "Red,
you really shouldn't have done this. I don't know how I'm going to
repay you... not the loan, but for-"
        "Listen to me very carefully," Red interrupted. "I helped you
get yourselves out of a very tight jam. That's what friends do."
        Rianna's eyebrow jerked upward as she smiled a small amused
smile. "When did we become friends?" she asked.
        Red grinned right back. "Don't know when it happened myself.
But we sure as hell aren't enemies."
        "True."
	"Where was I?"
	"Pontificating."
        "Oh yes," Red drolled, trying to keep from laughing. "As I was
saying. friends don't worry about owing favors, or debts of honor..
Just promise me you'll be there if I need you... you know I'll always
be here if you need me. And don't talk to me about debts again...
unless you're looking for work," he said, winking.
        Rianna smiled, gratitude bleeding through to Red's senses. "On
my honor as a Sith Adept, I so promise."
        "Well, then," Kris said, "if that's settled, I suppose I'd
better let you two get your things situated and get underway. Hope I
see you two again soon, eh?"
        "You may be sure of it, Red," Rianna smiled. She kissed him on
the cheek, smiled, and walked over to the ship to begin arranging her
belongings inside.
        Why, Kris wondered to himself as he trudged away to begin
working on three days' worth of backlogged paperwork, why do I have
the feeling I'll be seeing a -lot- of those two?

        From her lab, Washuu watched and pondered as Kris walked away
from the two privateers. Beside her lay the remnants of the Egg, now
just so much scrap.
        Very dangerous scrap, Washuu thought, and with a wave of her
hand the silvery lump vanished into pocketspace. Who knows what a
competent scientist might be able to do even with the remains? The
Mandalorian artifacts in circulation as it was were hazard enough,
she thought, no need to leave any unattended.
        And speaking of danger... Washuu focused her viewscreen on
Rianna, who was exploring her new ship and stowing her belongings.
Little Sith, for whatever reason Kris has decided to protect you. So
long as he keeps you under his guard, you have nothing to fear from
me.
        But if you ever turn on him... if you ever bring harm to that
which he loves... I will be ready.
        I have not forgotten, nor have I forgiven, little
Santovasku.
        With one hand, Washuu opened a new terminal and began
searching the computer records system of the royal government of
Hyeruul. You have a secret, Rianna, Washuu thought, as she skimmed
down to find the birth records subsystem. You will not keep that
secret for long.
        Kris is mine.
        I shall NOT let you hurt him.
        This I swear.

        ...and life goes on...