The Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship dropped out of hyperspace on the edge of the Chiloon Rift, systems away from the Qreph brothers' Base Prime in the heart of the Rift. A few minutes later, it readied itself for yet another jump when it suddenly got hit in the side by a laser bolt.
The Meditation Sphere shook and rocked its two passengers inside, Vestara Khai and Mirta Gev.
"What was that?" Vestara asked.
We are being attacked, Lady Khai! Ship responded urgently. By a ship off to our side! I am attempting evasive maneuvers, but...
"What's going on?" Mirta asked.
Vestara hastily told the Mandalorian what Ship just informed her, and said to the Sphere, "Please, continue."
I can't seem to move, Ship replied with concern. I believe that I am caught in a tractor beam.
"Tractor beam?" Vestara asked. "Where's the ship that has us?"
Instead of answering telepathically, the Sith's question was answered with a puckering sound off to her and Mirta's left. The women turned their heads in that direction, where the bulkhead faded into transparency in order to act as a viewport. There, off in the distance, was a starfighter-sized vessel that looked as if it were a really old-fashioned Corellian car; one that had wheels. The car-like ship was facing them, and was now coming in. When it came close enough, Vestara and Mirta could see that, atop what looked like an engine hood, were painted, in blue, SPD, in auremesh.
"That's what's keeping us in a tractor lock?" Mirta asked no one in particular, disbelieving of the circumstance that she, Vestara, and Ship were all in.
Unfortunately, it is, Ship communed telepathically to Vestara. And I can't seem to fire upon it, either. Vestara then relayed the words to Mirta for her benefit.
"What does it want?" Mirta wondered aloud, keeping her sights fixed on the incoming vessel.
As if to answer her query, a portion of the deck in front of the Sith and Mandalorian opened up to raise a console, which was now beeping with a yellow light flashing; they were being hailed, the two women knew. So Mirta pressed the only button that was on the console.
"Hello, are there any women aboard?" a slightly nasally voice asked from the other end. It tried to sound deep and a little gravelly, but it failed easily.
Vestara and Mirta looked at each other briefly, with Vestara nodding. Mirta offered the Sith an inquisitive expression before turning back to the console and pressing the button to reply.
"There are two women aboard," the Mandalorian reported reluctantly. "Why, who is this?"
"I'm looking for agents who can infiltrate a titty bar, if you don't mind," the voice responded. "And my name... is Space Cop." It was obvious that his brief pause was for dramatic effect, as if he were a hero on a cliched holodrama.
Vestara and Mirta regarded the console before them as if it were the owner of the voice they were speaking to; and they looked at it as if it were a Gungun trying to be a scientist on par with a Givin.
"Space Cop?" Mirta asked with tired disbelief.
"Space Cop," the voice repeated with the same dramatic tone as before.
"You wanna take this?" Mirta asked Vestara.
Wordlessly, Vestara took the console. "Alright, Space Cop," she said, "why did you try to shoot at us originally?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," Space Cop replied. "I hit the wrong button when I was just trying to tractor you."
"You hit the wrong button?" Mirta asked, retaking the console from Vestara. "We're supposed to believe that?"
"Yes, why?" Space Cop asked.
"That sounds oddly incompetent," Mirta remarked suspiciously. "And stupid."
"Hey, I had a hot dog in my hand, so I wasn't exactly in the best position to hit the tractor button to begin with!" Space Cop whined. "You have any idea how much of a mess is on the dashboard now when I hit the right button?!"
"You couldn't just set your... hot dog down?" Vestara asked, unfamiliar with what Space Cop was talking about.
"I don't have any cupholders!" Space Cop exclaimed. "The department won't allow that; last time we had cupholders, some moron went drunk, stoned, and hookerized in his car. I'm lucky I didn't get fired after that night!"
"So that moron was you?" Mirta asked.
There was a long pause. "Yes," he replied reluctantly.
"Does hookerize mean what I think it does?" Vestara asked her Mandalorian counterpart.
"If this guy's to be believed, I think it does," Mirta replied before hitting the button again. "Okay, Space Cop, what was it that you wanted from us again?"
"Do I really have to repeat myself?" Space Cop snorted. "Amateurs. Look, here's the lowdown; on Nar Shaddaa, there's this dancer's club called Plinkett's Poppers. This club is responsible for the disappearances of over a dozen of its employees, all of them the hottest and fuckablest strippers. The primary suspect is the bar's owner, Harry S. Plinkett. If you're hot enough, Plinkett'll accept you, and if you make it to get his attention, you can move in on him and kill him.
"So if you don't mind, I'd like to board your ship so I can do an inspection of your bodies."
Mirta pressed the reply button. "And how do we know you're not just a lying huckster trying to take advantage of gullible and stupid women?"
"Because if you pass my inspection, and agree to do this job," Space Cop said, "we split the cash we get from bustin' Plinkett three ways. Heh-heh, three ways. Heh-heh."
Vestara hit the reply button. "Wait, if you're a cop, wouldn't you wanna take this Plinkett character alive?"
"At this point, I'm operating outside my payroll," Space Cop replied. "We investigated Plinkett before, but we had no real solid evidence. But I know that son of a bitch is responsible for those missing and likely dead women. And I'm gonna take him down, no matter what it takes. With your help, of course."
Mirta took the console from Vestara. "Say, who exactly are you affiliated with?"
"The Space Police Department from the Milky Way galaxy, a galaxy far, far away from yours," Space Cop answered. "From the future, of space. I'm a cop, out of time, out of place, in a galaxy I don't understand."
"You time-traveled from the future?" Vestara asked, obviously disbelieving.
"Twice," Space Cop answered. "First from my own time, then to Plinkett's time. By then, he was kidnapping prostitutes on his homeworld, and with one of them, he fathered a being known as the Antichrist. Hence, I used a time travel device from my time created by a guy named John Connor to go back in time to stop Plinkett, only he managed to get a device from a cyborg race known as the Borg to head to this galaxy, traveling further back in time in the process. I managed to steal more of the Borg's technology to replicate the effect, and now we're here."
"So you did all that, but you didn't know where the button for your tractor lock on your own ship was?" Vestara asked in disbelief.
"Alright, fine, I admit it... It was a mutated gorilla man known as Simon Taggert who operated the time travel devices for me. He's actually working at Plinkett's Poppers as a bouncer."
Mirta looked at Vestara. "He's lying," the Mandalorian said. "Isn't he?"
"I don't know," Vestara answered. "I can't sense a presence from him through the Force."
"Really? Then either he has an ysalamari, or he could be a Yuuzhan Vong."
"Ysalamari? Yuuzhan Vong?" Vestara asked.
"Ysalamari are a bunch of animals that make Force-proof bubbles or something like that. The Yuuzhan Vong were extragalactic invaders defeated a little more than fifteen years ago," Mirta explained. "The Jedi couldn't sense them through the Force."
"Well, let's see if he is a Yuuzhan Vong," Vestara said before pressing the reply button. "Space Cop, you can board our vessel."
"What?!" Mirta exclaimed.
"There a problem?" Space Cop asked.
Vestara made a cutting motion with her hand to Mirta before returning her attention back to the console. "No, no problem. Just place your airlock anywhere against our hull; it'll make an opening."
"Yeah, that sounds reasonable," Space Cop replied before cutting off the communication.
As the car-like ship maneuvered so that the side that would house the driving seat headed for Ship, Mirta glared back at Vestara. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I think we can take this guy, even if he has an ysalamari, is a Yuuzhan Vong, or whatever," Vestara said. "Regardless, we need a way out, and Ship doesn't seem to be in any condition to help us out right now."
Mirta grimaced and sighed. "Alright, let's do this then."
Seconds later, the spot on Ship that Space Cop selected to park his car opened up to form a gap for the car-like vessel's airlock to connect with. The airlock soon opened up, and as Vestara and Mirta stood up, ready to confront the new arrival, a short, fat, light-skinned human male stepped through.
His outfit wasn't anything more than plain regular clothes that seemed drab even for someone who lived on Tatooine. The only things that made him stand out as a law enforcer in any sense were his wide sunglasses, his over-sized blue helmet, and a blue jacket. He was armed only with a giant rifle that neither Vestara or Mirta recognized upon seeing the weapon.
In short, he looked more like a fool than anything else, and his serious expression somehow made his appearance ever more comedic.
"You're eighteen, right?" Space Cop asked Vestara.
"Barely," the Sith answered plainly.
"Good enough," Space Cop said before broadening his attention to Mirta. "Okay, you both look good with your clothes on, so you'll pass the initial inspection at Plinkett's Poppers. Now strip down to your undies and see if you can make it to the finals, as it were."
Mirta quickly whipped out her handheld blaster from its holster on her belt and aimed it at Space Cop. "Or you could just let us go and we don't have to kill you."
Space Cop smirked. "Right. You do know that when I got a tractor lock on your eyeball ship here, I made sure that it would unleash a gas that would be deadly to females of any species to protect myself."
"Did your monkey man also do that for you?" Vestara mocked.
"Hey, he takes offense to whenever anyone calls him a monkey man," Space Cop said. "Last time someone did that, he shit out a baby monkey and threw it at the fucker's head."
"You're not convincing us of your legitimacy," Mirta pointed out. "Tell us why we should even get involved in this Plinkett business, aside from that whole money aspect."
"You're just shy, aren't you?" Space Cop asked. "Don't worry, it's not like I wanna see your clits or nipples or anything. In fact, vaginas actually kinda scare me; they make the Sarlacc on Tatooine look as comforting as a floppy dick."
"So you're gay?" Vestara asked.
"I don't care if he is, neither of us are stripping down for him," Mirta said, not shifting her aim from Space Cop.
"Sorry, I'm as straight as... as... shit, I got nothing," he said. "I could just boner, but I've already gone through one dick joke, I really don't wanna get repetitive."
Vestara placed her hand atop Mirta's weapon hand and lowered it. "Do you really have to see us in our underwear?"
Space Cop sighed. "If I say no, will you do the job?"
"I could," Vestara answered before looking up at the Mandalorian. "What about you?"
The Mandalorian stared at Space Cop for a long while before sighing in defeat. "How much will you pay us?"