Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own.
-Proverbs 26.17, NIV

The ship shook.

The slim woman sitting in the pilot's seat ignored it. It had been getting steadily worse over the past few weeks. She knew, she knew, exactly what it was. It was an obscure and vital piece of machinery, tucked away behind three inches of hull and wiring, and she could get to it and replace it inside of fifteen minutes. She had smoked cigarettes that had taken her longer.

She just didn't have the money to.

Hopefully, that was about to change.

The ship trying vainly to get away from hers was no slouch, by any means, but hers was faster. And so, like a lioness closing in on her prey, she narrowed the gap. The men in the ship ahead of hers were making for, apparently, nothing at all. There was a backwater planet of no note nearby, but it was almost entirely desert.

"No place to hide," the woman breathed onto the monitor.

Truth be told, she liked it this way; the last few desperate bounds before the prey was bought down. She could imagine the scene on the ship; wild-eyes looks around, steam inexplicably pouring out of poorly-located vents, muscles, eyes, and eyes straining for every inch of speed they could get. She could see a sweating fat man in a red velour jacket yell into a comm panel "Ah cannae' duuuu it, Cap'n!" in some strange mockery of a Core accent.
And whatever that hypothetical man was doing, it wasn't enough.

It wasn't even close.

She put on some "last legs of a chase" music; an old folk song she had once heard. "Dun dun dun , dun dun land , dun me where duh duh duh duuuunnn..."

The door was open.

The slim girl in the doorway frowned slightly. If the cage door was open, that would mean Houdini was out again. If Houdini was out, and the door to the room had been closed, that meant he was probably still inside.

"If I were a hamster, where would I hide?" she murmured, tugging on one of her braids.

Nothing on the bookshelf. Nothing under the bed. Nothing in any of the drawers, which was just as well, because it would be really weird to find her hamster in her underwear drawer.

She found him crawling out from under a pile of clothes, where he seemed to be yawning. Say, when's dinner? I'm starved. No, don't put me back in there-

The girl put him back in the cage, and leaned a book against the door. Then she leaned another. Then the Encyclopedia Aardvark-Alliance. Then she padlocked the door shut. That should hold for another few hours.

"Gorram it, why can't you just stay in your cage, like a good li'l hamster?" she growled softly.

"Mira!" yelled her mother from the kitchen.

"I'm sorry!" she yelped automatically. Oh, wait, Mom couldn't hear her swearing in the kitchen. "I'm a-comin'!"

"Your pa needs his hammer back from the Jenkins," said Chastity Owens, as her daughter walked in. She was baking a cake. "Could you walk into town and get it, honey? Oh, and stop swearing."

And so Mira set off towards town, walking along the edge of the Owens smallholding or whatever the word was. Mira had never paid much attention in English. She kept one practiced eye on the bright speck in the sky indicating a ship entering atmo while she toyed with her braids and thought about career options. Professional hamster-hunter was out, and she doubted ma and pa would let her be an actress, and she didn't like math much. (Now it was in atmo, heading in the vague direction of town.) She wasn't too handy with a gun, and people's insides made her sick. (That second speck is a ship a few minutes behind, dependin' on atmospheric conditions and ship's construction.) She didn't have the patience to be a schoolteacher. (The first ship would hit town about the same time as she did.) She couldn't write. (The second one obviously in pursuit; it tried to drop below the descent line of the first.) Couldn't draw. (Even with the hurried descent, he probably wouldn't make it.) Couldn't even hammer nails properly. (Was it coming at her?) Farming was okay, but it was so boring. (Not if he pulled up. Could his engines make it?) It wasn't necessarily a i bad /i life(-not on that model-); it just wasn't (-coming right at ME-)

The ship screamed by, close enough for its jet wash-or was that rocket wash-to knock Mira down. She struggled up just as a dull thump resounded under her feet.

"Hoe-tze duh pee-goo", she whispered. Her accent was terrible.

The side hatch opened just as she ran up to it, and a tall young woman emerged. Between the sun, and her platinum-blond dreadlocks, and the smoke curling 'round her ship, she looked like nothing less than a lioness, great and terrible. Then a breeze came up and blew the smoke away, and the sun went behind a cloud, and she was just a woman. A strong-looking woman, with a big gun, but a woman, nonetheless.

"You're a terrible pilot," was all Mira could think to say.

The woman's eyes finally focused on Mira. "Oh, hey." She reached into her jacket pocket, and pulled out a card. An old-fashioned paper card, not data on a disc. It read "Fila Derrouge: Space Cowboy" with a cortex contact at the bottom.

"Space...?"

"I'm a bounty hunter. What planet is this?"

"Luciferase".

"That's comforting."

"It's what fireflies use to make light."

"Huh," said Derrouge distantly. An explosion from town made them whirl. "Looks like the boys have landed."

"What boys?"

"The Hartly Boys; some of the most dangerous thieves this side of Miranda." She keyed in a sequence on a console in the ship. "I was chasing them, came in too fast."

"Not too fast, too i low /i . You can't make that kinda slope in a Leo at that speed! Who taught you how to fly?"

Derrouge stared bemusedly at the girl in front of her as the cargo bay opened and the loading arm dropped the hovercraft onto the ground. "I didn't expect to be taken to task for my piloting skills. What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm drivin' the mule, what does it look like?" said Mira angrily.

"'Mule?' That's silly. How about 'the bike'?"

"Whatever. I have to get into town and help. If you shoot as well as you fly, you need my help."

Derrouge considered. It was always a good idea to have your hands free. She mounted the bike as Mira turned it on. Due to the peculiarities of construction, she had to sit right behind the girl, her front to Mira's back. At least, until the shooting started.

"Okay," she said into Mira's ear. "Let's roll."