Mordecai burst through the doors a few hours later, sending them back with a bang as he stomped over to a drying Ratchet at the bar. "What the hell happened, Poodle?"

""What are you talking abou-?" Ratchet spoke, before Mordecai grabbed him by the tail, getting a yelp out of him.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about . . ." He snarled.

Julia blinked, picking up her skirts to sprint over to the two. "What's going on?"

Mordecai narrowed his eyes, before speaking in a more hushed tone. "Qwark says he caught Vox's pet here trying to take advantage of Del- . . . D19!"

"What the- . . NO! Absolutely not!" Ratchet shot back.

"Poodle, this is not the time to be covering your ass." The black Lombax snarled. "The captain said he just found her all rigged up near one of the masts and bruised all over . . . He thought I'd done it, but then I told him that Anastasia lent us one of her drivers . . ."

"And he's the spare driver?" Julia blinked. "Nobody told me he was working on it . . ."

Mordecai rolled his eyes. "I picked him up since she said she wanted him to work on the Captain's ship anyway. I thought he was trustworthy!"

"Emphasis on 'thought', apparently."

"I didn't touch the damn girl!" Ratchet barked again, arms crossed. "Did you even ask Dee?"

"She couldn't even speak when I'd last seen her." His eyes went narrow. "She's bathing now."

"You realize you're rinsing off all the evidence of what actually happened to her, right?"

Julia blinked as she parsed that last line, before glaring at Ratchet. "You are SICK! If I didn't have a shop to run, I'd march you out back right now and-."

Ratchet glared at her. "And what?"

Julia shook in anger, then stormed into the back. Mordecai stayed out there, though. "You are in a lot of trouble, boy. You're lucky I'm not getting dragged down with you!"

"Mordecai, please, I didn't do anything to her! She's the first girl that even gave me the time of day!"

"Mord!" Julia snapped. "A moment!"

Ratchet groaned. "There's that word again . . ."

"Just stay there." He snarled at Ratchet, before walking over to the cellar's doorway, dropping his voice. "What now?"

Mordecai blinked as he found a length of rope being thrust into his hands, along with a pistol. Julia glared down at Mordecai, even as her eyes darted to Ratchet every few minutes. She spoke again, this time in her coldest tone possible. "Take him out back and deal with him, one way or another."

"Are you mad? K12's one of the brightest I've seen out here. Geld him, maybe, but-!"

"This isn't up for discussion." She glared down at her charge. "Nobody touches my girls and gets away with it. I let you earn your keep here by protecting my ladies, and this is part of your job. Now don't come back until you can show me your work!"

Mordecai frowned, but then looked back at Ratchet, sighing. "If only it were Shabbas . . ."

"Just . . . just finish it, please. I don't even want to look at him anymore."

Without further discussion, Mordecai loaded up his new tools into a sack, walking back over to Ratchet. "Hey, Poodle. Walk with me, will you?"

Ratchet blinked, jumping back down. "What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on, I just want to talk." Mordecai spoke, before wincing. "I just don't want to do it here. I don't think you're welcome right now, you know?"

"Okay . . ." He spoke, a little nervous as he saw Julia still eyeing him. "Look, I didn't do it, I swear."

"Don't start here. Just walk with me a little." The black Lombax shrugged. "There's a nice garden in the back."

Ratchet nodded, following Mordecai up the stairs and out to a patio garden, suspended above the docks. Among the rosebushes and sod he noticed some cranes at the corner posts that looked like scaffolding, complete with pulleys, but he ignored them for now. Ratchet relaxed significantly, noticing the city view as it came up against the harbor. " . . . Huh. You were right, this is pretty nice."

"Glad you like it." Mordecai spoke, trying to sound cheerful. "If you look out in that direction, you can see the synagogue I work at. It's the tall domed building over there."

Ratchet turned to see the large blue dome, almost squinting to get a better view, but soon found rope being pulled over his head, and tightening around his neck. He grabbed at it with his hands, but quickly found a boot in his shoulders, knocking him forward.

Ratchet tried to flip himself in panic, only to find Mordecai on top, straddling his back and trying to pin down his arms. "What the hell? Get off me!"

"Hold still, damn it!" Mordecai snarled, tightening the noose around Ratchet's neck further. "I don't want to botch this!"

"God damn it, I'm innocent! You've got to-!"

Ratchet blinked, hearing the distinct readying of a pistol as he noticed the barrel being jammed flush against the opening of one of his ear canals. Mordecai spoke again, this time with something blocking his throat. " . . . just hold still. Please."

Ratchet winced. " . . . what are you doing, man?"

"This wasn't my decision." Mordecai spoke again, wrestling Ratchet's hands behind him to secure them with rope. "Now just let me do this . . . I'm in as much of a tight spot right now as you are, and if I don't string you up, Qwark'll think I had something to do with this too!"

"I didn't touch her!"

"You expect me to believe you right now?" Mordecai spoke as he pitched the coils of rope over one scaffold, and then leapt up off of Ratchet to tie them into place. Ratchet got up to his knees before standing, still trying to pull himself free. "I'm following Julia's orders here, that's all there is to it!"

"Don't do this to me! You don't know what you're doing!" Ratchet cried out again, even as he felt the rope tugging against his neck. "I didn't touch Dee!"

"You're the only one who could've done it!" Mordecai snarled, grabbing the post of the scaffold and starting to rotate it. Ratchet felt himself being pulled out towards the railing, and trying to fight against the pull of the scaffold. "Stop lying to me!"

"I didn't do it!" Ratchet panicked, digging his feet into the sod, trying to stay as far away from the railing as possible.

A moment later, Mordecai stopped. Ratchet almost dropped his ears in relief, but perked them back up when he noticed Mordecai grabbing the gun. "God damn it, Poodle . . . K12, whatever your name is . . ."

"Ratchet!"

Mordecai spun around to aim the pistol at Ratchet's head, but then blinked, shocked. " . . . what?"

"My name is Ratchet!" He spoke, trying not to shrink back from the pistol any longer. He was about to get himself killed again, so there was no point pulling any punches this time; he couldn't bluff his way out of this one any other way he could think of. "I am Ratchet Eliyahu Wrench. I was born, raised, and lived my entire life up until a few years ago on Veldin. Something or someone has brought me back here to your time, and . . . and I've never been so damn scared in my life. Please, you have to believe me!"

The free Lombax narrowed his eyes. "So you're not just a rapist, you've lost your mind too?"

"The only proof I have is what little knowledge of history I possess ." Ratchet gulped, sweating sheets, before he blinked. "Listen very carefully to what I say next, because I can't let anyone else hear this, Rabbi."

He was answered with rolled eyes, still as narrow as ever. "Flattery won't help you here. I'm not even a cantor."

"Yet." Ratchet spoke, dropping to his knees as though he thought it would help his case. "Please hear me out. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out . . . but I know you. You're Rabbi Mordecai Chanis, leader of the Birthright and first Protectorate of Veldin. Your grave is located in Third Jerusalem under a black marble slab known as the Cracked Table. It picked up the crack about two hundred years after your death, when all of your descendants alive back then stood on it at the same time and their weight managed to open up what was previously a hairline fracture in the stone at the time of your burial."

Mordecai's eyes flew wide, his hand shaking now. "You . . . you're a prophet?"

"I'm not a prophet. Just a very scared time traveler who's at the end of his rope." Ratchet spoke, still staring down the barrel of the pistol. "I have listened to tales of how you helped to free all Lombaxes of their yokes, and to help find the planet promised to us all along; the planet I was born on, the planet you founded as a safe harbor for Lombaxes all across the galaxy . . . that's all I can tell you without going into idle speculation about what the scholars imagined of your sex life. Please, if you don't believe me, shoot me now. If I can't convince you, then there's no chance that anyone else here will listen to me."

Ratchet trembled for a moment, even as he saw Mordecai tense and slip a finger in towards the trigger. "I don't know what to believe right now. You're either telling the truth, or you're one hell of a liar."

"Please, Rabbi . . ."

Mordecai snarled. "If you are who you say you are, then you know what you should be saying right now." With that, he raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. "Last words?"

Ratchet quaked, his heart skipping two beats as he struggled to speak now. "Sh . . . Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu . . . Adonai Echad . . ."

BLAM!

Mordecai flinched, aiming the gun high to cut the rope that secured Ratchet to the scaffold, eyes wide once again in shock. A moment later, he dropped to his knees as well, wrapping his arms around Ratchet tightly, burrowing his head up against Ratchet's shoulder, sobbing quietly. A few moments later, Ratchet found himself supporting his head on Mordecai's shoulder as well, unable to speak.

"Thank God you believed me . . ." Ratchet finally managed out, heart in his throat.

"God had nothing to do with my believing you." Mordecai answered back, on the verge of tears. "But you're the greatest proof of his work I've seen yet."