Best Birthday Present Ever?
Chapter Two
What the hell are Ctuans?


Disclaimer: Being the unlucky person that I am, I don't own Outlaw Star or any of the characters. I own Haruka, and the name of the Ctuans, but nothing else! At the moment! Please don't sue me! I love you!

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Jim sweatdropped visibly. Melfina was in bed with a hangover, and he wasn't supposed to go see her. She was irritable and throwing up a lot. Therefore, he had decided to do a little exploring.
And now I'm lost, he thought to himself as he wandered through the streets of a small village. Everybody who saw him was staring. Apparently, they didn't get many visitors. There was another strange thing he noticed, as a woman brushed past him.
Where are all the men? he wondered, almost stopping in his train of thought.
"Excuse me, Ma'am? Could you please direct me to a service station?" he politely asked the first woman he deemed safe-looking enough to ask.
"Hmm?" she muttered, as she stopped, and began to look him over, making our hero grow increasingly nervous. She pointed north. "It's that way."
"Thanks!" he called to her, as he rushed off, eager to get away.
"Feh. Gaijins have no manners," she mumbled to herself as he left.
She looked at me as if I were a piece of meat! I'm only twelve, and she's thirty-something! AIEEE!!!
"OI! You! You're looking for the service station?" an unfamiliar, deep voice called.
"Huh?" He stopped. "Me? Yeah? But how'd you...?"
"Gaijins're always looking for it when they stop here. Ya almost ran past it."
Jim turned, and say a boy... a girl... whatever, with short, pale green hair and eerie golden eyes. He couldn't tell.
"This is it?"
"Hai."

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"Hey, Gene! I found a service station!" a now-cheerful Jim exclaimed, bursting through the door of everybody's favorite grappler ship.
"Shhhh!!!!" Gene, Aisha, and Suzuka scolded, turning to him. "She just got to sleep!"
"Oh, yeah. Gomen," our blonde friend replied, rubbing the back of his head.
"Well, where is it?" Gene quietly demanded.
"Not too far from here. In a small village inhabited only by women and one kid that I can't really tell with..."
"Sounds like fun!" Gene exclaimed, rubbing his hands together, and practically drooling.
"Shhhh!" the others exclaimed, glaring.

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"So, these're you're friends?" the kid asked, raising an eyebrow at the unlikely group.
"Yeah."
"Jim, aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?" Suzuka delicately inquired.
"Oh, yeah! Guys, this is Haruka. Haruka, this is Gene, Suzuka, and Aisha, respectively," he said, pointing. "Melfina's not here because she's... uh... under the weather."
"Oi! You! Gene!" Haruka addressed him, pointing.
"Me?"
"Yeah. You'd get along well here. Some of the older girls need breeding stock."
A dream come true! Gene exclaimed inwardly.
"My, you certainly get to the point quick," Aisha muttered. "By the way, what are you?"
"Us? Oh, we're Ctuans."
Gene suddenly lost his new favorite train of thought. "Ctuans? What the hell are Ctuans?" he blurted, making obvious his lack of tact.
"GENE!" Jim yelled.
"We're an ancient half-breed race. Half CtarlCtarl, half human."
"I thought you looked familiar!" Aisha exclaimed happily.
"Say, I've been meaning to ask," Gene began, slightly more polite. "Where are all the guys?"
"Long, long ago, the male of the species died out. They way they went must've been very painful..."
"How?"
"Their sperm became acidic and ate away at their-"
"OK, we get the point!" Gene interrupted. That IS painful!
"How did your species come to be?" Aisha inquired, her curiosity aroused.
"Several millenniums ago, some humans were traveling in their starship, trying to get home. They were soldiers, and a war had just ended. Their army had only been hiring single men, not wanting to make a widow of anybody. Then, pirates attacked and they crashed onto a planet. That planet just happened to be inhabited by an all-female tribe of CtarlCtarl that had been exiled out of fear.
"The CtarlCtarl females were about to die out because they had no males to breed with. When they encountered the chip, they knew it was a godsend. The men were glad to breed, and so were the females. And so it has been told, ever since before even my grandparents were born."
"One more question," Suzuka added. "Why did the more recent males' sperm become acidic?"
"A gaijin came and brought a horrible plague by mistake. He was a mercenary sent to kill off a neighboring race, but he was a complete idiot. It was too late that they found the cure, though."
"And now that our history lesson is over, can we get the ship repaired?"
"Can you pay?"
"What's the price?" Gene asked, rather nervously.
"Twenty wong per square meter."
Jim did the math in his head. "AH! That's more than two thousand wong! We can't afford that! Can't we get some kind of discount?"
"If you can provide breeding stock for our species, you only have to pay five wong per square ten meters. For each male I enter, I get a hundred wong per offspring produced!"
Jim nervously backed away, seeing the look in Haruka's eyes. "I wouldn't have to enter, would I?" he managed to squeak out through gulping.
"I think you're a bit young."
He breathed a sigh of relief.