A story involving would-be criminals; down-on-their-luck pirates; top-notch Galaxy Academy scientists; space aristocracy with a penchant for fine jewellery; Galaxy Police DCI's with severe chips on their shoulders; pink-haired Juraian fops with even bigger chips on their shoulders; female mob-assassins who've watched too much John Woo; alien gangsters who could have stepped out of the East End of Old London Town; ambiguous references to pop-culture space films and television series; made 'Mafioso' men who take orders from the Dogfather; an Earthling and his entourage of suitors (and fiancées); radical Bolshevik revolutionaries who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery; extraterrestrial Yardie posses; Accumulators of Extra-Legal Goods; a ghost; hip Earthling music...
And that ain't the half of it.

And a note to you all; this is a comedy, but it's also a drama. Keep that in mind... (wink, wink)

A/N Beta 1:- Any footnotes [written as numbers in brackets (or parenthesis, if you're American), following a word, phrase, sentence etc. etc.] should be read posthaste. Missing such notes may result in complete misunderstanding of the fic or, in severe cases, death.

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* * * * *

LOCK, STOCK AND THREE SOJA GEMS

"A minute ago this was the safest job in the world. Now it's turning into a bad day in Bosnia."

* * * * *

PROLOGUE:-

At the apex of his power the space pirate Kagato commanded terrifying respect. However, five thousand years of plundering the most precious artifacts in the galaxy, along with his so-called daughter, Ryoko, and his monolithic ship, the Soja, eventually led him to an undignified end.

During a decisive battle he was killed, obliterated even, by the energy imbued in a young man (which was given to him by the Goddess Tsunami, naturally). The use of this energy, manifested in solid, was even enough to bisect the Soja... The resulting explosion scattered debris across the known universe, never to be found.

Or so goes the truth.

Of course, no one would release such honesty to the common public. Some things are too important to be admitted, and so a falsity was concocted, describing Kagato's death and the Soja's destruction at the hands of a massive GP fleet. No one dug any deeper than that.
The case of the Ruins Buster, a file that had spanned five millennia, was finally closed.

Many drinks were downed at the Galaxy Police's local haunts. Museums brought their dusty old relics back into the light of day. People generally felt a little bit safer in their beds, knowing that Kagato was an ex-pirate and Ryoko was missing presumed dead.

But that's not the end of the story.

When he had lived, Kagato was a certified super-genius. Even so clever as to capture and detain his one time tutor, Washu Hakubi. Whereas Ryoko and Ryo-ohki were created by that self-same captive, the Soja was not.

The craft proved to be an enigma, even to Kagato's stupendous mind. Its propulsion and cohesion was given to it by three large gems, very much like the curious gems worn by Ryoko. Where they came from, no one knew. What they could do, no one knew. What they were... well, only a handful knew that.
Alone, these gems were little more than curiosities. Paperweights (fifteen foot in diameter, spherical paperweights, yes, but novelties nonetheless).
Together, however, they were the Soja. And much more.

They had been under Kagato's nose all the time and he hadn't even seen them for what they truly were...

When the Soja was destroyed the explosion cast the gems away into the universe.

Written in legend, spoken of in whispers, no one realised their true importance.

Until now...

(Epilepsy Warning : Fanfiction should be read at a distance in a well lit room)

* * * * *

CHAPTER 1:-
WOKE UP THIS MORNING

There was a word for this.

He was very sure of that.

It involved light.

And birds.

And embarrassing things involving the male anatomy.

Oh. And toothbrushes.

There was a word for it. It was simply a case of trying to remember what it was. He wracked his memory. God, it was on the tip of his brain. It was so simple, so elegant. It got across everything that it meant in the fewest number of letters. Meatloaf?
Probably not.

No worries. It would come to him sooner or later. It was an 'M' word though, he knew that. Or, at least, he believed that he knew that. And why did his mouth taste like sandpaper?

Moon? Money? Mashed potato? Monk? Mastur- No...

Matrimony? Now that rang a bell. Not correct, but it certainly set off a little jingly noise in the back of his head.

Oh. That was a headache. Never mind.

Very carefully he reached his hand down and touched whatever it was that he was laying on. It was soft. Very soft and slightly bouncy. Somehow that didn't make him feel very happy, and he wasn't too sure why. Mist? He pressed his hand forward gently. It ran along the soft thing beneath him and he felt it crease beneath his fingertips. Mattress? Yes! That was correct. And an 'M' word!

Then his fingers stopped. They were pressing against something slightly firmer, but nearly as soft, a few inches in front of him. It was also rather warm. Mango? He raised his hand gently and let it slide over the object. Very smooth, very soft. He traced up and down it with his fingers. Majesty?

The object moved beneath his digits and sighed a long contented sigh. Then it settled back down again.

What, Tenchi asked himself, Was that?

Wouldn't you like to know.

Who the hell are you? asked Tenchi's subconscious. He moved his hand the few inches back to himself.

Your super-ego, said the voice.

My what?!

Your super-ego, continued the voice. I'm sorry to say that your id is still passed out. You really shouldn't drink so much.

Drink? I don't drink. I'm teetotal, said Tenchi. He smoothed out the mattress' creases with his hand and attempted to bring the other extremity to bear. It wouldn't move. Oh my God I'm paralysed, he thought suddenly as he tried to get his left arm to traverse the barest fraction of an inch.

Not exactly, said the voice, you'll find it's much worse than that. Well, sort of.

What do you mean? I'm not hospitalised am I?

You keep dancing in the street like that and you will be! Don't you remember what happened at all?

I remember brief flashes, replied Tenchi. He concentrated. I see myself dancing. And doing karaoke. And... drinking saké? He took a metaphorical double-take. Is that me?

What? The guy in the police car? Yeah, that's you. Drunk and disorderly's quite a charge.

Drunk and- GOOD GOD! What happened?!

You're not going to like this. Not one little bit, said his super-ego in a voice that showed that it was probably going to enjoy telling it more than Tenchi was going to enjoy listening to it.

Yesterday was your birthday, laddo. The super-ego laughed gaily. Parties are great aren't they? I mean, yours certainly was. I wouldn't have missed it for the world! And I didn't either, because I was inside you all the time you were there!

Amazing.

Yep. I'm surprised so many people turned up, seeing as how most of 'em think you're a geek. Perhaps it was the offer of free food.

Am I the only person in the universe with an ego that hates me?

No. Your ego likes you. I'm your super-ego. It's the difference between terrorist and freedom-fighter. Anyway, so you got really excited and drank all the rum punch. I expect that explains a lot, eh? Then your dad got chatted up by that girl from your art class... Mina Whatsername. That was pretty funny.

Dad? Now there came a feeling in Tenchi's gut that the super-ego had to be lying. It wasn't just the fact that the same time Mina Whatsername hit on Noboyuki, would be the same time that Satan went to work on a snow-plough, but rather that he wouldn't have allowed it to happen. He may have been a diverse pervert, but he wasn't exactly over the top in his pursuits. If he didn't get rejected (or slapped in the face) after copping a feel of the girl's buttocks, he would probably have hid in his bedroom. Shyness died hard. Okay...

And when everyone went home and you went out. Ryoko and Ayeka followed, which is pretty weird because they so out of it, they couldn't think, let alone walk. I'll let you remember everything else for yourse-

MORNING!

What?

That was the word I was looking for. MORNING! Tenchi smiled inwardly.

Anyway, I've got to go. See ya! called his super-ego. Its voice echoed for a few seconds, before disappearing into nothingness.

Hello?

Nothing.

What? Nothing? What's that supposed to mean?

Oh, sorry, said the super-ego, I was meant to vanish.

And it did.

* * * * *

This, of course, wasn't particularly enlightening to Tenchi. He felt like the sole survivor of a shipwreck, who had suddenly found that the island he'd been living on for the last six years had an Ibizan beach resort on its other side. Still swallowed in the inky blackness of shut-eyedness, he thought about his present situation.
At least he knew the word he'd wanted was 'Morning'.

It was therefore morning, otherwise his mind wouldn't have made such a big thing about it. And it was also the day after his birthday. Or so his super-ego had told him. He found it somewhat unlikely that he had been arrested, because he knew that prison cells didn't usually have soft mattresses and breathing things in them. At least, not the type of cells he wanted to be in.
The headache was still there and his throat felt like it had been used to wipe down sewage pipes.

He moved his head very gently, and stars exploded in the darkness. He found through various slight movements that he was lying on his side, his left hand side to be exact. His right hand trailed behind him, unfeeling and apparently unmovable. Perhaps it had been amputated, although he thought that the super-ego might have mentioned that. Or at least made fun of it.

His left arm, which was partially under his own body, moved forward again and touched the object that had so perplexed him. It was like a trunk, lying parallel to him, but smooth and supple. He prodded it for good measure. If he opened his eyes he'd know for sure, but his brain felt like tapioca and if he did open his eyelids he was worried that his eyes might fall out. His hand moved downwards along the object, and then stopped.
The object swelled outwards gently in an arc and then moved back in again. Then it split into two.
Right, said Tenchi's mind, I have a generalised hunch about this. But I'm not going to scare you just yet.
 He ran his hand back up along the trunk. There was a spherical outcropping at this end with hair. Very long hair. In fact, on closer palm-driven analysis, there was a lot of hair and some of it was put into two bunches. One of the bunches, which he followed with his hand, ran across his forehead and over behind him. It was very long. There was an 'S' word in here.

BLEEP was an 'S' word he could think of, but it wasn't the correct one.

He reached over the trunk and felt it gently. It was very... womanly. That made him feel better at least.

Sasami?

BLEEP NO! THAT WASN'T THE WORD! Oh god. It wasn't, was it?

He opened one eye.

Ayeka lay before him on the bed, her back turned to him. The covers were pulled up to the base of her neck and both rose rhythmically as she breathed. One branch of her extraordinarily long hair was draped across Tenchi's head, the other was beneath her. Tenchi's eye opened wider. He felt a familiar feeling in his nose.
Because Ayeka was not wearing any clothes.

He opened the other eye and stared at her, his nose aching. What, he asked himself, happened last night? He realised that his hand was still resting over her body and on her-
His hand snapped back to his side faster than it had ever moved before.

Right. First thing's first. Get up and explain what happened. Say sorry. Commit ritual suicide. Hell, move to Los Angeles if you really have to.
Actually, scratch the Los Angeles part. Committing suicide would do.

Except he couldn't actually get up because something was pinning his other arm to the mattress. Carefully, in order not to upset the headache, he looked over his shoulder. He didn't actually make it that far, because he saw the arm draped protectively around his chest beforehand. He looked at it for a long time. Long, slender fingers with gentle feminine nails. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP!

He swallowed quietly in the morning sun that streamed through the window, and allowed his gaze to follow where the arm had sprung from. Something with cyan hair and snoring gently pressed against him. It was obviously a woman because her... her... well, hers, were pushed into his back.

"Oh. My. God," said Tenchi, very, very carefully. His head darted between the two naked women in the bed like a tennis fan watching Wimbledon on crack. Slowly, the head slowed down and he was staring at the white tiled ceiling above him. He watched it for a full ten seconds. Then he started screaming.

However, in his sweaty, near petrified state it came out as a low mewling. He turned his head toward Ayeka, still squeaking in his pathetic attempts at fear. She stirred in her sleep and rolled over to face him. The cover drifted down slightly. Tenchi started gagging and retching, his heart clutched in an icy grip.
The girl in front of him opened her eyes tiredly and smiled. "Good morning Lord Tenchi," she whispered, then she closed her eyes again, the smile still lingering.

The eyes snapped open again. She blinked twice and then looked around from her laying position. "What's going on?" she asked gingerly, looking at Tenchi's body with a mix of wide-eyed alarm and wide-eyed amusement. Tenchi looked down at himself at the same time as Ayeka did, and found themselves to be in the most explicit form of undress. There was a sound like tearing silk as they both whipped the covers up to neck height and stared at each other in abject horror.

"Oh no," said Ayeka simply. Then she thought about that. "Oh no," she said again, although this time she didn't make it sound like it was a serious problem.
"Oh no," Ayeka said for a third time and smiled.

"Oh no," said Tenchi, who sounded very much like he meant it. He watched as Ayeka moved a little closer towards him. "Oh no," she said for a fourth time, and waggled her eyebrows appreciatively.

"Oh no," repeated Tenchi.

"Oh no," said Ryoko, who levered herself above Tenchi's form. "What the hell did I drink last night?" She shook her head and looked down at the diorama beneath her. "Uh," she said and then reached out and poked Tenchi with a tentative finger. It failed to pass through the spectral vision, instead eliciting a sort of horrible gurgling sound from the throat of Ayeka whose eyes where bulging from their sockets. "Whoa," said Ryoko, "Whatever I drank, I want more of it."

"Ryoko!" shrieked Ayeka, sitting bolt up right in the bed, "What is this meaning of this?"
Ryoko shrugged, "Damned if I know." She looked down at Tenchi, who had rolled over onto his back and had pulled the bedcover over his head. "But it's good." She grinned wickedly.

"No," Ayeka said. She pointed a finger. "You..."
"We," replied Ryoko.
"No, we... I mean, you..."
"No what?" asked Ryoko, still smiling her wicked grin.
"You didn't... do..." stuttered Ayeka. She stared at Ryoko suddenly, "No."
Both women noticed a certain lack of something from the conversation. It was, they decided, Tenchi.
Ryoko's amber eyes moved down from Ayeka and onto the lumpy mass of white bedclothes that Tenchi was hiding beneath. She bowed her head to it, the smile disappearing into a look of worry. "Are you okay, Tenchi?"
"Lord Tenchi? Are you alright?" Ayeka joined in. She tried to fold back the lip of the bedclothes.

"Don't," said Tenchi.
"What's wrong?" asked Ryoko gently. She too attempted to reveal the hiding form.
"I'm naked," stated Tenchi's muffled voice, "And I'm in a bed with two women."
Ryoko laughed. "Oh Tenchi! It's not that bad. Is it princess?" She looked at Ayeka pleadingly.
Ayeka stared back at her with eyes that pointed out it would be better if he were in a bed with one women. Whose name was, purely by chance, Ayeka. Then she sighed. "No, it could be worse."

"That's not the worst part," came Tenchi's voice again.
There was a sullen silence from the two women. "Well, what is it then?" cajoled Ayeka.
"We're in a department store."

The two women looked at each other. Then they turned their heads to look at the foot of the bed. The massive window that looked out into the street stared back at them, along with the twenty or thirty people who were watching in disbelief at the spectacle in front of them. A young man at the front of the crowd gave a cheerful wink at the girls and smiled a very large, very happy smile.

To say the crowd was surprised when the bustier of the two woman grabbed the hand that was holding the bedclothes down and the forearm of the other woman and then promptly vanished would be a bit of an understatement. But then again, stranger things have happened.

Just before Tenchi felt himself wink out of existence and teleport, his addled mind suddenly realised the 'S' word he was looking for. It was 'sandwich'.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 2:-
ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS

The nights on Belatius VI are universally known as the most spectacular in the galaxy. That is because its nights are eternal. They last eighteen hours of its eighteen hour days and six-hundred days of the six-hundred days that make up its year. Due to an unfortunate nuclear incident in its past, it now rotated on its axis in the most curious way.
Much like the Earth's moon, it would always have one dark side and one light side.

The light side was known (mainly because of its population's distinct lack of imagination) as Sun Side. With the planet being a good distance from the local star, it had the more than pleasant temperature of 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Air-conditioning was the chief export. Tourism and holidaying were the main money-makers. It was also home to some of the most famous celebrities the galaxy had seen, including the illustrious movie-starlet Aerie Relleh and the outer-rim explorer Zayo Orub'Dar-Ma the Third.
On the opposite of the planet was the equally imaginatively named Dark Side. Here, the temperature was always 29 degrees Fahrenheit (except in those cases when it was lower), the buildings had perma-frost and the only people to stay were those too stupid or too poor to move.

This endless midnight, lit only by neon billboards and streetlamps, was the perfect place for criminals, pirates and other members of the fraternal brotherhood of scum and villainy to engage in certain legally dubious practices.

The local police force (who weren't so stupid as to go wandering into Dark Side without very good reason and heavy gun-ship support) allowed it to go on, as long as nobody screwed over the affluent Sun Side, and so a sort of easy truce was kept. The cops kept Sun Side clean and the mobs made sure Dark Side had a swift, and rough, form of justice. People who did 'bad' were usually found at the bottom of storm drains or canals wearing rather heavy, rather square, rather concrete-like overshoes.(1)

It was not really the sort of place Grimm liked to spend his weekends.

As he stepped over the naked and prostate form of a man who had recently been relieved of his wallet, clothes and kidneys, he played idly with the blaster in the holster on his belt. Using the billboards, the streetlamps and the headlights of air-traffic as a guide, he maneuvered himself around the streets and pedestrian precincts to his goal. If someone would have bothered to look at him as he barged his way through the crowds of street-punks, street-punk wannabes, mob enforcers, assassins, pirates, prostitutes and all manner of grime in between, they would have seen a man who looked like he should have been a merchant seaman or a member of some other kind of legitimate, but mischievous, job. A strait-laced mouth, a light stubble and eyes that were hard, but carried no demon, heightened the look of a man who knew right from wrong.
And he would have been the first to admit right from wrong, especially when it was he doing the wronging, but people had the unnerving habit of thinking he was a mad insane killer, all because he had been kicked out of both the Pirate's Guild and the K'anrtaki Mafia.

So the money dried up as the jobs became harder to come by. The ship had been pawned off in a desperate bid to keep afloat, and those few people who did offer employment were more than a little annoyed when they found that the 'mad insane killer' they needed wasn't actually a mad insane killer but a victim of circumstance and a very, very scrupulous fellow.

Therefore it had come as some surprise when he had received word from a certain... well, friend would have been pushing it. Acquaintance would fit the bill a little better, but meant that there was no real emotion between the two. Perhaps the phrase 'emotionally attached associate' would hold more sway. Whatever the case Arikaan was not a man who asked for assistance without due course. Especially if he went so far as to call out the old war-dog...

Plus he paid well, which was what Grimm needed more than anything else.

'Stumpy Bob's House of Beer' was, as many people put it, the place for rubbing shoulders with the criminal element that was too upper-class to go around mugging but too low-brow to say 'please' when they ordered you to hand over the diamond necklaces. Either way, it was clean, safe and respectable but without dropping the image that it was a seedy den of inequity. Grimm shuffled in, pushed past the doorman who was ejecting an unruly customer and ambled over to the bar.
The place was filled with customers. Tables were clustered with wide-boys, the floor was packed with yet more wide-boys, the beer was flowing freely (or cheaply at least), mainly into the maws of wide-boys, and music was thumping out of bass speakers that had been stuck up on brackets on the walls, strategically placed so that no one could hear anything but the backing beat. A thick smog hung in the air from all the puffsticks and roll-ups that were being gasped on by the majority of the patrons, many of whom had more warrants than brain cells.

Surprisingly for this time of night (figuratively and literally speaking) the stools around the bar were pretty much devoid of life, the only person sitting there being the man with the crooked nose who had never left the seat in all the years Grimm had been here. This was, most likely, attributed to the fact that he was quite, quite dead. After fifty-three and a half standard years propping up the bar and subsequently dying of such a severe cardiac shock that his heart had popped like a baked potato, the man (no one had ever found out his name. It was most likely something along the lines of Clive or Dave or some such) had been taken to the local taxidermist and given pride of place in Stumpy's proprietary. No one had the nerve to complain, because Stumpy Bob had a disdain for people who complained about the decor.
This disdain usually manifested itself in ripping the arms and legs off the complainer. Then beating them to death with the soggy end. This was still pretty high-class compared to some of the other drinking-houses that could be found in Dark Side, where having your arms and legs ripped off was seen as one of the nicer things to have done to you, if you so much as looked at someone the wrong way.
Without a word Grimm ambled his way around the tables and the various shady characters clogging them, to take a seat at one of the empty stools. He managed to find one that wasn't splaying its stuffing out of various knife slashes, and so got himself into as comfortable a position as can be found on a pub stool.
There has to, he decided after various pains in his backside, be a specific law stating that all bar stools must be uncomfortable to those people who do not have buttocks the same size and shape as two badly parked starcruisers. He slapped his hand down on the counter in a desperate bid to catch the attention of the hirsute, half-pig barman who was serving a pair of snotty-nosed Triclotians, both of whom didn't appear to have learnt what a tissue was for. Whatever the case, it took more than six-foot tall blue slugs dribbling mucus from their orifices to put Grimm off his drink.
"A pint of your best," he ordered when the barman finally waddled over to him on its furry trunk-like legs.
The barman pulled a pint, then slapped the quart of yellowish liquid on the counter. It looked at Grimm expectantly.
"Put it on my tab," Grimm answered. He reached across for the glass, only to be stopped by the barman's massive hand slapping down on his own, pinning it in place.
"Fgrr nasht taar'aa.... Qruin Grimm," growled the barman, its fingers wrapped tighter around Grimm's wrist, just a hair's breadth off breaking the limb like a particularly skinny wishbone.
Grimm glanced up at the creature. "I know my tab's in the hundreds... but I'll fix it, really..." he started.
The barman grunted then took back the beer glass. "Laaar msh'stats hwar. Nestha steb'bar," it gurgled through stunted ochre teeth. Its other hand released the grip on the pirate's arm.
Grimm looked at the barman pleadingly. "Come on! Would it hurt you so much to let me have a drink?"
"Rrr'as."
"YES?!" Grimm slammed his head against the bar's counter, then upon realising it hurt, didn't bother doing it again. "You don't repay people, Bob. I helped you when those casuals tried to get protection money out of you."
"Rrr'as... Hasst bin STUMPY Ma'ar, Grimm."
"I didn't say it worked, I said I helped you!"

"Put it on my tab," cut a voice through the hazy fug.

Grimm and the barman turned and looked at the three men who were moving toward them. The pub's customers had parted before them like the speaker was some kind of alien Moses. This could probably be attributed to the two rather mean-looking heavies that flanked him.
"Lucius Grimm! My old mercenary friend!" cried Arikaan, who looked like a dwarf between the two mountains of suited, bodyguard flesh that stood either side of him. This was, of course, entirely wrong, because if Arikaan was a dwarf then Grimm was a blue and red fish. Which he wasn't.
Arikaan's demure Juraian smile hid the razor-blade snarl that Grimm knew was really there. Slowly, the newly arrived man's soft green eyes rounded on the barman, who put the beer glass down and backed away, fear suddenly written across his snout.
Arikaan smiled, in a similar sort of fashion as can be expected from a shark to a small fish.
"I have a little deal going with the current owners," he said as some form of explanation, as he sat down at the empty stool next to Grimm's. The two heavies moved over to a nearby table and took a seat, the original occupants suddenly realising that they had more important things to do elsewhere. Sort of five or six blocks away elsewhere.
Grimm picked up the beer and fished a hair out of it. "A deal?"
"He does as he's told and I don't have him nailed to the ceiling."
"Sounds like a good business transaction."
"Oh, it is."
Arikaan sniffed loudly and wiped his nose with a Juraian hanky that he took from his breast pocket. It was one of those strange little things about him that he was never seen in public out of his expensively imported pinstripe suits. Not Earth pinstripe suits, mind you, but the rather more cultured Panolanian pinstripe with the triple-breast and matted silk finish. "How's things, Grimm?" he asked quietly as he folded the hanky and returned it to his pocket.

"Same old, same old," came Grimm's muttered reply. Then he sighed and prodded the beer glass gingerly, "Well, maybe not as good as old times."
"I heard you were sleeping in a roach motel in the Lower South side."
Grimm prodded the beer glass a little more vigorously, "It's not exactly six star, I admit."
"At least six stars fumigate every so often, eh?" Arikaan smiled, then rapped his knuckles on the bar. The barman looked around, shuddered, then poured the shot of vodka that was ordered.
"So what's this job?" asked Grimm, managing to hide the anger he felt at this honest, but not particularly kind, snipe at his monetary situation.
"Well, Grimm," started Arikaan benignly, "You know how I look after certain items that might prove incriminating to those who have managed to obtain them?"
Grimm thought about this for a moment. "No," he said finally, "You're a fence."
"Fence has such a vulgar image attached," Arikaan stated, with another one of his barely hidden razor-blade smiles, "I am an Accumulator of Extra-Legal Goods."
"No. You're a fence."
The smile disappeared, the snarl rising to replace it. Arikaan composed himself, realigned his jaw to give the prim smile that a Juraian should have and continued, "Here's the job," he said, his face now fixed, "A certain associate wanted to sell something to me, something a little... special. However, before he managed to get it to me he went and got himself arrested in a police bust."
"And this something happens to have been taken with him?"
"Evidence of his nefarious deeds. I would get him a lawyer but I fear that my something might get kept by the authorities."
Grimm frowned, "The authorities?" He looked at Arikaan. "Local or Galaxy Police?"
"My something is being carried on a GP cruiser, along with a lot of other useless junk." He downed the vodka in a single gulp and slammed the glass back down on the counter. His face went red. He coughed loudly. "It's amazing what information a few creds will buy these days." He rapped his knuckles on the counter again and pointed at his glass. "Another please, Bob."

Grimm took a swig of his beer while the barman refilled Arikaan's glass.
This certainly would be a big job. But a Galaxy Police cruiser? He turned that one over in his mind. "How much?"
Arikaan gulped down another shot of the clear liquid and coughed loudly. "Fifty thousand," he squeaked.
"Fifty thousand creds?" Grimm's mouth fell open.
Arikaan blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears from his eyes. Although this might have seemed a little over the top for a casual viewer, it should be noted that Arrikan was downing Kinhauser Vodka. This is slightly stronger than its backwater counterparts, as it has an alcohol level and taste similar to that of paint stripper. It is a common University and college prank to top up a (n ex-) friend's orange juice with it, then laugh insanely when the drinker goes temporarily blind. "Well," said the fence waving his hand in front of his face and managing to pick out the blurry movement, "If you want to turn down fifty-thousand creds, I won't stop you."

"No, no!" cried Grimm. He grabbed at the other man, who was making to stand up, "I'm sure I can do it."
Arikaan sat back down, smiling. "Good. I was sure that an agreement could be reached."
Nodding, Grimm looked over his shoulder at the two heavies who had squeezed themselves into chairs that had been made for people half their size.
"However," he said, "I will need a few bits and bobs. A ship. One of those police-scanners, the type that can pick up GP communications and-" He stopped as he realised the other man's grin had widened even further. "Why are you smiling?"

"Oh," Arikaan said slyly, "We couldn't let you go on your lonesome now, could we?"

* * * * *

No matter how many times he'd done it, Grimm still found it the most curious feeling to be flying through an atmosphere. Wrapped in a cocoon of metal and leather seats, which was melded to an anti-gravity propulsion drive, the hover-car's occupants barreled through the twisting maze of Dark Side skyscrapers. Arikaan really knew how to travel in style, even if no one would ever be able to see his limousine with the naked eye.

The black, streamlined manta-ray shaped vehicle ploughed along the skyways, dipping and weaving amongst the endless rows of sonar guided traffic. In its back, separated from the driver and heavies by soundproof glass, Arikaan and Grimm sat in quiet contemplation.

"I don't work with other people," said Grimm. Arikaan said nothing, but handed him a goblet full of wine. The auto-gyros kept the repetitious ducking and weaving of the limousine from spilling Grimm's drink, but they did nothing for the ducking and weaving of his own stomach. "I don't work with other people, Arikaan," he said again, a little more forcefully.

"You've worked with people before," smiled the fence. He was lounging on the seat opposite Grimm's, his own glass now half-empty.
"Yes. But people have a habit of trying to sell me down the river."
Arikaan's smile widened, "These people won't. They're superb at their chosen professions... They're the best."
"Tanjeer The Hood?"
"No. He got put away fourteen years ago for GBH and armed robbery."
Grimm frowned. "Oh. It isn't El Diablo, the BLEEPARD brute of Banyara?"
"Dead."
"Dead?" Grimm's eyebrows raised themselves a notch.
"Juraian Border patrol ship blew him to pieces six months ago. I thought you would have heard about it."
Grimm shrugged. "I've been out of the loop a long time." He pondered for a second, "Kyle Katarn?"
"You have been out of the loop a long time! Nobody's seen Katarn since he took up teaching hokey religions to a bunch of rebels in the Suntari Sector."

"Hmmmm..." Grimm sighed thoughtfully and took a sip of the beverage in his hand. He paused. Looked down at the drink. "Good wine," he muttered, "Juraian 1134, if I'm not mistaken."
"Your lack of money belies your superb taste," Arikaan retorted.
"Your extravagance proves your pretentiousness. Who am I working with then?"
The fence put the glass down and took the hanky from his pocket, wiped at his mouth with it. "Since the disappearance of our dear good friend Ryoko all those centuries ago, there's been a distinct shortage of good labour around. Now that the GP aren't afraid that Kagato or Ryoko will attack them, they've lost some of that old fear they had."
He leant forward, "Did you know the GP's been raiding the Ace Gang's flop houses? A century ago and they would have been running away at the first sign of Ace activity. Now they're bashing down their doors and slapping cuffs on everything that moves. A police state, I tell you. It's a damned police state."
When Grimm said nothing, he continued, "My magnificent and libertarian home-world, with its oh-so-gracious King Azusa, has had a crackdown on organised crime rings. Now tell me, is that any way to treat semi-legitimate businessmen?"

Grimm shook his head. "What part of 'who am I working with' don't you understand?"
"What? Oh, sorry." The fence picked his wine glass back up again, "How does the Universe's greatest scientific genius and the 'Tanma Thief' sound?"
"Like a bad stand-up comedy routine," replied Grimm. He turned back to the window and the pinpricks of light in the darkness. In the glass's reflection he saw Arikaan waggle his eyebrows in amusement. "In that case, you'll like 'em. I'll go over the contract when you're acquainted."

Grimm felt the vehicle lurch again as it spun off down another aisle of super-skyscrapers and dodged the traffic that lay between them.

* * * * *

The limousine pulled into one of Dark Side's rather more shady spaceports, gliding into one of the massive hangar situated along the gigantic building's walls. Now with the lights from the hangar's interior as illumination, Grimm looked out the vehicle's window. Below him the boxy form of a ship, the KOCORREL, passed. He knew it was the KOCORREL because it had KOCORREL written in giant white letters across its turquoise bow. A handful of spaceport technicians were clambering over its form. Tiny doll shapes welding and refueling in fits and starts.
"How big is that thing?" asked Grimm, as they continued traveling its length.
"Not as big as a Tree Ship," came the reply. He heard a clink from behind him as Arikaan poured himself another glass of wine. "A little bigger than a GP patrol-cutter."
Grimm nodded, though he wasn't suitably impressed, he decided it was probably better to show some politeness. "Grand." He turned back to the wine quaffing fence. "But I was expecting something a little larger..."
Arikaan grinned. "I'm sure all your girlfriends say that. Now, about your crew..."

The limousine began its slow descent.

The red-haired scientist reading a bioelectronics manual looked up at Grimm and Arikaan as they stepped on board the KOCORREL. Inside that head, the galaxy's greatest mind; which at that moment had been working on at least sixteen different physical and biological theories, had been collecting near photographic memories of the entire area and was writing a feature length novel, slowly turned itself towards the two men and began its sharp and analytical break-down of who they were, what they were doing here and how best to acknowledge them.
"Salutations," greeted the mouth.

Grimm looked at the scientist then looked at Arikaan. "Who's that?" he asked, in a voice that didn't really sound like it was interested, but felt that it would be more polite if it pretended to. It was the sound of voice employed by secretaries in large expensive companies.
The scientist closed the book and sat up in the chair, his Galaxy Academy uniform, which was smudged and frayed, folding into intricate geometric forms. "Who am I?" he asked indignantly, "I, dear sir, am the greatest scientist to grace this universe's sullied pivot."
This would probably have been more intimidating, or at least awe-inspiring, if it weren't for the fact that the scientist was a fifteen or sixteen year old boy, freckles, acne and all. Rangy would probably have most courteously described the look of him. Weedy would have been less courteous, but rather more descriptive.
Grimm blinked and, upon opening his eyes to find that the strange-talking little boy was still there, decided to have a look around.

The KOCORREL was build along the same lines as every other ship that happened to have been built during the last four hundred years. So when it had been built eight-hundred years ago, it had probably been cutting edge. Now it looked like it should have been cutting pension coupons. The room that Grimm stood in was what was generally called 'the hold'. It was a rather large thing, easily big enough to have held a good couple of hundred tons worth of gold bullion or, if Grimm wasn't so inclined to measure everything as to how much gold it could store, its measurements were about 85 x 75 ft. The feeling of antiquity was not helped by the rather tacky 'retro-chic' aesthetics, all chrome and plastic, which made it appear even more decrepit and pathetic than it should appear to be.
"This thing's older than me," said Grimm. He looked at two workmen who wandered up the access ramp and set about prying up the floor's grille tiles.

Arikaan ignored him and waved his hand at the red-headed scientist, who didn't appear to be too impressed about Grimm's lack of interest. "This," said Arikaan, "Is Krasla'ishiputiyhunrhonvachiopelopolis'polydodecahedronitis'la. One of the greatest scientists to grease this universally... unsullied... pivotal..." He coughed. "Anyway, he's an ex-alumni of the Galaxy Academy."

"You can call me Kras," said the boy, and held out his hand. However, Grimm was paying more attention to the two workman who, having finished ripping up a few of the floor's mesh panels, had started rummaging through the mass of wires and ducts that twisted beneath it with more aplomb than skill.

"And your epithet might be?" asked Kras, hand still outstretched. His face began to grow red as Grimm continued surveying the workmen, who were now attempting to remove a delicate container holding a high-pressured cocktail of lethal and explosive gases using the tried and true method of 'hit it with the hammer until it falls off'.
"Arikaan. If they continue to do that, they will blow the entire ship to pieces," Grimm stated as politely as the situation would allow.
"Are you mentally retarded or cloth-eared?" asked Kras, through gritted teeth, his hand still outstretched.
Grimm, suddenly realising he was being spoken to, looked around. "Sorry? Were you saying something?"

The red-haired scientist dropped his hand back down to his side, his face now as red as his hair, then turned to Arikaan. The fence shrugged in embarrassment, looked at Grimm, "Mr. Kras was just asking for your name." He raised his eyebrows. Go on, answer him...
 "Oh. Right," replied Grimm. He returned to watching the apparently not-very-technical technicians.

Those two workers, in turn, looked up at the three other men. "Excuse me," asked one of the jump-suited, hard-hat wearing engineers, "You wouldn't happen to know which wire the warp cortex connects the helm, would you?"
"Oh, BLEEP-OFF the pair of you!" snapped Arikaan. As the two workman stormed off, muttering about the lack of respect paid to them these days, Arikaan tapped Grimm on the shoulder. "Are you ready to be useful yet?"
The pirate nodded, turned around and held out his hand. "The name's Grimm."

But the scientist didn't reiterate his handshake. "Grimm?" he gasped, his glowing face lowering to a simmer, "As in... Lucius Grimm?"
"Yes," came the reply.
"As in, Lucius Grimm, the most famed pirate since Kagato, Ryoko and Hellter Von Mecklenburg?"
"Apparently so."
"The same Lucius Grimm as the one who plundered ships from the very depths of Juraian territory, to the widest expanses of the Galactic Rim?"
"That is an exaggeratio-"
"Lucius Grimm, the gentleman's pirate? The man who who robbed entire cruisers but wouldn't steal from women, cripples or the poor?"
"Well, I suppose that could be admitted."
"The same man who stole the fabled solid platinum statue, 'The Lost Father' from under the very noses of a detachment of Riclotian Storm Guard who had been ordered to protect it, and upon doing so wrote a letter to the Riclotian Emirate saying that your ability to do so was through no fault of any of the soldiers defending it and that none should be punished?"
"Ye-e-e-e-s."
"But you're a mad insane killer!"

Grimm's eyes darkened. "I am no more a mad insane killer," he growled, "Than you're a member of the Galaxy Academy!"
"HOW DARE YOU!" cried the boy, his face now suddenly leaping to bake, "I wear my uniform with the pride-fuelled knowledge that I consummated that most prestigious of scholastic itineraries!" He threw his arms wide, "I finished with a Galaxy Academy Doctorate!"
Grimm waved his arms about in a spastic travesty of Kras'. "I finished with a Galaxy Arse-cadamy Doctorate," he slobbered, "Look at me, I use long words!" He lowered his arms and rolled his eyes, "Come back when your voice breaks, okay?"

"GENTLEMEN!" bellowed Arikaan. He glowered at the two men, who had suddenly gone quite pale.(2)
"Would you please remember why it is that you're here. Grimm? Kras?" The two criminals looked at each other, and then at their shoes. "There are a large number of people who would take on this job," continued Arikaan, "And they wouldn't be bickering like a couple of schoolchildren." He caught sight of Grimm about to say something, and flashed him a look. "Go on," it said, "Make some witty pun now. See where it gets you..."

"Mumble mumble mumble... sorry... mumble..." grumbled Grimm.
"Grumble grumble grumble... I am suitably chastised and contrite... grumble..." mumbled Kras. He looked up, freckles burning white on his now reddened face, "So, when are you going to tell us about this 'job' of yours?"

Arikaan plucked a silver pocket watch from his breast. It glinted expensively on its chain. "It should be around about now," he said, checking the timepiece, "But the final piece in this little escapade isn't here yet." With another glance at the watch, he snapped the cover back down and returned it to the pocket.
"I don't see why we need another operative," stated Kras eloquently. He moved back over to his seat and picked the bioelectronics manual up. "With my brains and Mr. Grimm's brawn, we'll make an excellent team."
"Well," replied Grimm turning to Arikaan, "With my brains and my brawn, I'll make an excellent team."
Behind his back, Kras gave him a hand signal that was only partially related to the sign of 'V - For Victory'.

By Tsunami! Whoever said there was no honour among thieves certainly wasn't lying! Arikaan groaned inwardly, opened his mouth to give them a tongue-lashing (and why they couldn't behave themselves, he had no idea) and then shut it just as suddenly. From outside the craft there was a massive crash and shouting, the sounds of people running and the clattering of equipment being dropped. There was another bang followed by the shattering of glass. All of this was added to by a whooping roar that seemed to whiz from above them, to behind them and finally to just outside. The three men looked at each other with surprise and then careened out and down the ramp.

The hangar was in a shambles. Its length and width, which was mostly taken up by the KOCORREL but also included all the usual trappings of efficient ship-maintenance, was strewn with equipment. Crates and packing cases littered the floor, fuel hoses were left snaking where they had been dropped, energy tanks and barrels were rolling along from the exhaust plumes being given off by the rather sleek looking one-man ship that was hovering a few yards above what was now an empty space, but had been a stack of spare parts. The draught from the craft's engines was so strong that the hangar's occupants were forced to grab something to keep themselves upright. Grimm, who had his arm wrapped around one of the metal poles that attached the ramp to the KOCORRAL, watched as an unfortunate technician skittered along the floor and smacked into the hangar wall.
Apparently having found a place to land, the hovering craft's engines began to slow down. The roar became a dull cough, which ground into a shuddering moan and, finally, the craft lowered itself. It looked rather like a large eyeball; the cockpit being a large bulbous sphere and the tail tapering off into a pointed 'nerve-stem' like shape. Stunted wings grew from its sides, not even remotely necessary for handling or flight but for purely aesthetic reasons. As its landing gear touched the floor, the black reflective windscreen opened with a hydraulic whoosh. The pilot stepped out.
From around the room, a handful of technicians, their clothes and hair in disarray, wielding spanners and bits of lead piping, clambered from where they'd fallen. Their faces displayed a certain wanton anger that went well with their uniforms.

The pilot slammed the cockpit shut and looked at the approaching men, all of whom hefted their weaponry in a way that would have made any sane man leap back into the craft and get the Hells out of Dodge.
But the pilot didn't. He watched them come closer, until finally they had set up a semi-circle around him. Then, just as the leading technician stepped forward, he gave a heavy nod. "For your troubles," he said to the foremost man, and took a credit from his trouser pocket. He stepped forward and slid it into the technician's jumpsuit pocket, patted it into place. The technicians, who had been expecting a good old-fashioned fight, stopped and looked at him. The one who had been given the money took the note out of his pocket and looked at it in surprise.
Stretching, the pilot tilted his head, and set off for the three men by the KOCORREL's ramp. Then he stopped and span around, tossed something to one of the other techs. "Park it somewhere nice, okay?" he said sharply.
The technician who had caught the thrown object opened his hand fearfully. His brow knotted as the craft's key glinted from his palm.

The pilot continued his masculine swagger.

He stood a few yards away from the hold's access ramp, hands on hips, legs akimbo in staunch bravado. His leather bomber jacket puffed up heroically complimented the scarf wrapped around his neck, which trailed behind from where the KOCORREL's air-circulating vents blew. His trousers, which were particularly fashionable and made out of a substance not totally unlike tinfoil(4), reflected the hangar's lights and dazzled the eyes. He looked every inch the overblown, smug BLEEPARD Grimm thought he was.
"Ah!" clapped Arikaan, "The Third Man!"
Kras frowned, "I'm sure that was a film."

"If it was," said the pilot suddenly. He whipped off his sunglasses and ran the same hand through his hair. "I'd have to be the star. Because I'm naturally photogenic." He flashed a white toothed smile, unnaturally gleaming in skin that had obviously spent a few too many hours under a UV light. "Arikaan!" he beamed, "I hear you've got a job going down. For me!" He laughed a deep staccato beat.
Kras and Grimm stood there, frozen to the spot. Wide-eyed, they looked at each other. "Who is this fool?" asked Kras' glance voicelessly.
"Ditto. And what idiot wears sunglasses at night?" replied Grimm's.
Kras shrugged, which surprised Grimm no end. He looked up at the pilot again and felt the sudden gripping twist in his bowels that either meant he needed to go to the toilet really badly, or he was getting angry. It was, quite understandably, the latter, because if there was one thing Grimm couldn't stand; it was fish.
But the second thing he couldn't stand, was people dressed in leggings made from very thin sheets of metal.
And the third was idiots.

Two out of three wasn't bad. And if he squinted hard enough, the pilot did look like a rainbow-trout, drawn and painted by Pablo Picasso's spastic half-brother.

"I didn't know there was a Gay Pride parade taking place today," said Grimm looking the man up and down in a way that practically dripped disdain. Next to him Kras sniggered.
The pilot, who had been smugly eyeing up the ship, returned the gaze. His eyes narrowed. "Arikaan," he said, looking at the fence, "Did you know your pet monkey's learnt to talk?"

"OH, FOR TSUNAMI'S SAKE!" Arikaan cried. He brought his hands up to his face and peered through the cracks between his fingers. "Can't you all just get along?"
There was a long heavy silence. He lowered his hands and composed himself for the second time that day, the three criminals looking at him in shocked expectance, their nerves frayed like a cheese grater had been across their souls.
"Thank the goddess." He breathed deeply and, after filling his lungs with air, gave a ready smile. "Now perhaps we'd better get acquainted. This gentleman," he pointed at the man, "Is Orifati. The so-called 'Tanma Thief'."
"It's a pleasure to meet y'all," grunted Orifati, trying to get his muscles working again, "If you're on this job, I'm sure you're good. Because otherwise I wouldn't be on it."

"Great," muttered Grimm, "I've got a wannabe-movie star with an ego problem and a child who thinks he's a BLEEPING dictionary..."

* * * * *

When the Corellian Engineering Corporation designed the YT-1200 Midweight Freighter(5), someone had obviously been told to design a bridge for it, and had taken that in its most literal sense. The KOCORREL's bridge was as its name suggested. A very large, very long bridge that spanned the engine room. On closer examination, it transpired that there were only three (major) rooms in the entire vessel; the hold, the aforementioned engine room and a room that had been rather handily designated 'The Control Room' with a hand-written note sticky-taped to the door. This was because, as Arikaan pointed out, the CEC had taken so long designing the bridge that they didn't have the time or the money to actually put in a helm, control electronics, a life-support system or any of the other things that make the craft actually drivable or survivable in the cold hard vacuum that is space.
Unsurprisingly, the YT-1200 wasn't too well received; perhaps because it was butt-ugly, hideously old fashioned, had a deck layout that could've been drawn by a three-year old terran with a crayon, had no actual means of control and contained no less than three major flaws in its structural integrity. Fortunately, judicious use of welded iron plates, and a complete overhaul of the helm (i.e. putting one in) had erased that last pair of niggling problems from the KOCORREL, but, still, it wasn't much of a selling point.

In a desperate bid, CEC sold the YT-1200s at a terrific loss, the idea being that if they sold them cheap enough people wouldn't complain if the entire thing suffered from explosive decompression while they were in it. After flogging two-thirds of the manufactured stock and melting down the rest, the CEC went back to the drawing board and designed the YT-1300 and the now famed Corvette, known among certain circles as the 'Blockade Runner'.

This, of course, meant nothing to Kras, Grimm and Orifati who stood on their vessel's bridge with their new employer, listening to the great noises from the monolithic engines beneath them. The machinery was banging and wheezing and sounded somewhat like an asthmatic dinosaur in mating season. In silent thought the four men rested against the waist-high barriers that separated the bridge from a very long, very painful looking drop into the gears and pistons and metal appendages below.

"Gentlemen," said Arikaan finally, "I expect you want to know why I've called you out here."
The three 'gentlemen' exchanged glances, but said nothing.

"Time is running short and that's why I brought you all together to hear this." He licked his lips and wondered how best to continue. "In the past I've used your various aptitudes individually. But today I need all of skills pooled together.
"A Galaxy Police cruiser, the GREEN EMERALD, is carrying something I want. If you get it, and bring it back to me, you will each be paid a lump-sum of 50,000 creds. In cash."

Kras' and Orifati's eyes widened. "Fifty thousand?" gasped the scientist.

"Fifty thousand credits in cash," repeated Arikaan slowly. "I need that object. Need it. But, needless to say, it's going to be a pain in the BLEEP getting it."
"I'd take a pain in the BLEEP for fifty thousand," muttered Orifati.
Grimm's face split into a smarmy grin. "I wouldn't be surprised if you take pains in the BLEEP for fun."

"Fifty-thousand, gentlemen," snapped Arikaan before any more words of wisdom could be exchanged, "The cruiser will rendezvous with GP Deep Space Precinct 9 in..." He fished out his pocket watch and checked it, "Less than 36 hours."
"Why us?" asked Grimm suddenly. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "Why not some of your hired guns? I'm sure you wouldn't even have to ask them to do it."
Orifati nodded, "The guy's got a point. I mean, I'm flattered, but I haven't done a job since I got out of Sing-Song Penitentiary."

There was a brief moment as Arikaan's Juraian smirk rose again. "Have the old men lost their nerve?"

In a galaxy in which 90% of the sovereign nations still uphold a death penalty for shoplifting, crime is seen as the most brave (or foolhardy) job to take on. That's why so many criminals in the Galactic Union don't have any compunctions about killing innocents; once you've killed one, you're usually wanted for life. The sentence which Arikaan had uttered was therefore akin to going up to a Catholic Priest and asking, "So, you've stopped molesting Choir Boys?"
It had all the subtlety of a mortar shell up the backside of a pet hamster. But it did its job...

"WHAT?!" bellowed Grimm. His eyelid twitched. "Old man?"
Orifati pulled a face behind his sunglasses that was probably meant to be coolly shocked, but made him look like a constipated moose. "I'll show you nerve, buddy! I've robbed banks that'd make your hair stand on end!"
"I'm only a couple of years older than you!" Grimm continued.
Orifati pointed at the fence in unconcealed anger, "Banks with more locks than a Juraian girl's chastity belt!"
"A year and a couple of days, in fact!"
"And lasers... with 76-D Tracking Scanners attached!"
"I'll show you old man! You've got my vote on this little heist!"
"This things gonna be easier than a goddamn bank! Easier than a goddamn two-cred BLEEP! Count me in!"

Unfortunately Kras didn't seem to rise to the bait. He stood there thoughtfully as the other two men continued fuming and rambling. "So why?" he asked.
The two criminals stopped their talk.
"Why?" asked Arikaan.
"Yes. Why?"

The fence sighed sadly, as if he'd been defeated. "Because you're the best," he said simply, "You're professionals. Look at this galaxy... it's going down the toilet. There aren't any more professionals around. They're all 'gangstas' and 'mobs'. There's no love of the work, there's no trademark genius, no... honesty anymore. I'm a businessman, not a killer. I don't want bodies dropping left, right and centre. You don't either..." He paused. "Well, Grimm might."
"No."
"Well, okay, Grimm doesn't. But the fact is that people are just interested in murdering everyone these days." He pointed at the tinfoil wearing Tanma Thief, "When you used to do it, you prided yourself on your ability not to hurt anyone... where are you now, eh? I'll tell you, you're shining shoes for nickels and trying to keep one step ahead of the debt-collectors, that's what!"
Orifati held out in his hands in despair. "You said you weren't going to tell anyone!"
"And you," continued Arikaan, this time motioning at Kras, "You were the Heert Business's heist-plotter. What happened to you?"
Kras shrugged, "Problems with the management."
"That's one way of saying they put a twenty-thousand credit price on your head!" said Arikaan. "And Grimm... well, we all know Grimm."

They all looked at Grimm. There was a very long silence; the sort that comes just after the declaration of the Three-Minute Warning.
After a while Grimm looked back at them. "What?" he asked.
"Wait one second," said Orifati. Something was beginning to stir in his mind. A memory was banging around the back of his subconscious with the energy of a sledgehammer. Rocketing off synapses and rebounding. "Grimm," he said slowly.
Ah! There it was again! The feeling that there was a word to be said here... something pertaining to the situation quite deeply. It was something to do with the name Grimm. Something-

He remembered.
"BLEEP" he said, "You're Lucius Grimm!"
Grimm looked at himself. His eyes shot wide, "My God, so I am." He looked at the other man quizzically. "So?"
"THE Lucius Grimm?"
"Oh Goddess," muttered Grimm, seeing where this was going.
"Grimm, the most renowned privateer of the Juraian Empire?"
"Pirate. Not privateer."
"That same Lucius Grimm who eluded the greatest military mind that the Uresians could put out after him?"
"The second greatest actually."
"The self-same hero who disappeared off the face of the galaxy and hasn't been seen for fourteen years?!"
"It started as a sabbatical but it just kept on going."
"But you're a mad insane killer!"

"One mistake," Grimm muttered. He shook his head, "One mistake and they persecute you for LIFE! How come nobody complains about Ryoko!"
Arikaan made a sympathetic gesture, "You have to admit... she is cuter." He smiled benignly, his mind lost in a swamp of pornographic images.
"Sexual equality is dead," snapped Grimm. His face darkened. "She killed more people than me. And they were deliberate!"
"See! That's what I'm talking about!" said Arikaan, his mind's eye apparently run through the best fantasies, "She became a role model for criminals. She made it okay to go around killing people. Professionalism is no longer a factor in today's world... now it's like a Juraian Army conscript."
Orifati frowned behind his sunglasses, "What? Young?"
"No! Expendable!" said Arikaan. He turned around and dropped his gaze down at the machines below, his hands gripped the bridge's railing. "When I was a spiv,(6) the violence was within certain, well defined, circles. You didn't hurt anyone who didn't need to be. And that's why you, no, we, have lost face. Nobody cares anymore... Nobody."
He sighed quietly, a noise drowned out by the engines' great thudding.

"You pull this one off and you'll be able to get back into the swing of things. Household names. Heroes." He paused, "Well, of a sort."
Then, as if realising he was reminiscing like a senior citizen, rather than recruiting like a scary criminal, his voice rose to its normal level; "I feel the well deserved respect will, naturally, be more than in excess of the nuisance needed to get it back. The item, gentlemen, is all that I want. Keep the kudos and the money, just bring me that damn item!"
He turned back to them, the tight-lipped smile looking as dark as ever. He would have looked every inch the all-powerful mafia boss, with his pinstriped suit and strangely psychopathic grin. The effect was somewhat spoilt by the thick, black, foul-smelling axel grease smeared across his fingers and palms from where he had gripped the railing.
"So, yay or nay?" he asked, apparently oblivious of his rather uncharacteristic image.

"That," said Orifati, "Depends on which one of those is 'yes'."
"Yay is yes," muttered Kras.
"Yay, then."
Grimm hiked his shoulders, "I've got nothing better to do with my weekend."
"And what about you?" asked Arikaan of the scientist.
Kras gave a sharp laugh, a sound like a car backfiring. "You think I'm going to go with them on this little escapade? You think I've got so little going on with my life that I'd happily leap on your little bandwagon and go gallivanting across the galaxy on a quest to find something that I have no idea about? I'm a scientist. THE greatest scientist, if you will. But you think I'm just some misanthrope who feels the need to plunder objects, eh? Is that the sort of man you think I am, eh?" A withering glance proceeded it. "Well, you're right. How do I join?"

* * * * *

It was lucky the Control Room was labelled as such, because otherwise people might have mistaken it for a bomb-site cum failed electricians workshop. Large holes exposing wires and piping were dotted around the walls and ceiling. During the ship's retrofitting one entire wall had windows cut into it and forcefields put in so as to give what was, apparently, an unhindered view of space. Unfortunately, the wall that had been cut into was not facing spaceward, but rather was the bulkhead that separated the Control Room from the corridor that led to what was laughably called 'Engineering'.(7)
In going someway toward visibility, a 3D computation system had been built in to allow a pilot to look outside any part of the ship's hull at any time. There were three screens in front of the pilot's chair. The middle one had a pair of furry dice hanging from it.

Grimm looked at the room with the casual air of someone who wished he didn't have to. "Great," he said slowly, "Just great. This is something you'd have to pay the scrap-merchant to take away."
"I hardly think it's that bad," said Arikaan with conscious effort, as it was fairly obvious that he was thinking the same thing.
"It has gears," Grimm said. He walked over to the control chair and the panel. "With a clutch."
Arikaan shrugged. "Power steering, though."
Grimm wheeled toward him, "It's meant to be a ship, not a tank! And what are these?" He span back around and held the furry dice in his hand.
"I think they're dice," hazarded Orifati. He walked over and looked at them a little more closely.
"Of course they're BLEEPING dice!" snapped Grimm. He gave a hearty tug on the fuzzy cube. Its cord snapped; the dice's partner flopping down to dangle from his palm. They hung there dejectedly, swinging gently like a pendulum until he tossed them over to Kras, who caught them.
"So we're settled then," stated Arikaan. He rubbed his chin and smiled, leaving a thick black mark across his face. "Need anything?"
Kras looked at the bushy object in his hand. "A new pair of dice, probably."

* * * * *

Roughly thirty miles above Belatius VI 'Sufis Priçáté' Spaceport and the KOCORREL, the compound's control tower stood like some monolithic testament to Freudian psychology. Its huge, bulbous head, throbbing with life, stood out even above the super-skyscrapers that were packed around its base.
Inside, hundreds of thousands of air-space-traffic-controllers buzzed around computers and radar screens, in a desperate bid to keep the five or six million craft that left or arrived every day, airborne. Today was not one of those days.

On a planet that had a population of three and a half billion officially, and probably double that in reality, a few hundred-thousand deaths a day was an average that could be lived with. Accidents on the massive, ground-based speedways would often result in ten or twenty thousand dead without making a two second reference on the news. Ship crashes could often get away with half-a-million to a three-quarters of a million in an average week without severe repercussions.(8)

The current air-traffic controller, whose name was unpronounceable in human terms and sounded like a Welshman trying to clean his throat, reclined in his chair. Hundreds of people scurried along the gantries strung out like party streamers high above him. Civilian clothed controllers clattered away on computer keyboards, in front of the banks of equipment that tried to keep everything up in the air. Aid-bots, small wheeled robots, scurried between the terminals, clutching print-outs and next-of-kin lists in the trays on their backs. Every so often a voice would rise above the hubbub of a thousand talking beings.
"Someone get me a status report on how many were on that Pan-Galactic Cruiser, please. Could someone get a report on that cruiser, please? Hello? Is anyone listening to me? Thank you. Now, can someone get me a coffee?"

So the unpronounceable air-traffic controller lounged in his seat and watched the screen in front of him, his face illuminated by its luminescent glow. The tiny electronic dots moving on its plasti-glass weaved about drunkenly. Every so often one would touch a second and both would vanish in a brief flicker. Above the monitor one of the communication buttons switched red. He pressed the button.
"Yello?"
There was a pause from the other end. "Uh," said a voice, "Aren't you meant to say something like 'This is Tower One'?"
"This is Tower One. Yello?"
"This is KOCORREL asking for permission to leave the planet, over."
"Yeah. Whatever."
There was another, longer pause. "Is that a yes?"
"Yep. Go and take off. I think Runway Three's clear." The controller looked at the readout next to his keyboard. "If they've scraped the wreckage off it anyway. Just mind the potholes."
"Uh. Right. Thanks."
"You're welcome," said the controller. He flicked the switch and turned off the broadcast and rolled his eyes. "Idiots."

Far below, the not particularly impressive form of the KOCORREL lifted itself from its hangar's floor. It wallowed for a few moments, and then there was a grinding crunch from its innards as someone wrestled with the sixth gear (which had a terrible sticking problem and one of the teeth on the cog was missing). Then, still wobbling gently, it floated gently out of the hangar door and into the darkness outside, like some very large and imperious blue brick.

In the hangar's office, nestled high in one of its corners, Arikaan watched the craft's aft hove out of view. After continuously dabbing at his brow and cheeks with his handkerchief, he now looked like he was preparing to audition for the Minstrel Show, although he didn't know it and nobody really had the heart to tell him.
His two bodyguards stood some way off, peering out at the world from tiny pig-like eyes, which shone beneath thick boned brows.
"Do you fink you can trust 'em boss?" asked one of them, who had been professional heavy-weight boxing champion of Manchura for seven years running.
"Very much so," Arikaan replied, "Salt of the earth those men."

"Salt of the earth."

TO BE CONTINUED...

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(1) And this was just the Sun Side Police Force's way of solving things.

(2) The shout of a Juraian can be one of the most distressing noises to be heard this side of the mating call of the Humpar Grass-Rooter.(3) This is because Juraian vocal cords resonate at a sub-sonic frequency when engaging in activities above the normal decibel level. This below-aural noise causes certain non-important brain functions in human listeners to shut-down; often resulting in people stopping mid-step or just standing there while the Juraian continues talking. Females use this trick quite frequently. And you just thought Ayeka had a squeaky voice, didn't you?

(3) The Grass-Rooter of Humpar Secondus gives off a mating call that sounds very much like two sacks of faeces being sucked into the rotors of a helicopter. This is in itself not that bad, but the return call, which sounds like a combine harvester going full-pelt through an orphanage, is rather harder on the ears.

(4) In fact, it was tinfoil. This is the sort of thing that happens when the galaxy's largest manufacturer of kitchen goods buys fifteen-million shares in the galactic equivalent of "Levi's".

(5) A very subtle Star Wars in-joke... So subtle, in actuality, that it isn't even remotely funny.

(6) "Spiv" : n. Brit. colloq. : a man, often characterised by flashy dressing, living from illicit or unscrupulous dealings [20th-century coinage]
The term 'wide boy' that was seen earlier in the chapter, has replaced this rather antiquated word. And they say that fanfiction has no real educational benefit...

(7) It was a cupboard with two inflatable lifejackets, a hammer and a thick-bound manual entitled, "GUIDE TO EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS AND ENGINEERING EXPERTISE". All the pages had been torn out. Apart from the glossy ones.

(8) The largest crash ever to occur in the entire galaxy occurred on Belatius VI, when a small child (Isax Noom; age 65) dropped a single two milligram coin out of his bedroom window. The currency plummeted the five-hundred floors from his window, increasing speed to a terminal velocity of six-hundred miles an hour, before punching a two inch hole through the roof of a twenty-thousand ton juggernaut, and its driver's head. The resulting road accident destroyed over eighteen and a half million vehicles and killed thirty million people. The central part of the accident (in which eight to ten million colliding vehicles had fused into a solid lump of metal) measured a length over sixteen and a half miles. Resulting deaths from rubber-necking drivers on nearby roads crashing into their compatriots totalled an extra thirteen million. One car, managing to swerve around an obstructing wall (some five feet high) of body-parts, succeeded in driving off the edge of the speedway and dropping the eight miles to ground, interrupting the flow of hover-vehicles halfway down in the process, and racking up another six million deaths. News broadcasts on the accident ran for a full twenty second, until the next day, when it was found that Lady Hishagishishima of Jurai's pet dog, Juluis, had died in the incident.
A day of mourning was declared and a statue now stands at the site where Juluis died, depicting where such a brave and heroic animal was cut down in its prime.
Juraians have it too good, really.

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I own most of the stuff. That which I don't, I don't. Clever, eh? AIC & Pioneer own Tenchi Muyo! Star Wars is owned by Lucasarts. References to L. Ron Hubbard are obviously owned by L. Ron Hubbard and his Church of Scientology. This is parody, so none of you can sue me. Watch me laugh! Lock, Stock... is owned by Guy Ritchie (probably). Song names, lyrics etc. are copyright of their owner and is in no way an attack on that person or group. So lighten up!

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Special Thanks To:

Negative-Z (This story was meant to be a writer's block breaking exercise... NOOOO! Over-ambition! NOOOO!)
Bob-R (For keeping me amused and entertained for a very, very, very long time)
Ledzepfan (For... writing. And other stuff; like proof-reading)
Metallica_Wedo (I hope I spelt that right)
All The Other Readers Out there (For reading this)