Although they made no attempt to conceal themselves, three men dressed in black and carrying rifles and shotguns stealthily approached the front of the cabin. It wasn't quite dark out yet, but they blended in with the expanding shadows fairly well. After cautiously checking the sides of the cabin, one of them slowly pulled open the front door. He was unable to see it, but attached to the doorknob on the other side was a string that led along the wall, out the window down the branch of a tree and wrapped itself around one of Gene's double-barreled pistols which was securely placed in the crotch of the tree. As the intruder pulled the door open further, Gene's pistol went off, striking the intruder in the knee.

"SHIT! THEY SHOT ME!" He yelled out, lying on his side and clutching his knee. His two companions raised their weapons and began firing in the general direction of the tree. One of them had stopped firing, but the other continued firing almost randomly with his automatic rifle.

"HOLD YOU FIRE GODDAMMIT!" the intruder yelled over the din of the gunfire. His compatriot with the rifle stopped firing and held his gun almost sheepishly."It's a trap! They must have been expecting us"

"Nothing gets by you guys, does it?" Gene's voice came from above them as he dropped a concussion grenade from the rooftop. He and Suzuka looked down at the trio from the roof of the cabin. They covered their ears as the grenade went off below them with an echoing BOOM. Amazingly, aside from the one who was shot in the kneecap, their unwelcome guests were still on their feet, although they still had their ears covered. Gene and Suzuka did their best to change that as they jumped down from the roof. Suzuka hit the one who was loosely clutching his rifle with the broad end of her sword, putting him out cold, while Gene sucker punched the other one. The two intruder crumpled to the ground in a heap.

***

A single shot, then more shots and yelling came from the cabin as Aisha and Jim were sprinting down the path. It sounded like a war zone. Behind them, three shots rang out in rapid succession and a bullet ricocheted off of a tree a few inches to Aisha's right. It was best to keep moving, since moving targets were harder to hit she said to herself. Jim was scooped up like a sack of rice. She had survived gunshots before, but she wasn't willing to put that to the test for him.

The flurry of gunfire coming from the cabin had stopped, but that silence was followed by a loud explosion. Aisha was wondering if their attacker was still zeroing in on them or if they were out of range by the time they reached the cabin. For a few seconds she was afraid that they went from the frying pan into the fire, but she heard Gene's voice, gloating from the other end of the cabin.

Jim was leaning against the back door catching his breath. Aisha opened the door and pushed him inside. "Stay away from the windows until I come back." she said, closing the door behind him. She swiftly clambered up the side of the cabin and onto the roof and peered down on Gene and Suzuka interrogating their semiconscious attackers.

"Pssst..." she whispered. The two of them looked up at her. "There's at least one more" Aisha

"Where?" Suzuka asked in a hushed voice

Aisha said nothing and pointed behind the cabin with her thumb. "Jim's inside. How about Mel?"

"She's inside also" Suzuka said.

Gene drew his pistol and Aisha shook her head "no". There wasn't much daylight left, and Aisha's night vision was much better than anybody elses. Besides, one of the moons was full- she was in her prime. Gene looked at the two of them and asked under his breath "Why should she have all the fun?". Aisha got a running head start and jumped from the roof to an adjacent tree limb, then began making her way above the forest floor by leaping from tree to tree. The two of them were amazed at how quietly she was able to do this.

***

The pirate ship was in a geosynchronous orbit 700 kilometers above the desolate mining planet's capital. It's shape would have looked familiar to the Outlaws were they there to see it- the ship was the Necromancer, sister ship of the Geomancer.

"I don't understand, why would they go all the way out to this god-forsaken rock?" Lan asked.

The pair of siblings, Khali and Daro said nothing and stared intently at the monitor. Like she assassin known as Twilight Suzuka, Khali was quite beautiful. However, also like Twilight Suzuka, she made it clear that she did not rely on her looks. Rather, she got as far as she did in the 108 Stars mostly out of ambition and sheer ruthlessness. Her brother Daro was a tall, imposing figure and the two of them were considered inseparable.

The missing Prof. Gwen Khan was undoubtedly a genius, but wasn't graced with much in the way of common sense. Like their Lord Hazanko, he had disappeared without a trace and was presumed dead. The trio of pirates were now the de-facto leaders of the 108 Stars. Their subordinates were able to hack into Khan's private database regarding the XGP and the bioandroid and learned of the tracking device he had planted during its construction phase. It had proved to be a treasure-trove of information about the XGP. However, they had yet to find anything in there about overriding the command protocols and deleting the crew registry from the ship's computer. That information was contained in a "black box" and only one person knew of its whereabouts- the outlaw Hilda. Still, there were ways to circumvent that.

It was also evident that somebody else had been diving into Prof. Khan's data- probably not the Space Forces or the Ban Guild. The fact that it was an unknown party possibly looking at the same files was what had prompted them to leave in such a hurry. Yet, simply finding the XGP better news than they had dared hoped for. And if they found the ship, then the bio-android Melfina wouldn't be far behind.

"Hardly anything this outlaw has done so far makes sense." Khali finally spoke up.

"Lan- Take two men and a drop ship to the surface and confirm the XGP's location." her brother ordered.

***

The two remaining assailants turned out to be easy prey for Aisha. They were moving fairly quietly, but it was a calm night and Aisha's ears picked up their movement. She paused on the sturdy limb of an aspen tree and decided to let them come to her. Sure enough, the two of them emerged from their hiding spot after a few minutes. One would keep their gun trained in the direction of the cabin as the other would move forward, taking cover behind the tree and repeating the process. One of them was now leaning against the tree directly beneath her, pointing his gun at the distant cabin. She softly hissed, although it steadily grew loud enough for the gunmen to hear.

"UP THERE! SHOOT IT!" one of them yelled. Before they could draw a bead on Aisha, she leapt from the aspen tree. The air was filled with the sound of gunfire as the Ctarl Ctarl swiftly made her way down the tree opposite the aspen she was in. She delivered a sweeping kick to the face of the attacker closest to her. He was able to block it with his submachine gun, although she kicked it so hard the firing pin was now broken. Aisha then knocked the attacker's legs out from under him with another sweeping kick. The second one was a few yards away and was now running to his friend's aid. He stopped and leveled his gun after seeing the quick work Aisha made of his friend.

"Get back or I'll......" he started to say. Aisha didn't pay him any heed as she ran forward, ripped the gun from out of his hand, twisted his wrist and sharply kneed him in the stomach.

"You.....you're not......you're not human" he gasped after getting a close look at the Ctarl Ctarl.

"I'll take that as a compliment." Aisha said.

The terrified man's eyes seemed to be fixed on something behind her. The other attacker was still concious and had tried shooting Aisha in the back, but found to his dismay that his gun wasn't working. Instead, he was now attempting to sneak up behind her and club her with the butt of his weapon. Almost blindly, Aisha's fist flew over her right shoulder and found her other assailant's throat. He dropped to his knees with both hands wrapped around his throat.

***

The 5 Hell-Raisin' O'Riley brothers didn't feel like doing much hell raising after the outlaw, assassin and Ctarl Ctarl were through with them. However, they didn't feel like doing much talking either. Except for the one who was shot in the leg, each of them were bound hand and foot. The one who was nursing the gunshot wound simply had his hands tied.

"For such an out of the way planet, this part of Anaconda sure seems to be getting crowded. Would you be so kind as to tell us what you're doing here?" Suzuka asked, opting for the polite approach and knowing full well how short-lived it would be.

"Not a chance, bitch!" the eldest O'Riley brother yelled at her.

That didn't take long, she told herself.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of somebody besides us." Gene said.

None of their 5 captives were speaking. "Let's see now..." Gene said and began counting each one of them, "1....2....3....4.....5. Hey Aisha- how hungry are you?"

"I haven't eaten for DAYS, you know that Gene. " the Ctarl Ctarl said, playing along with his bluff. She was actually doing pretty well between the provisions she brought with her as well as the wild game, berries and mushrooms she was able to gather around the cabin but the O'Rileys didn't know that.

"As you can see, we now have some guests over for dinner."

"But they're all skin and bones!" Aisha complained.

"What are you complaining about? Five of them should last you awhile."

"You're full of shit!" One of the middle O'Riley brothers yelled out.

"Am I now?" Gene asked.

Aisha got up and stood over Kevin O'Riley, the one who discovered she wasn't human after being kneed in the stomach by her. She sensed that he was the most easily intimidated, and it showed as Aisha approached. She bared her fangs and let out a soft, eager-sounding hiss as he cringed helplessly.

"What about this one, Aisha?" Gene's foot tapped the wounded knee of Eamon O'Riley, the second oldest sibling. "He's hurt pretty bad. We'd be doing him a favor by putting him down." Eamon gritted his teeth and winced in pain as Gene continued putting weight against the gunshot wound.

"The last time you did that, I nearly choked on one of your bullets. Gene! Just let me find the jugular on this one here."

"They're bluffing Kevin!" Eamon managed to yell out.

"Do you really think that? Do you have ANY idea how much a Ctarl Ctarl will eat?! Serving all of you up as the entree would save us the trouble of running you bastards in to that hick sheriff!" Gene said.

"You can't do that....BECAUSE SHERIFF'S THE ONE WHO SENT US OUT HERE! OH GOD, GET HER AWAY FROM ME! PLEEEEEASE!" Kevin pleaded as Aisha crouched above him.

Joining them in their act, Suzuka got up and held Aisha back. "Tell us more." she said.

Somewhere in the back of Gene's mind, he thought that Hilda would be proud after seeing that little display from the 3 of them. He couldn't speak for Suzuka or Aisha, but he learned all about interrogation from the best.

***

Fishing required a deal of patience and every now and then outsmarting the fish. Looking back on it, Gene wasn't probably the best choice to go out to the lake with him, Jim sighed. The two of them were in a rickety wooden rowboat in the middle of the lake. He wasn't the best company today. Whenever Gene opened his mouth, it was to complain. First it was about the fish, then it was about getting stuck on this backwater planet, then it was about Fred Luo, then it was about how the oars were giving him splinters, even though Jim had done much of the rowing. It was one of those times Jim wished he was just a few years older and a little bit bigger- one hearty shove and Gene would be in the drink and he could row off to a quieter spot along the lake.

"...and why did Aisha and Suzuka have to come along?" he asked.

"Aniki, quiet. You're scaring the fish!"

"....and that redneck sheriff. Who the hell does he think he's dealing with? I'd love to take him down a notch or two."

"Aniki......."

"Sending those stupid-ass thugs up here to try and scare us off. I wouldn't put it past him. Why did we agree to let them go in the first place? Does he think we're just a bunch of punks who'd turn tail and run? Well, he's got another think coming."

"Because if what they said about the sheriff was true, turning them in would've been a waste of time. Now.....be quiet"

"Mandatory currency exchange my ass. You know we'll never be seeing that 2000 Wong again. What a load of bullshit. Now we're stuck with that useless toilet paper they call money here."

The boy genius closed his eyes. Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up Jim tried telling him through telepathy. It wasn't working. Why aren't you shutting up? he asked himself.

"This whole trip is a bust. We're not making a single wong off of this, and when we come back, we're still going to owe Fred money."

"Yeah, but it won't be as much."

Gene actually remained quiet for a few minutes before he spoke up again.

"To hell with this." Jim thought he meant that he was going to row back to shore. Instead, Gene tossed the rest of the worms into the water and after waiting for a few seconds, removed a concussion grenade from inside his overcoat, pulled the pin and lobbed it into the water.

"Gene! You stupid...." his words were cut off by a damp, muffled explosion as the boat shook and water rained down on them from above for a few seconds. Shortly after, over a dozen fish began floating to the surface belly-up.

"All right!" Gene said triumphantly "Get the net Jim!"

The two of them began feverishly scooping out the fish from the surface. Since they were in a shallow part of the lake, they also managed to dredge up a lot of weeds. That was stupid, Jim thought, but at least they don't have to worry about going hungry for awhile. Jim felt the net hit the surface each time he would scoop out more fish. As he emptied out the contents of the net, her heard something hard clatter on the floor of the boat. It wasn't a fish, and it wasn't weed. He looked down and saw a purplish gleam coming from the floor. Reaching down, he picked up a small purple gem slightly larger than an ordinary pebble. It was.....

"Take a look at this, Aniki...." he said, holding up the rock.

A big grin came across Gene's face. "Jackpot, partner!"

They had struck Dragonite.