**I've said it once, I might as well say it again. Outlaw Star belongs to a bunch of people who work for Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu Agencies, and they all could afford fancy expensive lawyers more than me. I'm not taking credit for their creations, just trying to have a little fun with 'em**



Confinement didn't suit Aisha Clan Clan as she was running out of things to do. A few minutes after the guard left, her cellmate sat down next to her on the bench, slid her arm around Aisha and started to whisper in her ear "Hey Kitty.....". Aisha expressed her disapproval through a single blow to her face and as a result, her cellmate remained facedown and unconscious on the floor well into the afternoon. Between the memories of her sparsely furnished dormitory at the academy, her quarters on board the Orta Hone-Hone, the cabin of the XGP15A2, her 1-room apartment and her present accommodations, Aisha was feeling a bit claustrophobic. A few hours after pondering the enclosed spaces in her life, she heard the guard opening the door to the cellblock accompanied by a familiar voice.

"Boy- you sure know how to make friends and influence people" Jim said curtly as he looked into Aisha's cell and saw her unconscious cellmate.

"Hi Jim" she said sheepishly.

The guard opened the door to her cell. "You're free to go." He said in a matter-of-fact tone, paying no attention to the unconscious figure sprawled out on the floor of the cell.

Aisha stepped out cautiously, as though any sudden movements on her part would cause to guard to slam the door shut and yell out "Just kidding!". She remained noticeably silent until she and Jim were on the front steps of the police station.

"Thanks for bailing me out, Jim."

"I had to- they wouldn't give me the bounty until I posted your bail....."

Aisha's eyes widened a bit- she had almost forgotten about the bounty. She was about to ask how much her take was when Jim continued.

".....we also couldn't collect on the bounty until I agreed to pay damages to the manager of the casino you trashed."

"Huh? So how much did we get?"

"One thousand seven hundred and forty-nine Wong..."

"Each?"

"Grand total...."

"WHAT?! What about the dragonite?" she asked.

"That went to pay your bail."

"rrrrrRRRRROW!" Aisha growled as she smacked the wall of the police station she was leaning up against with a balled-up fist. A spiderweb of cracks and a fist-shaped dent appeared in the concrete wall. Jim nervously took a step back as she adjusted her cloak.

"Don't kill the messenger!" Jim said. He started nervously scratching his back. She probably didn't want to hear about how he had talked the desk sergeant into letting him keep the weapons he had relieved off of De la Guerra. "If it makes you feel any better," he continued "as soon as that guy from the casino got our money, they arrested him for harboring a fugitive and confiscated the money. So it's gone full circle!"

It didn't make Aisha feel any better, but she did enjoy the irony a little.

"I've got an idea" she said and started walking away from the police station and hailed a taxi.

"Tell me again what we're doing here" Jim asked as they strode through the front gate of the Heiphong Downs Racetrack.

"Simple- we're trying to increase our earnings. Suzu told me about this place. Besides, I don't think that the casinos here will be rolling out the red carpet for me anytime soon".

"Huh? Playing the ponies? No way! I don't think that's such a good idea Aisha."

"Shush Jim. Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it isn't. There's no way of knowing unless we actually try now, is there?"

Jim was not convinced. "WE? Uh-uh" he said, shaking his head "You're not getting Wong one from me."

"Fine" she said huffily as she grabbed a racing form and started going through it. "We Ctarl Ctarls have a saying- 'Life never rewards the timid, it only tolerates them'..." Jim's attention was starting to wander until Aisha let out a loud, gleeful squeal.

"AAAAH! HAHAHA! This is PERFECT!" She giggled, shoving the form in Jim's face. Jim took a step back to read it, but Aisha wasn't keeping it still. He grabbed the form from her and started reading, trying to figure out what got her so worked up. Aisha was looking over his shoulder and tapped a slender finger on a name of one of the horses. There in the third race....

"Genius James?" Jim asked

Aisha nodded enthusiastically.

"But Aisha, the odds on him are 72 to 1."

"C'mon Jim- it's an sign!"

"Yeah, an expensive one." Jim said dismissively

"You have no sense of adventure" She said as the 2 of them got into the line so that Aisha could place her wager on Genius James.

There were a few people milling around in the stands and waiting in line to place their bets, but the majority of the gambling took place at the various state-sanctioned and illegal off track betting parlors in this day and age. Of course, there were enough people around at Heiphong Downs for Jim to be embarrassed if Aisha started acting up.

"800 Wong on Genius James in the third!"

"What?! Aisha? Are you out of your mind!?" He reached up and smacked her hand as she was about to hand the clerk almost her entire share of the bounty.

"Why? Just because I have a little faith in an underdog named James?"

"800 wong is more than a LITTLE faith."

Aisha sighed and started rubbing the bridge of her nose, trying for her best put-upon "woe-is-me" pose. She peeled the top three 100 Wong Bills from the stack of money and tucked them back into her cloak. "FIVE hundred wong on Genius James in the third...."

Jim stepped up and handed Aisha a 50 Wong bill. She wore a puzzled expression on her face as she regarded the boy. He motioned for her to return to the counter.

"Five hundred and Fifty wong on Genius James in the third."

Aisha was impatient for the 3rd race to start, and she let the rest of those in the stands at Heiphong Downs know it.

"Hurry up you stupid horses, or I swear I'll eat you!" She yelled out "I MEAN IT!!!"

Of course, Jim was almost mortified beyond words. By the time 2nd races were underway, Aisha was quietly deciding which Terran side dishes could best be served with roast thoroughbred. It sounded like she was leaning towards potatoes au gratin once the 3rd race was ready to start. Jim gently elbowed her so that they could listen to the announcer.

As the gates flew open and the starting bell rang, the thunder of hooves could be felt from way up in the stands. Genius James bolted up one of the outside lanes- off to slow start but quickly gaining ground on the leader- Impasse. Aisha and Jim were on their feet cheering as loud as they could. Impasse and Genius James broke away from the rest of the pack and crossed the finish line almost simultaneously. The Ctarl Ctarl and the boy were jumping for joy and high-fiving each other for a few seconds. Aisha's mood changed dramatically the results of the photo finish were displayed on the racetrack's jumbotron. Impasse was the winner by a nose.

"DAMMIT!" she yelled as loud as she could

Aisha seethed for a few seconds before letting out one of her primal screams and bringing both fists crashing down on the flimsy wooden railing. It disappeared in an explosion of splinters and she sat down again and hung her head. Her face was no longer visible, it was now concealed behind a veil of dangling white hair. Jim realized that this was not the time or place to say "I told you so".

"Are....are you OK?" he asked

She looked up at him- she was now eerily chipper and smiling. "I'm fine. I guess you can't win them all". She stretched and leaned back in her seat, putting her hand on his shoulder. "I shoulda known there's only ONE Genius James"

"Well, it was pretty close. It had me going for a second there"

"Yeah, me too...What do you say we go and get something to eat before we lose any more money here?"

"You're not going to go and eat that horse, are you?"

"Of course not.......today"

Ancient Ctarl Ctarl text spoke of a modest baker's home in the city of Nabay Tuva-Tuva. As a war broke out, the city was laid siege. The baker's only son was conscripted in the army and was killed in battle, his wife fell ill and passed away during the siege and shortly after her death the baker was falsely accused of treason and imprisoned. The baker spent his remaining days in prison, yet his home remained standing and unoccupied. After the death of the modest and righteous baker, Nabay Tuva-Tuva was plagued by famine, floods, earthquakes and more sieges until all that remained of the once-great city was his home, with its 4 walls and roof intact.

That was one of the first things Aisha remembered studying at the academy. In the back of her mind, she always questioned whether or not the baker's home was still standing or if it even existed in the first place. It annoyed her instructors to no end when she repeatedly suggested the class took a field trip to the site of Nabay Tuva-Tuva. Perhaps it might have been a metaphor for both the internal and external struggles of the Ctarl Ctarl Empire, and nothing more. She gazed thoughtfully at her young friend and realized that Jim wasn't all that different from the baker's home mentioned in the ancient text. Both had been through a lot of turmoil, both from outside and within, yet both came out of it relatively unscathed. Of course, the house had a few centuries' head-start on Jim. The boy was something of a mystery to her. She grown up fairly happily with her family. Intuition told her that Gene had grown up with a loving family member, as Suzu probably did- although she imagined that was cut short for both of them. But she still couldn't figure out Jim. As far as she knew, Gene Starwind might be the closest thing to family that Jim ever had. She had so many questions for him, but at the same time knew it might be counterproductive to ask him about his past.

"What is it Aisha?" Jim asked. The boy was staring back at her.

"Oh...uhhh...nothing." she figured he didn't want to hear about some boring passage from ancient Ctarl Ctarl text that schoolchildren on her homeworld would be studying from now until the end of time and it probably wasn't the best time to start asking intrusive questions for the sake of conversation.

How could a boy who was spending his formative years around the likes of Gene Starwind manage to be so industrious and good-natured? Not that she was the shining example of diligence and hard work. She let out a small chuckle- Gene had been providing Jim with valuable lessons on what he ~shouldn't~ be doing, and Jim was a very quick learner!

After coming from the racetrack, they were leisurely walking through Zhukov Park in Central Heiphong. There were some food stalls at the western entrance to the park and Aisha was especially hungry since she had skipped breakfast and burned up plenty of calories in pursuit of her bounty earlier. The 2 of them agreed on ice-cream, although Aisha felt it was necessary to check around the stand for mind-controlling cactuses.

Jim continued staring at Aisha. The Ctarl Ctarl had entered a life-or-death fight with no weapons of her own against a dangerous man armed with a machine pistol and grenade launcher, and came out with only a few scratches and bruises. Yet he was now witnessing the most enviable of her traits- this was her 6th ice-cream cone in 5 minutes and absolutely no sign of the dreaded "brain-freeze". She had 7 altogether, as well as a bottle of soy sauce to wash it all down. Jim was a little bit grateful that she was wearing her cloak. After what happened in the alley, he was afraid that he'd be unable to remove his eyes from her cleavage, but the grey cloak solved that problem for him. Still, he was a little worried. Did this mean that he was destined to be a lech just like Gene?

After "lunch", the 2 of them sat down on a sunny knoll overlooking the vast expanse of park. Aisha removed her tattered cloak and used it as a blanket. In an open area off in the distance, about a dozen or so kids Jim's age were playing soccer. After briefly watching the game from a distance, Aisha was lying on her back looking at the white clouds lazily drifting by- she spotted one that looked like a fish and another that sort of looked like the Orta Hone-Hone if it had came in second-best after a collision with a meteor. Jim was pensively trying to figure out what he should do with his share of the bounty- utilities, rent, dock fees, maintenance on Gilliam- when he felt his hair being tousled.

"Clan Clan and Hawking Enterprises- how does that sound?" she asked with a broad grin.

"You're not serious, are you?"

"Well, why not?" She obviously wasn't serious, but paused for a moment. Jim thought she might have been watching the soccer game but there might have been something beyond that which grabbed her attention. "Hey Jim, how much of your bounty do you have left?"

The boy pulled the wad of cash from his pocket and started counting "....740, 760- just under 800 Wong".

Aisha snatched the money from the boy's hands, scooped up her cloak and took off running.

"What the hell are you doing, Aisha?" Jim yelled as he got up. With his short legs, there was no way he could keep up with her, but he took off anyway. "Dammit Aisha! This isn't funny".

"C'mon Jim!" he heard her yell over her shoulder. He didn't notice the playful tone in her voice.

She ran out of the eastern gate of the park and across the street. Every now and then, she would stop and turn around to make sure that he was still behind her before resuming her running. Finally, she stopped in front of the arcade that she had spotted from the park. Not a bad place for the two of them to while away the afternoon, she thought. But Aisha felt that after all that money she lost at the track, Jim would be even more tight-fisted with his share of the money.

As a breathless and very angry Jim Hawking finally caught up with her, she held the Wong that he was counting earlier up over her head, well out of his reach. Aisha was about to point out the arcade and give the money back to him when Jim did something she didn't expect.

"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM YOU STUPID BITCH?!?" He screamed. Aisha recoiled at this. "I'M SO SICK OF YOUR SHIT- GIVE ME MY DAMN MONEY!!"

"But Jim, I wanted to show-" Aisha started to say....

"ARE YOU DEAF OR SOMETHING? WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO TAKE MY MONEY LIKE THAT?" the boy yelled. She had never seen Jim this agitated before- at least towards her- and all she could do was blink in surprise. People on the sidewalk now stopped and turned around to watch the spectacle unfold. Before she could hand him back his money, Jim gave her a swift kick in the shins and stomped off angrily. Aisha was too stunned to do anything except watch the boy walk away.

Jim was sitting on the wall outside the park. What had gotten into her? Most of the time he didn't mind Aisha's quirks and odd behavior, he even enjoyed it from time to time, but playing "keep-away" with his hard earned share of the money crossed the line. He was still fuming and looking straight down at the ground when Aisha caught up with him. There was a long awkward silence.

"I hope you didn't expect an apology" he said sullenly.

"No, I don't. I thought I'd give you this" she held out the money. Jim snatched it out of her hands and said nothing. Aisha climbed up on the wall and sat next to him. "You know, when I was your age I hardly ever had the chance to go out. My parents insisted I study very hard each night so that I could get into one of the prestigious academies that they had graduated from."

Jim was still staring at the ground.

"What do you plan on spending your part of the bounty on? Rent? Advertising? Maintainence? Utilities? Software?" she asked.

"Why the hell should you care?"

"Jim- I think you'll have the rest of your life to fret over bills and bookkeeping. Don't you think you're a little bit too young to be handling this sort of work on your own?"

He glared at her "Why do you keep treating me like a kid?"

"You are a kid. It's probably not what you want to hear, but Jim, you'll never be eleven again! You'll be a young man worrying about guns and computers and money soon enough. Don't you think you should take some time and enjoy your life? Don't you think you're entitled to do that?"

Jim had dropped his angry-kid routine and was now earnestly looking at Aisha. "But if I don't take some responsibility right here and now, who's supposed to pick up the slack? Gene? You?"

Aisha waved her hand dismissively and said "Gene's a big boy, he can take care of himself. I doubt he can find a job where he'll get paid for getting drunk and lying around reading porno mags, but I'm sure he'll be able to find work on his own." although she silently shuddered at the thought of either Gene or herself managing the books for Starwind & Hawking.

"So how come you're so immature?" Jim asked. It wasn't quite meant to be an insult, more of an observation on his part.

She mused over that one for a few seconds and replied "Just making up for lost time! I wasn't much older than you are right now when I went away to the same stuffy, dull academy that my father graduated from." She rolled her eyes for dramatic effect. "It was soooooo boring and far from home, too. Hardly anything to do there for a live wire like me!". Aisha noticed that Jim wasn't as tense and angry and decided to test this "You know, there was something I wanted to show you earlier." She started down the wall.

As soon as she slid down off of the wall, she felt a small hand ruffling her hair from above. She let out a surprised "Huh?" as she turned around and saw Jim quickly pull back his hand and stifle a laugh.

"Does this mean I'm forgiven?" she asked with a coy grin on her face.

Dammit, Jim said to himself- unable to stop smiling. That's the closest her warrior's pride would allow for an apology and he knew it. Almost reflexively, he nodded "yes". "It's about the only time I could reach your head without you noticing!" he added with a big, silly grin. Damn her, he continued musing to himself as he hopped off of the park's wall. Jim was livid until about 20 seconds after Aisha caught up to him, discreetly holding out the olive branch. After yelling at her like that and storming off, he wanted nothing more than to brood, wallow in self-pity and be angry at Aisha, himself, and at life in general, but she had tracked Jim down and took away that opportunity from him.

The Ctarl Ctarl and boy genius made their way back to the exterior of the arcade Aisha spotted from the park. Each of them was silently hoping that nobody would recognize them after their very loud confrontation earlier. Cynical thoughts were still running around in Jim's head- An arcade? Why is she patronizing me? She's just here for herself. But then again, he had never been to any arcades- either on Heiphong or Sentinel 3, because he was too busy helping out Gene, balancing the books or drumming up business. Maybe he should give it a chance. As soon as he thought that, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait a second" Aisha said, pulling a 50 Wong bill from her cloak. "I still owe you this from the track. I still have some money left. You don't have to spend any of your money here if you don't want to, it'll be on me".

"No way" Jim said, shaking his head. After a good look around, he realized that even if he wasn't as enthusiastic about the games as Aisha was, there were some beautiful specimens of cutting-edge computer technology at his disposal (for a price). He recognized one game that was based on the Space Forces latest flight simulator and spent more than a few wong trying to get the hang of that. However, both Aisha and Jim took a shine to what was a variation of the old Terran game where prizes are grabbed out of a glass-enclosed machine with a claw that's controlled from the outside. Instead of one claw, there were models of 2 grappler ships in the machine that were controlled from the outside and there would be two players using the model ships to battle each other for the prizes. Aisha and Jim spent the better part of 30 Wong each on that particular game- each time it was a stalemate until Jim was finally able to retrieve a small plush stuffed elephant.

"What are you gonna do with that?" Aisha asked him. Jim didn't seem like the stuffed animal type.

"I'm not sure. Maybe Melfina will like it..."

Reflexively, she tousled his hair- she was losing count of how many times she had done that today. "That's so sweet" she said, although she felt a small twinge of envy. Just because she was an immortal Ctarl Ctarl didn't mean that she wasn't interested in starting her own collection of plush stuffed animals. Still, Melfina had been through a lot lately and she probably could appreciate a small gift from him.

Jim was surprised at how quickly Aisha agreed to leave the arcade, none of her typical pouting was involved. They had spent the better part of 3 hours in there, but otherwise it felt like a complete afternoon. Aisha had to stop by the market- she spent the rest of her money on a sewing kit for her dress as well as new cartridge for her little Game Boy-thing and since she could afford it, a bundle of huge crab legs for dinner- each one of them nearly the size of a baseball bat. Jim was starting to lag- it had been a long day and he was up far earlier than she was. For the last few blocks, Aisha let Jim climb onto her back and ride piggyback the rest of the way.

"Aisha?" Jim asked a bit drowsily as they were about a block away from home.

"Hmm?"

"Please don't tell anyone- especially Gene- that I almost got killed today"

There was an pang of guilt when he said this. Aisha felt as though she was the one who had placed him in harm's way. If anything truly bad happened to him, if he were killed or maimed, it would've been her own fault, not Jim's she felt. She couldn't live with herself if anything like that had happened.

"Aisha?" He asked again when she didn't respond right away.

"Don't worry....My lips are sealed- as long as you don't tell anyone about my stay at the Vertical Bar motel" she said with a wry grin.

"Deal" Jim said before yawning. "Thanks for taking a bullet for me"

One bullet was something of an understatement, she mused to herself. "Don't mention it. Better me than you, kiddo."

"Hey Mel!" Aisha yelled out as the 2 of them walked through the front door of Starwind and Hawking Enterprises. She set her new purchases down on the kitchen table and patted Jim's arm which was still wrapped around her neck. "Look what followed me home from the market! Can we keep him?"

Whatever thoughts that were troubling the bioandroid earlier had evaporated as the 2 of them walked in. She smiled as she watched Jim climb down off of Aisha's back.

"Hey you two- where have you been? Did you find who you were looking for?"

"Nah" Jim said, shaking his head. He glanced back at Aisha with a knowing expression. "False alarm- we went to the market and the park instead". Aisha nodded.

"Oh, well- Gene called. He said he was going to meet with Fred later on tonight and see about getting more supplies..."

"God- he's not gonna stop hitting up Fred for money until he has to use me as collateral" Jim complained. Aisha almost immediately went to work in the kitchen, dragging out a pot big enough for the crab legs to fit in.

Jim was trying to ask Melfina if she had any idea when Gene was supposed to return as Aisha fired up the pot and started stuffing the crab legs into it one by one. Of course, Gene didn't tell Melfina when he'd be back because he had no idea how long it would take for Fred to agree to his requests. It was kind of pathetic, but Jim was hard pressed to remember a time when Gene came away from a meeting with Fred empty-handed.

While preparing her dinner, Aisha gently elbowed Jim. "Don't you have something for Melfina?" she asked as Mel stood within earshot. She handed him the bag she brought home from the market.

"That's right, I almost forgot..." he said as he managed to fish out the plush elephant he won at the arcade and handed it to the bioandroid. "This is for you Melfina."

Mel's eyes widened a bit and she smiled. She thought it was very cute- both the toy and the gesture. "Thank you Jim- this is very nice. Did you get this while you were out today?"

Jim nodded and said "Yeah- both of us lost a few wong at the arcade today."

Aisha set 3 places at the table and in what seemed like no time, she had finished boiling up the crabs, whipped up some garlic-butter and invited both Mel and Jim to the table. Although the lion's share of dinner was on Aisha's plate, the 2 of them were surprised to find that she had set aside some of the smaller legs on both of their plates. It wasn't much, but for the first time that either of them could remember, Aisha was putting food on their plates instead of taking it off. She felt Jim and Melfina's eyes on her.

"What?" she asked

"Are you sure that's all you're having?" Jim asked, pointing at her plate.

"Of course. This is a recipe I picked up from the seafood resturant I worked at. Go ahead- try it!"

Jim carefully broke open the spiny shell of the crab's leg in front of him and dipped it in the butter. Mel was trying to pry the shell open using a knife. The crab meat was sweet and of very high quality, and Aisha did a fine job on the garlic butter. The dinner that she whipped up in such a short time met with nods of approval from the boy genius and bioandroid.

She waited for some sort of body language that would contradict what they just said, such as looking away or picking at their plates, but they went right back to eating. "We Ctarl Ctarls are very adaptive." she said proudly. "This is the first time I've made Terran food for humans. Besides, I don't want to be accused of not pulling my fair share around here y'know...". Simply out of habit, she was trying to pick a verbal fight with Gene even though he wasn't present.

After dinner, Aisha sat down on the steps. She was eager to try out some of those game cartridges she had purchased on the way home. Jim joined her, hoping that the novelty of the new games would wear off and that he'd have a chance to try them. Melfina cleaned up the dining area and went off to bed with her new gift shortly after dinner.

Aisha was lost in thought. Even if she was unable to relay additional information about the Galactic Leiline back to the Empire, she knew enough about the grappler arms on the XGP15A2 to be of great interest to the Ctarl Ctarl Deep Space Fleet. The systems on the Outlaw Star certainly were state of the art- decades ahead of anything being developed by the Empire. Still, returning with information like that meant she would be coming home a laughingstock instead of a disgrace. With each passing day she found less and less incentive to return to the Empire. Of course she missed her family, but she also feared that she was nothing more than an embarrassment to them now that she had been stripped of the title that she had worked so hard to obtain.

Never go home again, she pondered. Jim was now lying on his side- almost in the fetal position- lightly snoring, his head resting on her right leg. He had fallen asleep next to her while waiting for his turn to play with her Game Boy. Far worse things could happen, she thought to herself as she gently brushed a lock of hair away from his face.

As she started drifting off to sleep, Officer Aisha Clan Clan of the Ctarl Ctarl Empire had come to accept that she could never return to her beloved place in the sun. Looking down on her young friend, Aisha couldn't help but smile. However fleeting it might have been, James Hawking had found his place in the sun.

THE END