The year is 2187. The massive warp gates had been in place for nearly a century now, providing access to even the most distant stars. Once, they had been marvels, people had paid millions of wulongs in order to travel to Saturn for a romantic evening above its icy rings. Now, however, the wonder has worn away, and they are being used as they intended: to shuttle humanity between the stars. They were nearly foolproof; there hadn't been an accident with a ship being lost in hyperspace or destroyed in decades. However, there are many rings that make up the gates, stretched across light years of space, and they cannot all be maintained properly and still make a profit...
Faye Valentine sat in the lounge of the Bebop, munching stale potato chips and watching old tri-D holofilms. She was bored. She was also, as usual, broke. She brushed a strand of dark hair away from a nearly violet eye with her finger. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. When Spike had taken out the head of the Syndicate, a massive galactic organized crime network that even the military couldn't touch, they'd all become instant millionaires. His massive medical bills, though, had consumed most of Spike's reward. Coming back from the nearly dead was expensive. She'd blown most of hers gambling, after adding a few goodies to her ship.
Why do I have to be so weak-willed? I know I should have invested that cash instead of blowing it, but it seemed like such a sure thing. At those odds, I could have tripled my fortune. Stupid horses.
She sighed, and flipped off the viewer. She really should have been rich right now, not forced to continue as a bounty hunter. Maybe she should be a rock star, or an actress. She certainly had the body for it. She was slim and lithe, though as fierce as a cornered badger when she had to be. Her favorite garments were a short yellow shirt and shorts that she left mostly undone, showing her assets to their greatest effect. Really, what kind of guy could possibly ignore this great figure?
She slipped off of the couch and wandered into the kitchen. She could hear the familiar sounds of Jet cooking. He was a massive slab of a man, aging but still mostly muscle. He was completely bald on the top of his head with a fringe around the sides and back, and his left arm was a cybernetic replacement. The original had been lost in a run-in with a rogue cop back in the days when Jet had worn the uniform of a detective.
She minced up behind him and laid a hand on his massive chest. She whispered over his shoulder and into his ear in her most sultry voice, "So what's for dinner, sexy?"
"Bell peppers and beef." His gruff tone indicated that he wasn't being taken in at all by her ploy. She screwed up her face in distaste. They'd been dining on that particular dish for what seemed like years.
"Ugh. Can't you cook something different?"
"Stop your whining. At least we actually have beef this time." He pulled out a small skillet and a ladle and banged them together loudly enough to make Faye cover her ears.
"Dinner!"
"Did Ed hear dinner?" A tall, skinny girl whipped out of nowhere, her movements seeming to defy the laws of physics as she bounced off of seemingly every surface in her rush to get to the table. Ein, a shaggy little dog with the intellect of a small child due to some genetic experimentation, raced into the kitchen with her, apparently trying to beat her to the table. Ed plunked down into her spot at the table just in time to prevent the dog from taking it.
"Sorry Ein, just dog food for you today." She gloated.
The dog whined in disappointment and went over to the corner to eat his customary dinner. He did accept a scratch from Jet, though, as the bounty hunter walked over to serve the food. Faye settled into her own chair, and held out her plate with an air of disinterest. She didn't see what Ein was complaining about. He knew that Ed and Jet would slip him little bits of their meal anyway.
Spike drifted into the room as Jet finished serving everyone. Since he was released from the hospital, he'd had to wear a set of devices that nullified the ship's gravity because his bones still weren't strong enough to support his weight. That didn't stop him from practicing his katas on the exercise deck.
Faye supposed that even if he were in a full body cast, as long as Spike could move, he would practice his katas. He said that they brought him peace, but she thought it was just an excuse to take up the exercise deck for three hours. Not that she needed to exercise, but she had noticed that her thighs were looking a little flabby recently.
"Bell peppers and beef, huh?"
"If you don't like it, you can just go without." Jet replied, in his most serene voice. "Ein would love to have it."
Spike eyed the dog, which was looking at him hopefully. Then, he floated to his customary place and started wolfing down the food like a starvation survivor. In a way, he was. They all were. There had been plenty of lean times on board the Bebop, times when so much of the reward money for the bounties they captured went to either traveling expenses or repair bills for buildings they had destroyed that the only thing they could afford to eat was bell peppers and beef, without the beef.
There had been that one time when they'd discovered that a bounty had been growing hundreds of Shitake mushrooms, but Faye didn't want to even remember that. They'd been forced to eat mushrooms for so long that she didn't think that she'd ever be able to look at one again without feeling nauseous.
She had just picked up her chopsticks to begin eating when the proximity alarm went off. They all looked up.
"What the hell? There's nothing to get close to in hyperspace except for other ships, and the gate records indicated that there wasn't anyone else on this route."
Jet had just begun to get up when the mother of all headaches hit Faye right between the eyes. It felt like someone was pounding a burning stake right through her skull. No hangover, no bump on the head, no concussion had ever hurt this much. She wanted to die. At least the agony would end. She managed to crack one eye open and realize that everyone else was apparently suffering the same thing, even Ein. Then, merciful blackness swallowed her and world disappeared, taking the pain with it.