Mars

"The harbor master said that the ship had docked in Ganymede earlier today, so it is unlikely that they would leave before we arrive." Shin told Vicious as they boarded the ship.

"Very good." Vicious replied "With any luck, he is already in custody and she will be waiting when we arrive."

Shin nodded hopefully as he prepared the ship for take off. He had been right, Vicious was furious when Shin had told him all he had learned, ending with the fact that Joseph having fled. They would be looking for all three of them when they arrived on Ganymede, Joseph, Jet, and most importantly, Obsidian.

***

Ian and Toshi walked out of their shared apartment and locked the door tight. Silently they walked out onto the street and both looked left then right. Ian looked at Toshi and sighed.

"Ok, are you going after the kid or am I?" He asked already knowing the answer.

"Ah, come on man, you know I'm going to." Toshi grinned. "You take the big guy. I'll catch up to yah later."

They nodded and Ian walked off to canvas the bars looking for Jet. Toshi took off in the direction of the pier to look for the ship and the kid. Both were confident in their individual missions.

***

Jet sat down at the barstool and signaled to the bartender. This was the fifth bar he'd been in today. Each bartender had been saying the same thing, 'don't know him, never seen him'. Jet pulled the photo from his pocket and waited for the bartender to walk down and take his order. A large meaty hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Jet? Is that you?" A familiar voice spoke from behind him.

Jet turned and looked into the face of his friend and rival bounty hunter Fatty Rivers. Jet smiled outwardly and cursed inwardly, he hoped Fatty wasn't after the same guy, but he didn't doubt it. "Hey Fatty! How's it going? You on a hunt or just visiting?"

"Well you could say I'm on a hunt." Fatty said as comprehension dawned on him. Jet didn't know, Fatty smiled. "So how yah doing?"

"Good, good. Ships running fine, and I just stopped in for a drink and to kill some time. Jet turned and ordered a beer, the first he'd have that day.

"Never known you to drink this early in the afternoon, you got something on your mind?" Fatty asked him.

"Nope, so, who are you hunting?" Jet asked fishing for information to see if Fatty was after the same guy.

"Oh, just an old friend from back in the day." Fatty smirked self-confidently.

Jet's handheld blinked with an incoming message and he excused himself from Fatty to answer. Fatty didn't go far, and aroused Jet's suspicions by not taking his eyes off his fellow cowboy. Ed's face was worried in the display and she began to talk.

"Jet-person! You need to come back!"

"What's the matter Ed? Is everything ok? Are you in trouble?"

"Ed is fine, it is Jet-person who is in trouble! Jet-person, you have a bounty on your head. They said you took Sid-girl and the police-people are looking for you!"

"Shit." Jet swore looking at Fatty with dawning comprehension. Fatty simply grinned and stepped in to make his move.

***

Spike found Jonathan Andrews and a few of his friends drinking it up and getting rowdy in a strip club called Deuces Wild. He eyed the long legged blonde on the pole before moving in to sit a couple spots down from Jonathan along the stage. Spike smiled, deciding to enjoy the show for a bit before stepping in to grab his prey. After all, he paid his cover charge to get in, why not enjoy it while he could.

It didn't take longer than an hour before Jonathan and his friends got a little to rowdy for the bouncer's liking. Spike stood up and stretched ready to get to work. He pulled out his handheld and dialed Jet while the bouncer wrestled one of the offenders out the door. The handheld rang and rang, but no one picked up. Spike's eyes narrowed dangerously, he didn't like the looks of this. A nagging feeling right between his shoulder blades told him something was wrong.

Spike turned to the bouncer as he was attempting to drag out two at once, "Hey, you want a hand?"

The bouncer nodded gratefully as Spike went to work.

***

Toshi walked along toward the pier thinking about what he was going to do. He sincerely hoped the large kidnapper had simply left the girl locked in a room and had gone out to get supplies or a drink. He wasn't really up to taking on someone much larger than himself. At only 5'5", he did not cut an impressive figure. He sighed to himself and tried to keep a positive outlook about the whole 'worst case scenario'.

Toshi walked past the almost vacant playground before it hit him. Today was a school day, what the hell was a kid doing there? He turned back and looked at her hard. She was overdressed for the weather, sitting there alone on the swings with a small dog of some sort lying in the grass a few feet away. Toshi took stock of her appearance and grinned as he walked into the play yard. The fortunes had smiled on him today, his target was right there in front of him. He absently wondered how she had escaped as he stopped to say hello.

***

Ian walked into the bar just in time to see Jet close his handheld and turn to the rather overweight man next to him. Ian was walking up to the pair, when out of the blue, the fat man sucker punched Jet in the jaw. People scrambled to get out of the way of the two brawling large men, as Ian ran up to join in. Fatty got a good hit on Jet's right side as Jet pulled him in for a headbutt. Surprisingly, Fatty was no slouch when it came to fighting, but Jet was giving as good as he got. Ian shoulder tackled Fatty down, connecting in a solid hit to the large man's stomach. Jet caught Fatty between the eyes with a right-handed punch knocking him out before getting to his feet. He put out his hand and helped Ian to his feet.

"Thanks buddy, I guess I needed the help." Jet said with a smile.

Ian dusted himself off and grinned easily. "No problem, I just don't like it when people sucker punch somebody."

Jet turned back to the bar as Ian brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Jet's neck. The last thing Jet heard before falling unconscious was Ian saying, "Though a fair fight with you, I doubt I'd win."

***

Spike was walking down the steps of the police station whistling absently to himself. He had a black eye for his trouble, but the seven million certainly made that feel better. He pulled out his handheld and dialed Jet to let him know that Jonathan had been captured and he was heading back with the bounty, but there was yet again no answer. Now worried, Spike called the Bebop itself. Ed looked frantic as she picked up.

"Spike Spike! Ed has been so worried!"

"What's going on Ed?" Spike said as he ran for the Swordfish II.

"Ed was looking for new bounties for after you and Jet-person caught this nasty cowpoke, and Ed found a bounty for Jet!"

"What?" Spike yelled as he got into the cockpit. "What the hell does Jet have a bounty for?"

Ed was almost hysterical, "They say that Jet-person kidnapped Sid-girl!"

"Ok, Ed, calm down. I'm going to look for Jet, you see what you can find out. Talk to Obsidian, see what she knows."

Ed looked like she was going to cry, "Ed can't! Sid-girl is gone! She left an hour ago with Ein, she went to go take him for a walk. Ed is sorry, Ed never should have let her go."

"Great. What else can go wrong?" Spike cringed as he realized that he was tempting fate, and she just loved to kick him in the teeth.

Ed typed rapidly away at her computer, "Bounty placed by guardian, Obsidian Sikes was kidnapped by Jet, no last name, nine days ago. Bounty placed nine days ago. What else can Ed find?" She typed away striking the keys with a precision and skill that Spike had never learned. "Oh no! Bounty cashed across town." Ed looked up. "Jet-person has been caught."

Spike fired up the Swordfish II and took off toward that station. "It's ok Ed, you did real good. Don't worry about it, I'm going to take care of it." He cut the transmission with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Jet was in big trouble, he only hoped he could help.

***

Jet woke to a familiar and unwelcome sight, the bars on the cells in his old station house on Ganymede. He groaned as he sat up, gently probing the knot on the back of his skull where that lousy no good creep had cracked him. Jet scowled, more angry with himself for falling for that old trick than at the kid for using it.

"Want to tell me what the hell is going on?" Bob was staring in on him from the other side of the bars.

"How'd I get here?" Jet asked, head throbbing.

"Some local bounty hunter punk dragged your unconscious carcass in about half an hour ago. I've been waiting for you to wake up." Bob pulled up a chair and sat down.

"This is about that bullshit kidnapping charge isn't it?" Jet asked, stalling so he could get his bearings.

"So you didn't do it." Bob sighed in relief. "Good, now all we have to do is get it straightened out that you don't have the kid and don't know who she is."

"No, I have her, and I know exactly who she is." Jet stated flatly. "I just didn't kidnap her."

"Ok Jet, what the hell is going on?" Bob was now very serious.

"Spike and I were after a car thief on Mars and we found her. Unfortunetly, she turned out to be a kid and she got away." Jet began to explain. "I found her again later that night, and the somebody had worked the poor kid over hard. She's only twelve, and when the doc came to check her out, she was really badly sick and didn't wake up the whole time."

"So what? She's been healing on your ship the whole time now? She must have been pretty bad off." Bob was trying to work out what had been happening with his friend as Jet talked.

"No, I just," Jet stopped, not knowing how much to tell Bob. "She'd been raped."

Bob sucked in his breath and didn't respond. This kind of thing happened more often than he would care to admit, and it shook him every time it did. He nodded slowly. "How was she holding up?"

Jet looked away for a moment, and when he spoke, it was more to the floor than Bob. "She didn't care anymore. It wasn't the first time, her guardian had been doing it for years."

"Jesus." Bob looked a little green. "That's just sick."

"I couldn't just turn her loose to have him grab her again, so I kept her on the ship where she'd be safe. I figured we'd slip her into foster care after a little bit. She's too wild to be placed right now. She's a real fighter."

"Jet you should have turned her over the minute she was healed up. Now look at the mess you're in. They're holding you with out bail, much to the irritation of that partner of yours."

Jet nodded. "That figures, do you guys have her?"

"No" Bob shook his head. "but there is a bounty out for her too."

"What?" Jet looked surprised. "For what?"

"Get this, she's wanted for being a runaway." Bob looked hard at Jet. "She's wanted by the Red Dragons, so you wanna tell me what's really going on?"

Jet sighed knowing he was good and truly busted. "Her guardian was only watching her for her benefactor, he is a high ranking Red Dragon. The guy isn't related though, she was snatched from her parents about 9 years ago."

Bob's eyebrows came together in thought. "From where? If I can dig something up, maybe we can get this whole mess sorted out."

"She was snatched from here. From what I could figure out, it was a single mother, divorced, widowed, or never married, I don't know, but she gave the kid up unwillingly and never filed a report. There might be something back in August of '62."

"I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, you want me to call you a lawyer?"

"No, I'll wait and see what you dig up first." Jet looked over at his longtime friend. "Thanks Bob."

"Yeah, you owe me." Bob shook his head as he walked out the door.