Disclaimer: I own nothing, no Ranma ½ characters, nothing. Except Xero and his crew, but I'm not proud of them.

Part III
The Second Herd . . .

Xero sits on the deck whispering to himself, "Commander Xero Brainz, star ship L.I.L. Annoyance . . . Star Date . . . I honestly cannot remember . . . the star dates are so long and complicated . . . why must it be?"
Sum sighs and looks up at commander in frustration, "Sir . . ."
"So, what's on the agenda today?" Xero beams at what's left of his crew.
"I'm considering mutiny . . ." Sum says casually.
"Great. How 'bout you, Mane Ack?"
The musclebound crewman shakes his head violently, "I'm too scared to perform my duties."
Xero's jaw drops in shock! "What? But you're my war monger!"
Mane cowers in the corner, even his commander's jaw dropping is scary! "Lately the crew has been dropping like flies." He explains, "There's a one in five chance that I'm next." He falls to his knees and cries to the heavens "I'm too young to die!! Take Sum!! No one likes her!!"
Sum massages her forehead for a moment, then whips out a laser pistol and shoots Ack.
"Gah!" Mane falls to the ground screaming, the crewmen applaud Sum's marksmanship, then Mane gets up nursing a laser burn. "You shot me! You shot me in the arm! That wasn't nice!"
Sum just shrugs. "Stop complaining, or me and Crak Hor wont be the only females on this ship!"
Xero rubs his head and continues with his log, "my remaining crew, Sum Chik, Crak Hor, Dat Guy and Mane Ack, are all rather agitated, the loss of Use Lass, and Ex Tra weigh heavily upon us–"
"Don't forget Ex's wife, and Rong Wun, who you threw out of air locks, and then there's She Hot whom you court martialed for refusing to date you, then there's No Moe who never even survived the trip to this cursed planet–" Sum corrects her commander.
Xero slamms his head against the log, "All right! I get it! I get it! Anyway, in order to give Jackass enough time to rally his herd to acting good and whatnot, we've decided to view another herd."
Sum slams her fist on her consol, turns to her commander and shouts, "Tell the truth! We got lost."
". . . shut up." Xero pouts.

"Stupid Mousse, always trying get in Shampoo's way!" The delivery girl scowled, backhanding her admirer.
Mousse ignord the pain, and continued what he thought to be a very successful 'wooing' "But Shampoo, we go together like lyrics of a song! Mousse and Shampoo . . . Mousse . . . and . . . Shampoo . . ."
Shampoo backhands him again. "Why Mousse not understand Shampoo hate Mousse?"
Mousse again ignores the pain. "I understand perfectly, but I also saw a lot of movies where the leading lady starts off hating the leading man, but they fall in love in the end, so I hold out hope."
Shampoo shakes her head in resignation. "Fine stupid Mousse. If Shampoo not fall in love with you by end of two-hours, the longest Shampoo ever sit through movie, then you forever leave Shampoo alone!"
Mousse scratches his head, he was thinking more along the lines of two years ". . . uh . . ."

Xero observes the herd and speaks to the documentation log, "This is the--notably smaller--herd of Blind Eye Duck Boy, Short Wrinkled Child, and Purple Hair Sex Goddess . . . I named them myself."
Dat sighs, "That's obvious sir . . ."
Crak Hor shakes her seductive head, "We need to stop letting him name things . . . our species in general isnt very good at naming. I mean look at my name!"
"You're named after the clergy of our Goddess of Chastity, Prosta, head of the Prosta-institute, or Prostitute for short." Sum nodds, having majored in Religion during her tenure at the Weekend Officer's Academy.
Crak shakes her head violently, "Yes, and here these . . . earthinoids or whatever, know of the Prostitution and have made a clergy of their own . . . they are full of Crak Hors, the highest order of the clergy and from whence my mother--hoping I'd be a priestess--found my name, and they do terrible things to their bodies! I'm so ashamed, how could the teachings of benevolent Prosta have been so poorly interpreted?"
Xero scratches his chin, "That's enough, I've got the strangest feeling that talking about stuff like this is immoral. Mighty Prosta will smite us for sure."
Sum scoffs "If she takes you first I'd die happy."
Xero glares at Sum ". . . can we please get to observing the herd?"

Cologne whacks Mousse with her stick for no apparent reason.
Mousse twitches. "What did I do?"
Cologne just whacks Mousse again.
"Elder, I did nothing wrong!"
Cologne looks at her watch, and then whacks Mousse twice, knocking off his glasses.
Mousse sighs and puts his glasses back on, "I have dishes to wash . . ."
Cologne whacks Mousse again, "Go ahead, I can keep this up," she whacks Mousse "while you wash those dishes." She whacks him again! "If you drop one, I'll see to it that you remain a duck for the rest of your life . . ."
Mousse sighs. "Somewhere (whack) out there . . . there must be a (whack) place . . . where I can (whack) be accepted . . . for who I (whack) really am . . . on the (whack) inside . . .
Cologne looks at her watch again, "Boo frickidy hoo!" She whacks him extra hard, "Do those dishes! You said you had dishes to do!"

Xero: Obviously the offspring of humans has an interesting way of begging her father for food. Very interesting, only the Snork Beast on our own world seems to have the ability to launch such an assault on it's sire or dam and not be eaten . . .
Sum tries to suppress the disgust playing across her face and mumbles "How did you ever get a command?"
Xero scratches his head, "Have you got something to add, Chief Medical Officer?"
Sum raises an eyebrow, ". . . Chief Medical . . . you son of a . . ." she sighs, lacking the necessary energy to scream. "I was only saying sir, our people's Gods must be incredibly vengeful, and I must have sinned grotesquely to be stationed under your command."
Xero nods. "Great. I'm glad you're here too."
Sum slams her head against the console repeatedly. Alarms go off, the lights flash blue like a disco, so Xero Brainz starts dancing.
Dat Guy frowns, "Uh . . . sir . . ."
Xero continues dancing, ignoring Dat's complaints, and Mane's screams of panick.
Dat shouts, "SIR! That's not music, that's a warning klaxon, this isnt a blue light party, it's the blue alert, Sum's attempt at cranial damage has resulted in the ship's clever cloaking device being disabled, and ourselves being exposed to the herd . . ."

Mousse scratches his head. "Did that fly just turn into a bee?"
Cologne whacks him. "Less talk, more wash."

Xero shakes his head and sighs. "Chief Engineer Sum . . . how could you?"
"Yeah, don't you know it's the commander's job to do all the stupid stuff that dooms us?" Crak complains.
Sum shakes her head in disbelief. "Yes, I know . . . I'm so sorry . . . so ashamed . . . I will promptly throw myself out of an air lock!" Reaches under her consol and produces two suit cases, she heads for te air lock.
"No! Stop her!" Dat cries.
"If she dies we're stuck with the Commander as the only one who knows the course home!" Mane realizes.
"And I'll have no one to share secrets and have slumber parties with!" Crak Hor complains, Xero raises a hopeful eyebrow at her, but she shakes her head and he slumps in disappointment.
Sum looks skeptically at Crak Hor. "We don't do that now! However you're right, if I die you're stuck with the idiot, I must not abandon you, my comrades."
Xero beams at the remnants of his crew. "My crew respects me so much!" He says firmly with no sarcasm at all, "This makes me feel energized! Well Sum, your failure was crippling at best, but we shall recover. First we must tranquilize this herd, tag and mark them, then wipe their memories to make them forget all they've seeeen!!!"
The crew groans, Xero notices the Klaxon is still sounding, and the lights are still flashing so he starts dancing again.

Five minutes later . . .
Mousse frowns. "What's this thing on my head?"
Shampoo rubs her head, it feels like she's just had a lobotomy. "Ooh, we all wear strange hats!"
But they are not wearing hats, the things on their heads are skull caps with all sorts of alien machinery sticking out, it is grafted onto their skulls at the expense of their scalps, and parts of their brains . . . it is an unintrusive alien device.
On the flip side, Shampoo did forget that she hated Mousse, and consented to date him, unfortunately over the date she was reminded of why she had hated him before, and promptly went back to hating him.

To Be Continued . . .