The stars outside the Starlight Lounge were as bright as ever.

"Come on, man, I was kidding. Relax..." Bryan said neutrally.

Justin shook his head and pushed his hand out. "No, dude, don't say it ever again."

Bryan slumped and gave in. "All right, all right. Sorry. Won't happen again."

The other nodded slowly. "Good, man. Good."

"Sounds like you guys are kickin' it over here," the waitress said, coming from behind Maxie. "How 'bout some refills?"

A chorus of "Yes"'s prompted her to start collecting their empty glasses. She was a six-armed Hassalinoid, so getting all of them in one trip was easy for her. She calmly collected them and walked back to the bar.

They all sat in silence for a while, conversation dead. No one had anything interesting to say. Even Maxie and Kevin were silent, and they didn't break the silence either.

It was Hannah, with a straightforward observation to basically no one. "Oh, that guy is hot. Hot damn!"

"Who?" Maxie asked, looking around in the direction Hannah was looking.

"Him. Over there. The guy with the Alliance shirt on; he was at the briefing," Hannah answered, pointing to him.

Bryan followed her finger, past several guys with plain civilian clothing on, and finally spotted the Alliance shirt on a large, muscular man escorting Diana Hayes to a seat at the bar–it was Paul Darbles, the Fedrellon-who-looked-human from the briefing. Bryan tried hard to keep from snickering, but couldn't, and let out a crisp snicker.

Which caught everyone's attention at the silent table.

"What?" Justin said with a curious grin.

Bryan looked down at the tabletop and shook his head quickly. "Nooothing." His glanced up, grinning, at Hannah.

"What?" Hannah asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," Bryan repeated.

"What, Bryan?"

"Yeah, what?" Maxie added. "Do you know him, Bryan?" she asked with a discerning grin and eyes twinkling.

Bryan's sour expression answered her immediately. "Yes, but not like that. His name's Paul Darbles, and he's not a human, by the way, he's Fedrellon."

Hannah's eyes suddenly became wide with excitement. "Really. He is? Yes!" she pumped her elbow back into her body.

Maxie huffed. "Slut..."

Hannah gaped at her friend, and slapped her on her shoulder. "Bitch," she answered.

"Bitch, I will fight you," Maxie said, her serious expression starting to break to a laugh.

"Bring it on, dry-ass!"

"You know what–" Maxie started. She finally broke after that. "I can't think of anything...bitch."

"Loser," Hannah responded, smiling now.

Maxie giggled and looked away from her, over at Darbles. "He's sexy though. What'd you say his name was, Bryan? Something like Drabels...?"

"Paul Darbles," he corrected. "He joined the corps after you left for the Liberty. Beware ladies; if I had a dollar for every time that man has had sex in the past three years, then I'd be richer than the Empire right now."

"Who cares," Hannah shrugged. "He's still hot."

Bryan leaned in and lowered his voice. "The guy had two daughters with two different mistres–mistre-mistresses, then abandoned them after they were born."

"Okay," Hannah snapped. "I'm not saying that I want to be his girlfriend, I'm just saying he's hot. Calm down."

"I heard he has his own condom fund," Isaac said seriously. "Like, he has an account at the store on the ship."

Bryan craned his neck and shot a glance over at him, smirking. "Yeah, he does. One of the clerks showed me."

Isaac's face lit up with amusement. "Really? An entire account?"

Bryan nodded. "Yup. Worth over six-hundred-and-fifty rebs."

That got a reaction from everybody. Isaac's eyebrows narrowed and let out a short laugh; Clara's eyes widened, looking as if she didn't know what face to put on; Kevin and Evan simply snickered; Maxie look disgusted, and Hannah didn't seem to care as much as everybody else.

Justin had the same look as Isaac, and said, "Holy shit. That's a lot of money. And this is just on condoms you say?"

Bryan nodded solemnly. "Only on condoms."

Justin now look disgusted. "Jesus...and you said he only had two daughters?"

He cracked into another smile. "Yeah, only two."

The other man sat back and was shaking his head. "Stupid..."

They all knew that 650 rebs was a lot of money(rebs were the intergalactic currency used in all throughout the Alliance, equivalent to only twenty-seven cents of the original American dollar). Pilots themselves only got paid one-and-half rebs for every mission. Bryan knew a colony not far from where he was now whose entire planetary budget was just over eight-hundred-and-one rebs.

The waitress returned with all their drinks, completely refilled. She set them down where they needed to be, then removed the spill-shield from the top, leaving eight non-alcoholic drinks filled to the brim. The group said their thanks, and the waitress nodded kindly and left.

"Oh well, still hot," Hannah said quickly.

The men all groaned.

"Okay, we get it, Hannah," Evan commented.

"Hey, he is hot, no matter what you say about him," Maxie added to Bryan.

"And you call her a slut," Bryan mumbled under his breath.

Maxie glared knives at him. "What, Bryan? Were you talking to me?" she challenged.

Bryan looked at her with sarcastic innocence. "What, I didn't say anything..." he said, taking his first sip of the refreshing drink. It was just as soothing as the last one, and it felt, once again, as good as his first one ever.

Maxie smacked her lips and flicked him off, followed by a swig of her own drink, what looked like a Classic Cherry Coke. Looking off to her left, she asked, "What do you think Clara?"

Clara's eyebrows narrowed, as she was caught in mid-sip by the surprising question.

"You think he's hot? We need the smart girl's opinion. "

Clara put her glass down and calmly turned her head, looking back at Darbles, who was keeping his full attention on Diana and didn't seem tp notice that the girls had been staring at him for the past three minutes. She only glanced at him for a few moments before turning back around. Shrugging, she answered, "Yeah I guess. You shouldn't ask me though. I don't like Fedrellons." She took another sip.

"Weakling," Hannah insulted.

"Hannah!" Maxie exclaimed.

"Hey–" Bryan started.

Hannah held up her hands in surrender. "I was joking. I didn't mean it." She glanced over at Clara. "Sorry Clara."

"It's all right," Clara assured.

"Hey," Bryan tried again. He looked at Hannah but pointed at Clara. "She flies a frickin' B-Wing, for God's sake; she's braver than all of us."

"Okay, I apologized," Hannah said rudely. She had never liked Bryan, and he never really liked her.

"We do need an expert opinion of him though," Clara added. She turned to her right and smiled widely. "Bryan?"

Justin broke into a humorous grin, as did Isaac and the twins. Maxie let out a small laugh, and Hannah's grin was the widest of them all.

"Damn, she's on the offensive today," Maxie commented.

Bryan had his glass raised to his lips, but stopped when he heard Clara, slamming it back down onto the table with a little spillage over the sides. "You know what..." he started. He then stopped, and flicked his gaze at Clara. "I don't like you anymore."

"Awww," Maxie said with a judgmental tone. "That was mean. Clara, don't listen to him."

Bryan just continued to stare at his old friend. "Like she does in the first place."

That drew another "awwwww" from Maxie. "You're an ass," she added.

"Okay everybody," Justin chimed in, addressing everyone. "I think Bryan and Clara wanna be alone, so why don't we–" he started to rise from his chair.

"Shut! Up!" Bryan snapped at the joke. "Sit your ass down, boy."

"Good one Justin," Isaac complimented with a chuckle.

Bryan rolled his eyes at Justin and took another sip. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a tall man climbing up the stairs to the Lounge's small stage, heading for the microphone at the center of it. "Entertainment time," Bryan announced calmly.

The man, a Zeverian named Garkuk Bos'leth, who Bryan knew through his years on the Faith, grabbed the microphone, which caused it to let out a scratchy noise. It was small, but it got everyone's attention in the Lounge. He then proceeded to speak. "All right ladies and gentlemen, hello. My name is Garkuk Bos'leth, and I am the manager of this here Lounge. Since most of you are enjoying your last drinks before the upcoming attack, I'd like to help you also try and loosen up beforehand, so right now, in the spirit of good fun, I'd like to start a little talent –for anyone who wants to volunteer. Entertain us. We have a musician over here," he gestured to a human sitting at a classic Baby Grand piano off in one corner. "Do I have a volunteer to go first?"

Bryan's eyes widened with excitement. "Yes, us!" he shouted to Garkuk. "Me and the twins over here!" he continued, pointing at Kevin and Evan.

The two look at him like he was crazy.

Bryan bent over far across the tabletop and lowered voice so as not to be heard by anyone else besides the people at the table.

"Looks like we've–"

"–Three-headed Broadway Star!"

"–unteer. Commander Rawling, come on up."

The twins faces gleamed at the suggestion.

"Yeah–!"

"Sweet–!"

They shot up from their chairs and(Evan jumping over the back of his chair, Kevin nearly tripping on his chair's leg)bolted for the stage, Bryan circling around the table to join them. As the crowd murmured conversation amongst each other, the three ran up the stairs and onto the stage, excited beyond belief.

"Well," admitted a surprised Garkuk, "That's definitely the spirit we want up here." He paused for a crooked smile, then continued. "Okay, so Commander Rawling, Lieutenants Kevin and Evan Silliger, what do you guys want to do?" He flipped the microphone to Kevin's face.

"Three-headed Broadway Star," Evan said with energy into the mike.

"Oh, so improv?" Garkuk said with a stimulated, but still crooked, smile.

"Yes, sir," Kevin responded, still beaming.

Garkuk looked out at the somewhat vast crowd in the Lounge. "Okay. What do you say ladies and gentlemen?"

The whole Lounge erupted into applause and cheering.

"Okay then." The Zeverian gestured in respect at the three. "The stage is yours gentlemen." With that, he placed the microphone on the stand and walked off the stage.

Kevin took center stage and walked up the mike. "Okay, ya'll, we need two things to start this off. First, we need a volunteer; a lady please."

Several woman raised their hands. Some crazy ones got up out of their chairs and raced for the stage. But none of them even stood a chance against Maxie, who had been out of her chair before Kevin had even finished asking, and was already climbing the stairs to the stage.

Kevin laughed at this and shook his palm at the crowd. "Nevermind ladies. We got one, though we really don't want her considering we always sing to her when we do this. Maybe next time."

A chorus of groans and disappointed moans emanated from the women of the crowd.

"Next," Kevin continued, "We need the name of a fake hit Broadway show. Anybody wanna give us that...?"

The crowd shouted out several names and sentences. Bryan heard "Simpsons: the Musical" and "Little Dancing Calamarian" and simple ones like "Nothing" and "Armpit Hair."

But Evan heard the best one. "Hey Kevin, you heard that?"

"What?" Kevin said, turning back to his brother.

"That one said 'Mucous and Boogers: the Musical,'" he replied, laughing.

Kevin broke into a laugh. "I like that." He whirled back to the mike as the ideas kept pouring in. "Okay, guys, we got 'Mucous and Boogers: the Musical.' We like that one," he said over the crowd's noise. Once they had quieted down, Kevin continued. "Aight, now we need the hit love song from 'Mucous and Boogers' to sing to Maxie here."

More ideas rang in from the crowd, and once again it was Evan who singled out the best one. "'I'll Pick Your Nose,'" he shouted to his brother.

Kevin laughed again. "Okay," he shouted over the noise of the crowd. "'I'll Pick Your Nose' is the good one we heard,–"

A chorus of "ewwws" rang from the crowd.

"–not to say that ya'll's were bad or anything, we just liked that one the most." He turned back to the other two, head tilted into the mike. "All right, guys, the song is 'I'll Pick Your Nose' from the hit musical 'Mucous and Boogers: the Musical.'"

The crowd clapped wildly for the trio.

Kevin walked off into the shadows for a moment, then came back with a stool for Maxie, then took his position on the right side of the Three-headed Broadway Star formation. Bryan stood at the center, Evan on the left; Bryan with his hand on Kevin's right and Evan's left shoulder.

The music started, and so did they.

Kevin Bryan Evan

"You" "Are" "So"

(snicker) "Beautiful" "To" "Me"

"E, E, E." "I" "Think"

"You" "Love" "To"

"Pick" "Your" "Nose,"

"'Cause" "I" "Love"

"To" "Too." "Boogers"

"Are" "Interesting" "Because"

"Boogers" "Are""Green."

"Your" "Boogers" "Turn"

"Me" ("oh God") "On," "Your"

"Boogers "Are" "Awesome"

"....Yeah." "I" "Imagine"

"Us" "In" "Your"

"Nose" "Picking" "Boogers"

"Together." "Mucous" "Is"

"The" "Best" "And"

"The" "Most" "Romantic"

"Stuff" "In" "The"

"World" "And" "Nose."

"We" "Are" "Like"

"Boogers" "And" "Mucous"

"Because" "We" "Love"

"Each" "Other" "Like"

"Mucous" "And" "Boogers,"

"And" "I" "Love"

"To" "Pick" "Boogers"

"In" "Tights." "Tights!"

"Tights!" "Tiiiights!" "I!"

"Love!" "Mucous!" "And!"

"Boogers! "And!" "I"

"Love" "To" "Pick"

"Your "Wonderful," "Beautiful,"

("Nooooose" "Nooooose" "Nooooose.")

The crowd erupted into loud cheering, clapping furiously for the trio as they stood, smiling delightfully.

The trio had become the classic group at the Three-headed Broadway Star improvisation game–where you had to sing a song one word at a time–ever since they had sang their first one ever together at the Caresica Comedy Bazaar seven years earlier.