DISCLAIMER: Yeah. You know what goes here. Just join me in picturing Spike and Vicious with no tops on. Eamon is mine, but the name was blatantly ripped. It's a fantabulous name.


"Eamon O'Mara," Faye's voice came over the communicator as Tilly maneuvered the Redtail onto the parking pad, next to Jet's Hammerhead. "Age – 33, born on Mars, height… well, same as Spike-"

"How would you know that?" Jet asked as he powered down his ship, watching Tilly do the same.

"Let's just say," Faye replied," that I had good reasons for staying behind."

Tilly met up with Jet and smiled as he rolled his eyes.

"Anything I should know?" she asked as Jet signed off his com.

"Yeah," Faye replied. "He likes soft women, and his earlobe drives him nuts."

Tilly laughed as Jet groaned in disgust. "I'll keep that in mind," she returned.

"Tilly," Faye called before they could sign off. "No joke, now. Be careful. This guy is dangerous. Imagine if Spike or Vicious actually had a personality. Eamon's no fool."

Something about Faye's tone, and the image of Vicious that night on Mars made a chill run down Tilly's spine. "I'll be careful," she promised. As they both signed off Tilly looked up to see Jet staring at her with an odd look in his eye, as though he were sizing her up. Tilly smiled weakly, trying to shake the wiggins off.

"Two hundred woolong!" A gruff voice said behind her. They both turned to respond only to see no one there. But as Tily looked down a tiny man came into her line of sight. She yelped and jumped back into Jet's arms.

"What's the matter?" the guy asked. "Never seen a dwarf before?"

Gathering her senses (and catching the breath that tried to leave her) Tilly stepped forward, apologizing.

"Two hundred woolong for what?" Jet cut in.

The dwarf looked at Jet as though just breathing was an effort.

"Can't you read?" he hitched a thumb toward the entrance to the Spaceport Quad. A sign in large red letters detailed parking fees and refueling costs, but the miniature man quoted the sign to them in a bored Brooklynese.

"One hundred woolong to dock one ship. Fifty woolong to refuel a ship." Slowly Tilly backed away from the tiny man to stand by Jet. The guy watched her with an eyebrow cocked. "Two ships means two hundred woolong. You want a full tank to get home on, an extra fifty woolong for the short range fliers." Tilly laced your fingers through Jet's, fear taking hold of her. "Now, we can do this one of three ways," the Lilliputian dock master continued, "You can pay up," he held up a stunted digit with each option." You can take off, back to wherever you came from, or," a wicked smile spread across his face, revealing surprisingly good teeth behind the scraggly beard that kept the man from looking like an elf. "Or, I can impound your vehicle for failure to pay, and you can spend the rest of your stay here at the DPSS trying to pay the hundred woolong parking fee, plus the two hundred woolong fee to get your ship out of the impound."

As he finished speaking, the small man pulled a cigar from his front pocket and stuck it between his teeth, chuckling to himself.

Jet pulled a few bills from his pocket. "I hope Faye's ship is fueled up," he muttered. Digging into her pockets Tilly pulled another hundred woolong to add to Jet's two hundred.

"Here," she told him. "Fill them both, and let's get out of here." Tilly walked quickly away from the docking pad toward the main Quad of the Spaceport, leaving Jet to deal with the miniscule parking attendant.


Spike was at his wit's end. The sluggish blinking had made little headway. The game-player and the Goth couple had already been served, and who knew how long they had been waiting. 46, 47.46, 47. 47, 47.

Spike took a deep breath and stood. Ticket in hand, he walked through the empty line to the counter where the lone attendant sat filing her nails.

"Excuse me?" Spike leaned on the counter and flashed a roguish grin. "Can you help me?"

The girl raised her eyes to look at Spike, and then tilted her head ever so slightly to look at the counter. "Are you number 47?"

Spike smiled shyly and did his best to look as cute as possible. "No, I'm not, but-"

The girl's metal nail file whipped up, mere inches from Spike's eyes, stopping him mid-sentence. Her arm swung to the side and the lethal looking file pointed to a large sign in red and black letters.

We here at the DPSS thank you for your patronage, and your patience. We will try to assist everyone in a timely manner. Please pull a ticket and help yourself to our comfortable waiting area. Everyone will be helped in the order they arrived.

No Exceptions.

Thank you. – New Bering Spaceport DPSS

Spike looked back at the girl who had returned to filing her nails.

"Okay, miss-"

The nail file flew up again and Spike jerked back a little at its vehemence. A small cough behind him caught his attention and he turned to see the small woman with her handbag clutched I one hand, ticket in the other.

"Right," Spike muttered and he went back to his seat. 48, 48.

The little woman pulled an envelope slowly from her purse and set it on the counter. She looked expectantly up at the girl, and waited silently. The girl took her ticket, verified it was her turn, and opened the envelope. The attendant perused the contents of the letter, stamped the bottom of the page, and tore the bottom third at the perforation.

"86.32 woolong," the clerk droned.

The little grandmother smiled and hooked her purse on her arm. She opened the bag and pulled out her billfold. Spike watched every movement as though in a trance. She pulled out one bill at a time, counting as she went along.

"Ten, twenty, thirty… Oh, my! Fifty," she smiled, proud of herself for having a twenty woolong note. "Sixty, seventy, seventy-five, six…" Two bills stuck together, and the little old woman licked her fingers to separate the bills, moving slowly and deliberately. "Ah!" She sighed. Seventy-seven, eight, nine, eighty, one, two, three, four… Oh, dear. I'll have to give you the rest in change."

Spike's eyes opened wide, and he tuned out the rest of the conversation. 48, 49. 48, 49.


Eamon O'Mara enjoyed the fine things in life. A good book could be just as engaging as a good woman. Both, unfortunately, had been in short supply for an embarrassingly long time. He was in hell stuck in the New Bering Spaceport. Eamon wanted a new book. He wanted a new woman. He wanted a beer that was better than this piss water he was forced to endure. He ordered another.

Taking a swig of the lukewarm beer the bar advertised as "ice-cold", Eamon took in his surroundings once again. He had been on New Bering for nearly two weeks now thanks to that bounty from Mars. It was impossible to find good work this far from civilization. Cursing his luck, Eamon took a deep pull of his beer, attempting to find something in the taste to savor. And that was when he saw her.

She walked into the bar and ordered a beer. Her long dark hair was pulled into a braid that followed her spine to her waist. Small strands in loose curls had pulled free and framed her face like a pre-Raphaelite painting.

"Jet!" she called. Eamon followed her eyes to the large man walking in through the door. Eamon pulled himself back into the shadows, instantly intrigued by the angel and the bald man.

"You doing okay, Tilly?" Eamon leaned forward.

"Yeah," she replied, downing nearly half the beer in one drink. Eamon fell in love. "I hate midgets," she continued. "They're bad luck. Scare the hell out of me."

The man called Jet stared at the raven beauty as if she had just lost her mind. Eamon had to admit that she wasn't making much sense. Apparently, her friend's expression was not lost on her.

"Okay," she said, taking another swig before passing the beer off to the large man. "Here's the deal. They're bad luck. Every time one is around, something goes wrong."

"That's crazy," Jet replied.

"Oh yeah?" Tilly flagged down the bartender for two more drinks. "First time I ever broke a bone? I was fifteen, being chased by a mark-"

"Oh yeah? Growing pains?" She narrowed her eyes at his joke. Eamon was increasingly fascinated by this woman.

"Moving on," she continued. "I'm running away from this guy. There's a shortcut I could take, but as I turn the corner I run straight into this midget. We fall and I roll about four feet. He gets up screaming and cursing a blue streak, the mark catches me and breaks my arm for making him run."

Jet is laughing at her story, and Eamon finds the image amusing as well… until the sound of snapping bone plays in his head. Never a good sound.

"You laugh," she says. "But I nearly lost a mark because of a midget. As it is, I had to wear a cast for nearly six weeks. You try bathing twins with a cast on."

She took another pull of her beer and started mid-swallow as her pocket beeped. Pulling out a communicator and leaning back against the bar, Eamon jerked an eyebrow in appreciation of her figure.

"Yeah?" She asked. The communicator was too faint for Eamon to hear anything. "No," she responded. "No sign yet." The person on the other end of the com got loud for a moment and Tilly pushed her arm out as far as it would go. "No, I have no clue what Spike is up to, and no. No sign of O'Mara." Eamon froze. Bounty hunters. His new love was a bounty hunter. A sly smile spread across his face.

This was going to be interesting.