John tapped his fingers impatiently on the bar top, and waited for the barkeep to finish his now abnormally long conversation with another patron, who was obviously a long-time regular. Both men had their heads close together over the scarred counter, and both men spared Crichton and his group a few suspicious glances every now and then.

Whenever they did look his way, John waved a finger to get the bartender's attention… only to have the big framed man turned away and go back to speaking with the other customer in hushed tones.

Crichton sighed after about the fifth time of being ignored, and chalked the treatment up to that fact that he and Aeryn were in effect taking up a good third of the total length of the bar itself… that is, the two of them and the seven heavily armed and armored Hynerian Shock Troopers that also surrounded them.

Surprisingly, for being Hynerian Elite Guard, all seven were humanoid, mostly Sebaceans as far as John could tell. It shouldn't have been too surprising Crichton later realized, as the Hynerian Empire consisted of over 600 billion subjects, not all of them actually Hynerians. Chance alone said that some of the member worlds were bound to have been run-off Sebacean colonies.

"Are you sure Pip would have hit this dive at some point of her stay?" he asked his wife, more for something new to do other than look at the pair of men at the other end of the bar who were pointedly paying no heed to him.

Aeryn nodded.

"This dren-hole is the only place this side of the spaceport that sells chilled Gromlinc. Gromlinc is the only drink that Chiana likes better than Reslak. She would been here at some time just for that alone," the ex-Peacekeeper replied. "Besides…" she added while pulling out her tracking device. "My tracker registers an isotope maker from the tag I left on all her clothing here. Something you're piece of shop-made dranit is not able to detect because it never occurred to you to add such a simple feature."

Crichton blew air through his lips to make a rude noise.

"Yeah… so your tracker has better doodads, and you have best toys – you win," he said. "Now if only we can get Sunshine down there's attention. I think its pretty safe to say he's ignoring us."

"He probably doesn't like our frelling entourage," Aeryn added in a tone that said she pretty much felt likewise about their guards. "I'll show you how to get noticed, Crichton."

The slim woman drew her pulse pistol from her thigh-holster, and started banging the butt of the weapon on the bar top.

"Hey! You! Yes, you! Service down here… now!" she yelled nearly at the top of her lungs.

She never stopped slamming her pistol down repeatedly onto the wooden counter, making an awful racket.

Finally the barkeep straightened up and gave them both an acerbic look. He muttered something that could only have been a curse, then tossed his cleaning rag over one shoulder and began to walk down the length of the bar their way.

"Nice… crude and rude, but nice," John told his wife, as he made a show out probing his nearest ear with one finger to test the newest damage to his hearing. "But what would you have done if he still stiffed you?" he asked.

Aeryn raised an eyebrow at the question as she snapped her weapon back into its holster.

"I would have shot him in the leg of course," she told him.

"That's what I love about you… still no social skills at all," the human replied with a slight grin. He then wiped it from his features as the bar man came within earshot.

"Hi," said John, giving the man his best friendly smile. "My name is John…"

" I don't give a frell. What the hezmana do you want?" the other man asked bluntly, and not very pleasantly.

The smile died on Crichton's face. So much for a good first impression, he told himself.

"Well, we're looking for a friend…" he started to say again.

"I haven't seen him," the man behind the counter snapped shortly before he could finish.

"It's a her," Aeryn countered with a caustic displeased look of her own.

"Then I haven't seen her either. Order something or get the frell out of my refreshment house."

Crichton tried to smile again and save the quickly dying situation, but the look came out forced and far from believable to even him.

"Look, we have a good reason to believe she was here," he continued in a reasonable tone. "Let us show you a holophoto and we'll be out of here as soon as you tell us what you know."

The bigger bar man placed both meaty hands on the bar top and leaned closer to John and Aeryn.

"Not interested, dren-holes! Now get out if you're not drinking anything. I need the room for paying customers." He shot a dirty look at the armored soldiers standing around the couple.

"Yeah… looks real busy," Crichton couldn't help himself but to say, glancing around at the five other customers sitting around at various tables, each drinking quietly and alone.

"That's because some sawed-off little runt of a tratnik is taking up half my tavern with his frelling body guards. What's the matter, not man enough to protect yourself… or your woman?"

John frowned but held his tongue; he already hadn't helped his case by letting his frustration speak for him just a moment ago. He heard Aeryn draw a quick intake of breath, and he held up his hand to cut-off what he knew was going to be a steaming tirade, full of swearing, threats, and promises to remove some of the bar man's more vital internal organs with her bare hands.

Luckily, his wife hadn't quite yet reached her boiling point, because the outburst and bloodshed didn't happen just then. It seemed she was going to let her husband handle the situation for a few microts more, but John knew it was just a near thing, judging by the way Aeryn darkly grumbled beneath her breath.

As soon as the big barkeep had leaned in toward the couple and became belligerent, the Hynerian unit leader, who was no slouch himself in the height and meaty hands department, took a protective step forward.

"I'm not impressed with your dog," the barkeep sneered as he noticed the soldier move closer. "Not even real Peacekeepers, Hynerian Guard by the look and smell of Hynerian mudpuppy dren on them."

The unit leader said nothing also, but John could hear the big man with the graying mustache and hair growl under his breath also, almost giving Aeryn a run for her money.

Great… just great, now I have two pissed off Sebaceans to deal with, John thought to himself. "I don't know which I should fear more… the armored giant, or my wife?"

Aeryn herself was more than aware of the big soldier starting to hover, and the ex-Peacekeeper grew even more annoyed. It would be the day when she couldn't beat the living gris out of an insolent bartender – not matter how big he was.

"We don't want any trouble," John tried with the barkeep.

"Then leave, nik-nik trat."

"After you look at the frelling photo and tell us what we want to know, then we'll leave," Aeryn nearly barked.

The man looked at her, and grinned snidely.

"Well, you can stay. I can always use another tralk hanging around the place to make things more interesting," he said nastily.

Crichton almost closed his eyes because he couldn't help but see blood coming.

Before either John or Aeryn could reply or react much further, the big Hynerian Guardsman behind them strode the rest of the way forward and reached over the bar with an arm that seemed a metra long. He grabbed the bartender by the back his head before the man realized what was going on, and slammed it down hard on the counter-top once.

The couple both took a few involuntary steps backward, and automatically drew their pistols while going back-to-back to cover each other, fully expecting trouble from the four or five regular patrons scattered around the tavern.

They didn't have to bother, as the six other troopers already had their pulse rifles leveled out at the barroom as soon as their leader made a move.

The huge unit commander next took the barkeep by his filthy shirt and dragged him over the bar top, to let him flop unceremoniously over onto the floor with a thump.

John looked around, and saw that none of the patrons, including the man the bartender had been recently talking to, had bothered even leaving their seats. In fact, only one or two even watched what was developing, and only with a casual mild interest at that. The rest of them just ignored what was going on, and gave their full attention to whatever was in the mugs and glass bottles before them.

This really is a dive, John thought silently to himself again, with a tiny shake of his head.

The Hynerian soldier reached down and picked the dazed man up as if he weighted nothing, and threw him face down on the bar-top, only this time on their side of it.

"Officer Sun and Commander Crichton asked you a question, Nurfer," the armored man said, in a low-pitched voice that was reasonably soft for the moment, but that anyone could tell would boom out and likely hurt ears if the man wished it. He was a man that was use to command and being obeyed, that was obvious. "It would be in your very best interest to cooperate," he finished, as he lifted the barkeep up several drench clear of the bar and slammed him down on it again.

The man expelled air in a loud whoosh as he hit, but he held up both hands in the air to signal surrender.

"All right! All right… I'll look at their frelling photo!" the man cried. "Just let me up!"

"Very wise," the soldier said, and then added a slap to the back of the other man's head as a reminder to behave before letting him rise.

The barkeep got his shaky feet under him again, and took a moment to rub at the back of his head, which John knew had to sting from the slap the big trooper had laid on it.

"He's all yours, sir, ma'am," the unit leader told them both as he stepped away, but not too far away. Aeryn eyed the soldier critically for a moment. The man bared her scrutiny without flinching or even looking uncomfortable for a few microts, and then added, "Just doing your light work, ma'am."

The ex-Peacekeeper's delicate eyebrow shot upward at the Hynerian trooper's comment.

"What's your name… Sergeant, is it?" she asked, while squinting at the man's rank insignia. She wasn't all that familiar with the Hynerian Guard ranking system just yet.

"Yes, ma'am. Joban Rickler… First Sergeant of the 1st Elite Hynerian Guard at your service, ma'am," he replied.

"Sergeant Rickler," Aeryn repeated, while nodding her thanks for the courtesy the big man was showing her as another soldier. "You, I like," she added with a slight grin.

"Thank you, ma'am. Anytime."

"Okay, then. Sorry for the trouble," John told the barkeep.

The man nodded, sparing a glance at the large armored man who was standing off to one side, still within arms' reach of him. Sergeant Rickler stood with said massive arms folded across his chest and merely cocked his head slightly to let the bar man know he was being scrutinized closely by the soldier for the slightest hint of any further trouble.

"Please just show me your photo and lets get this over with," the bartender said meekly.

"Oh right," said John, as he dug into a pocket and produced a personal holo-imaging device. He flicked the device on with a thumbnail, and an image of Chiana shimmered into existence in the air above it.

"We're looking for this Nebari girl. She's a friend of ours," he explained.

The man eyes the holophoto for only an instant, and then let out a huge groan.

"I should have known you'd have something to do with her!" he said before anyone could ask.

"So you have seen her?" John asked to verify.

"Seen her???" The barkeep barked. "She came in her and destroyed half my refreshment house! She beat the dren out of three of my regular customers… one of them still has all three of his legs in casts! I never in a thousand cycles would have thought that something so little could reek so much havoc in less than a tenth of an arn."

"The havoc part sounds like her," Crichton admitted. "But you said she was here less than a quarter arn, and she got dragged into a brawl?"

"Got dragged into? She started it! She was pretty, not much like what we usually get around here…"

"I can imagine that," Aeryn broke in.

The bartender slightly frowned at the jibe, but decided it would be best for him to ignore it… considering the big guardsman still standing there.

"They were just being friendly, the boys were just trying to get her attention… nothing harmful. But she was kinkoid and just wanted to fight. The boys tried to back off but she wouldn't let them, started throwing punches and the boys had to fight back because she was all over them like a Hezmana Cat. I saw her go down a couple of times but she was right back up and fighting like nothing happened."

Aeryn pursed her lips as the man told his story.

"That… doesn't sound like Chiana at all," she said.

"I agree," her husband added. "Pip's a lover not a fighter… if she can avoid it. What happened next?" John asked the bar man.

"It happened so fast, but after she beat the Hezmana out of those boys I pulled out my Electro-stun gun that I keep behind the bar and made her leave. She just stopped what she was doing, gave me this creepy smile that gave me the hubberjibs… sort of like there was something crazy going on in her head, you know what I mean? Like she enjoyed it all."

Aeryn and John both shared a glance. That behavior sounded very familiar to them indeed.

"Yeah, we get the idea," John said. "What next?"

"Not much," the man continued. "At first I thought she was going to try me and the stun gun next… and to tell you the truth, I was being to have my doubts that the stunner would even stop her! But she just dropped the guy she had been punching – he was already out cold anyway, gave me that frelled-up grin of hers, and then just stood up and started heading for the door."

"Then she left?" asked the ex-Peacekeeper.

"Well. Not just then. She had to wait for the eema-hole she came in with to get up from the bar and go with her. Took his goddess damn time of it too! He was laughing so hard while she trashed my tavern."

"Why didn't you mention this other guy before?" Crichton broke in.

The barkeep shrugged. "You weren't asking about that crazy Nurfer, just this girl. He mentioned something during the fight that he was helping her with something, and how entertaining he thought the fight she started was. I couldn't pay much attention to what he was blabbering after that, because I was worrying about how I was going to replace all the tables and chairs that were being smashed up in the brawl."

"A name," Aeryn nearly growled. "What is this man's name and where can he be found?"

"The man who said he was helping your friend…" the bar man started to say.

The double swinging doors of the refreshment house suddenly burst opened, the twin wings striking the walls with a double bang – and cutting the bartender off.

A new figure dressed in a long tattered black duster that had seen better days backed in. The coat's collar was pulled up high over his neck and partly covering a head of wild shaggy dark hair, the individual strangely backed another two or three steps further into the refreshment house.

He came to a stop and dramatically paused for just a microt or two, and abruptly spun around to thrust out a pair of battered old pulse pistols in front of him.

"Reach for the sky, mother-frellers!" the new man suddenly yelled out. "This is…a…hold…up…"

His speech just as suddenly dragged to a stuttering halt as he suddenly realized that he faced a wall of armored troopers with their weapons raised and locked on him, which he was certainly not expecting at all by the expression on his face.

"…Is him!" the barkeep finished, while pointing an excited forefinger the newcomer's way.

"Oh dren," the black-coated man muttered. He then smiled somewhat innocently through the razor stubble covering his roguish face, and then took a step back as he raised his guns to point at the ceiling. "Wrong refreshment house," he said apologetically, and then turned to walk back out the doorway.

"Don't move, eema-hole!" barked Joban Rickler as he took several steps forward. His armored footsteps sounding like thunder on the tavern's wooden planked flooring. The man in the black coat tensed, and the entire room heard him swear as he slowly turned back around.

"Look friend," he said, with his best 'friendly and harmless' smile, as the sizeable soldier came to a halt before him. The man's eyes had to travel upwards to reach the unsmiling ones of Joban Rickler. The new man swallowed hard then, the Sergeant was more than just simply impressive up close. "I didn't mean any harm. See? My guns aren't even loaded." He showed the soldier the empty butts of his pistols to prove the magazine wells were indeed empty.

The barkeep sighed heavily. "He comes in here once a weeken at least to try and rob the place," he informed the others. "I give him a bottle of cheap Reslak just to get him out of my hair. Claims to be some big-time bandit named, Aldwar Muddoe or something."

"Its Murdough… Andar Murdough!" the new man said testily. "And I am a famous bandit," he added with a proud suave smile. "I'm wanted on ten planets and by the Peacekeeper themselves in several districts. You should be grateful that I even grace this establishment. Most any other refreshment houses would be glad to have a celebrity of my notoriety as a patron."

"Goddess please don't ask him anything else," groaned the bartender. "Or he'll drag out all those frelling Wanted posters he has folded up in some pocket, and we'll be forced to listen to him for the next arn as he goes through them all!" The bar man turned to look at John. "He's not even notorious enough to have a Wanted Beacon… just paper posters!"

The man called Andar abruptly looked wounded.

"I'm… I'm sure I have a wanted beacon… lots of them… somewhere out there," he explained. 'I just haven't had time to go look for one yet. My work keeps me very busy, you know."

He looked from one person to the next, as if silently asking them to agree that somewhere out there in the Territories, there just had to be at least one beacon with his holo-image in it.

John turned to his wife, and gave her an exasperated look.

"This just gets better and better all the time," he muttered so that only she could hear.

"Okay…," John said, as he folded both hands before his chin, his elbows resting on top of the table they had taken over in the corner of the refreshment house. "What exactly did you do with Chiana?" he asked.

The other man sitting across from him looked genuinely puzzled.

"Chiana who?" Andar Murdough inquired a microt later with over politeness.

The human rolled his eyes, and was momentary glad for the bandit's sake that his wife had chosen to remain over by the bar and watch while he interviewed the strange man one-on-one.

"The Nebari girl you were here with about a quarter cycle ago," he clarified.

"Nebari girl?" Andar muttered to himself a few times lowly. "Nebari girl…oh! I remember exactly whom you're speaking of now! Lovely girl, a lovely girl. A little frelled up in the noggin for my taste, but a very lovely girl none-the-less."

Murdough concluded with a satisfied nod and a friendly smile at Crichton, but said no more.

"So…? What did you do with her?" John probed again.

"With who?" Andar asked again.

"Chiana."

"Who?"

"Chi…" John started to say again. "Urgh! The lovely girl," he changed it to, "What did you do with the lovely Nebari girl?"

"Oh… her. Nothing," Andar said. "She did at first say her name was Chiana I remember now, but then she decided she wanted to be called something else. Very unstable that one, she is." The man rambled on before John could stop him. "What was it she wanted to be called again? "Pi… Pi? It escapes me now. Something that starts with the letter 'P' it was."

"Pip," Crichton put in, exasperation plainly all over his face. "Now…"

"No, that wasn't it," Andar broke in annoyingly.

John drew himself up in his seat and drew a deep steadying breath.

"All right, that wasn't what she was calling herself," said John. "What's more important at the moment is…"

"Pixie!" the bandit suddenly barked happily.

"What?" asked the human.

"Pixie! She called herself, Pixie." Andar explained. "I know what you're thinking… Pixie is such an odd name for anyone to call themselves. I thought so myself when I first heard it… I mean it doesn't flow off the tongue as smoothly as something else would. And who could take a bandit named 'Pixie' seriously? My gracious goddess I can hear it now…" Andar's voice rose in pitch a few notes, "Oh! Oh! Help me! It's the bandit… Pixie!" He paused to look at John to see if he understood what he was getting at. For some reason he choose to take Crichton's wide-eyed look of dumfounded amazement as accord. "I can see you agree with me, it's a totally ridiculous name for a bandit," Murdough rambled on. "Now… 'Help, help! Its that scoundrel Andar Murdough!'… now that has a ring to it!"

"Andar," John tried to get in.

"Its all in the name," the bandit went on regardless.

"Andar…" the human tried again, this time snapping his fingers to go with the call.

"But you also have to understand and take into account the background of the name she chose. She told me Pixies were small mythical creatures from this tiny back-world ball of dirt that…"

"HEY! I know what Pixies are!" John interrupted bluntly before the odd man could further lose himself in his explanation. "I'm the one that told her what they were." But I'm not the one who started calling her by that nickname, Crichton found himself thinking. This doesn't look good if Pip is surrounding herself in memories of that crazy bastard.

"Well, there's no call to be rude," Andar said with a frown.

"Having fun, Crichton?" Aeryn asked from where she was leaning against the bar. The bartender was back safely behind his counter, washing his glasses with his dirty rag, all the while stealing wary glances at the big Sebacean guard standing by her side. It was obvious that Aeryn hadn't caught all of the conversation, and was gauging its progress mostly by the frustrated look on his face.

"Peachy, baby… just peachy," he called back to her."

He held up on finger just a few henta from the other man's eyes.

"Stay with me now, Fido," he said. "What did you do with Chi…er, the Pixie? Where did you take her, and what did you do."

Andar looked momentary defensive.

"Well nothing ungentlemanly if that's what you're getting at," said the strange man.

Crichton waved both hands over the tabletop to halt that train of thought.

"That's not what I'm asking! And I don't wanna know if you did," he again clarified. "The bartender said you were going to help her with something. I just want to know what that something was."

"Oh! That!" said Andar, as if enlightened. "Why didn't you just ask that in the first place?"

"I've been trying," John said with a slight hint of irritation. "So what was it?"

"Well, I really can't tell you," announced Andar matter-of-factly. "Thieves' honor and all that."

The astronaut looked stunned for a moment. He hadn't expected the discussion to take this bit of a bizarre turn.

"Look," he said a moment later after he recovered. "We don't want to get into your business. We just want to make sure she's okay. She's our friend."

Andar looked understanding, but shrugged his shoulders as if to say he was powerless to break some unwritten rule and tell him anything more.

John paused a moment to give the situation some thought. This Murdough fellow didn't exactly have all his oars in the water either obviously. There must be something he could do or say to make the bandit change his mind.

A moment later, Crichton though he'd hit upon something.

"We have a old saying where I came from to cover such matters," he said.

"Do tell," Andar replied with obvious interest as he slightly leaned forward toward the human.

"We say, 'that there's no honor among thieves."

The bandit processed the thought for a few moments.

"All right, you got me there," he surprised John by saying. It seemed the new rule was enough to void out the old rule in the man's mind. "Your friend Pixie wanted me to set her up with a gig as a runner."

John paused a moment, then said, "I'm guess that by 'runner', you're not talking about a person who actually get up and runs somewhere… like a pizza delivery guy."

Andar folded both his hands in front of him in a mimic of John's, and then just raised his eyebrow in an over-exaggerated manner as he smiled knowingly at the human.

"I was afraid of that," John muttered, without asking for the man to confirm his conclusion. "And what kind of runner job was this to be?"

Crichton half-expected the bandit to clam up again as he asked for more details. Instead, Andar leaned in even closer, his excitement more than evident on his handsome face.

"Its not just any run, my friend… it's the run of all runs!" Murdough told him. "Five famous professionals with the best tech have died trying to complete it. Another four are in Peacekeeper prison at last count. I can't say that any of those got out with all their body parts intact before the PK's got them though. But still, the higher the risk, the bigger the pay off I always say. Our lovely Pixie is going for the golden Krerz egg-let, my friend. If she pulls off this run, she could name her price."

John felt his stomach drop out.

"Aeryn…" he meant to yell, but it only came out as a whisper.

"I would have gone after it myself," Andar was going on. "But as you can see, I'm stuck here for the moment with prior obligations. But the Pixie, now she has talent. You should have seen her during the fight that took place here. There must have been nine… no, ten! Ten brutes going at her. She beat them all… left them all broken on the floor she did. It was glorious!"

"AERYN!" John got out, his eyes still locked on a rambling Andar. This time it was a full yell.

"John? What is it?" his wife asked as she made it to his side. The big sergeant was there as well.

He quickly filled his spouse in on what had happened to their young friend.

The Sebacean woman frowned as she took it all in.

"You," the female soldier said to Andar. "Can you tell us where Chiana has gone? Do you have the star chart coordinates to that world?"

"Oh, you don't want to go there," Andar replied evenly.

"Why not?" Crichton asked.

"There's a civil war being fought on one of the system's core planets. Everything's a mess. They're stopping all the shipping going in and out of the blockade for inspections. Looking for deserters, contraband weapons, black markets items… it's really hard to make a dishonest credit there as a smuggler."

"I thought you were a 'bandit'? John asked.

"I am," Andar replied, with a look that said he thought John had less than normal smarts.

"Oh," the human said, choosing to overlook the look the highwayman was serving him with.

"I'm a smuggler as a hobby," Murdough added a microt later.

"Well, that just figures," John responded sourly while crossing both arms over his chest.

"Look! We don't care about making a dishonest credit or your hobbies," Aeryn said with some distaste.

"If our friend Pip's gotten herself into trouble, we have to go and get her out," John said. "We're going anyway," he added with a special no-nonsense glance at Murdough.

"Sir," Rickler broke in. "You have a tier full of Elite Guard and Hynerian Regulars. Plus a hanger bay half-filled with the best attack ships and heavy troop transports ever made. Even if the full authority of the Hynerian Throne and her Navy did not get you and Officer Sun where you need to go… we'll get you there through brute force if need be."

"Thank you, Sergeant," John said, genuinely touched.

"The honor is to serve… especially friends of the Dominar," the big man replied.

Crichton turned back to the bandit then.

"Can you tell us where Chiana went or not?" he asked firmly.

"I can tell you… but I won't," Andar told them, still with that strange smile of his.

Crichton groaned, not willing to have another battle of wits with the bandit over his thieves, honor… or whatever dreck he was going to spout off next.

Aeryn placed a hand on her pulse pistol, probably thinking she would just start shooting the self-proclaimed highwayman, starting at his feet and working her way up until he told her what they wanted to know.

"I wouldn't tell you," Andar said before anyone could make threats, or let alone make good on any threats. "But I'll show you."

John and Aeryn looked at each other, both sharing the same confusion and baffled looks.

"Excuse me?" Aeryn finally said.

"I'll show you," Andar Murdough repeated with a new smile, as he bounced on the tips of his toes. "I want you to take me with you."

Now the look Aeryn and John exchanged was one of unhappy apprehension. Then they both turned to regard Andar. In return, he quickly darted his gaze back and forth between them for several microts.

"Where you're going… you're going to need a talented bandit," he told them both.

John cover his eye with one had just as the man finished speaking. He'd heard a similar phrase before.

"That settles it," he said. "There's already no way… this is going to be good."

"What?" Andar asked innocently, still looking from John to Aeryn, and then back again repeatedly. "What'd I say?"