------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter one ------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Zixx's proposal -

"I'm not sure about this Zixx."

A man in a purple cloak smiled smoothly. "Leonardo…so candid. Come now…is this the face of a liar?"

Mikey leaned forward. "And of a con-artist, a thief, a smuggler, and um…" He struggled for a word.

"A criminal." Donatello finished flatly.

Raphael snorted. "You double crossed us last time, Zixx. So tell us why we should trust you this time?"

Zixx put his hands on his armor-clad chest in mock indignation. "Because this time I'm telling the truth." He leaned forward towards the display a bit, a smile crookedly flashing across his face. "I might be Zixx of the Black Blade, but I am not a monster. These are kids we're talking about here."

Leonardo rubbed the bridge of his nose through the material. "Ok…let's hear your…proposal … again, Zixx."

The smuggler leaned back with a suave nonchalant air. "Alright. On Jupiter's fourth moon, Callisto, there is a group of aliens and human colonists. Men, women, children, you know the routine. During their exploration of the planet, they uncovered some sort of strange Jovian virus…and its killing them. They need medicine, and quick, and I want your help in getting it."

Donatello crossed his arms. "Why doesn't the Pan Galactic Alliance take care of that?" He mused. "It seems like a very humanitarian thing to do."

Zixx nodded "It does…except the colonists are actually separatists and their government, which is a member of the Alliance by the way, won't recognize them. Because of that, the Alliance is unable to send aid, because it would be seen as aiding insurgents or something like that." The smuggler waved a hand nonchalantly through the air. "The Alliance says their hands are tied. So…." He let the word hang in the air.

Leonardo sighed. He trusted Zixx about as far as he could throw him, but it was hard to ignore the obvious plight of the colonists. He glanced around the faces of his brothers. All of them wore similar expressions of mistrust, but he knew they couldn't simply sit by and knowingly do nothing. "Fine, Zixx." He said. "But why do you need US to get the medicine? You're a smuggler, can't you smuggle some?"

"I could." Zixx laughed now. The turtles always thought the worst of him; it was funny. "But you see…"

"There's always a catch." Raphael muttered flatly.

"But you see," Zixx continued, ignoring the interruption. "The medicine they need is rare, and the only place I could find we could acquire some without, ah…Alliance notice, is located in a hidden Triceraton warehouse on the asteroid Ceres." He chuckled. "Figured since you guys were trained ninja, AND you're familiar with the Triceretons…sneaking in would be easy as pie."

"Just how easy IS pie?" Michelangelo asked no one in particular. "Is it hard as a rock? Good as new? Right as rain?" Mikey mused a bit. "Pie isn't very easy to make…well a cream pie is, but apple pie, or cherry…mmmm…."

Donny smiled. "Maybe they refer to how it goes down easy?"

"Yeah." Mikey agreed. "But remember Kiah's pie? Eh, not so much."

Michelangelo clamped his mouth shut as Raphael slapped him in the head. "Fine Zixx…" Raphael said as he lowered his hand. "You playin' taxi for this? Or do we have ta find our own ride?" As the smuggler offered his ship, Raph shrugged. "Fine. When are we leavin'?"

A slow smile spread across Zixx's sculptured face. "Now!" He slammed his hand down on a button and the turtles evaporated in a mist of particles.

The room came into focus slowly and Donatello shook his head. He hated traveling by transmat; it always left him feeling light-headed. He looked around. His brothers were here and they were definitely aboard Zixx's ship. Great, he thought, this is probably a trap…for us.

He didn't particularly enjoy the prospect of working with the smuggler, given their history together, but if what he said was true then they couldn't ignore the sick colonists. It didn't matter they were fleeing their government, only that they needed help.

"Everyone ok?" Leo asked after a moment. Everyone nodded and he headed towards the doorway. "Come on, let's go see Zixx."

"Hey guys," Mikey asked as they headed up the corridor to the bridge. "If the colonists have been infected with a disease, how are we going to keep from getting it too?"

Donny shrugged. "I'd assumed we'd administer a dosage of the medicine to ourselves first."

"Nope." Zixx replied as they piled onto the small flight deck. "I think we'll just drop the cargo from the air." He glanced back at the turtles. "I, for one, would rather NOT risk an infection." He muttered.

Raph leaned over the smuggler's shoulder and Zixx glanced up briefly. "So, what's in this for you, Zixx? You're not one to do something for free or from the goodness of your heart."

Zixx was silent a moment. "I'm truly hurt by that Raphael." He said with a wounded tone. "There happens to be a lot of kindness in my heart of gold." When Raphael's gaze didn't waver, he shrugged and admitted, "Ok…see, there's this girl…."

A smug smile crossed Raph's face and he moved away from the smuggler. He loved being right.

"How are you going to find Ceres?" Donatello asked looking over Zixx's calculations.

"Well, it's one of the biggest asteroids, and since the Tricereton's breathe that sulfur-nitrogen mix…I'm scanning for concentrations of nitrogen and sulfur cross-referenced with asteroids fitting Cere's composite profile."

Donatello nodded. It was a good idea. Most of the asteroids did not have atmospheres and those that did, had thin ones. Nitrogen was a common substance in the solar system in its frozen form or in trace atmospheric amounts. However, upon the asteroids, it was rare. One would have to specifically search for the combination of the two.

He watched as Zixx referred to several star charts in an effort to narrow down the asteroid's last known location. Nevertheless, it was a somewhat slow and boring process and eventually the turtles wandered away on the small ship. They gathered in the lounge area and slumped over the seats. "Leo," Mikey complained. "You sure this isn't a trap?"

Leonardo looked over at Mikey incredulously; how was he supposed to know something like that? However, his youngest brother had good instincts; it certainly felt like a trap of some sort. "I don't know Mikey." He said finally. "Just keep our eyes open…I have a strange feeling about this."

His brother nodded. The feeling was mutual among the four. Leo would have spoke more but Zixx chose that moment to return.

"Hey guys. "He said, leaning against the doorjamb. "Found it. Grab something to eat, and there are some breath masks in the storage locker back there." As he turned to leave he paused. "I…appreciate you doing this. We'll be there in a few minutes so strap in…its rough in the Belt."

Donny poked through the locker. It was out of character for Zixx to thank them for their help. Maybe this trip was legit. Then again, Zixx was a con artist. He brought out four masks and handed them out. "Hey maybe someone should send a message to Cody and Master Splinter and tell them where we're at?"

"Or at least tell him we'll be back soon." Raph put in.

Mikey got up and went to a console. "I'll do it." Within moments, the message was sent.

Suddenly the ship rocked violently and almost threw the ninja teens to the ground. "Woah!" Raph exclaimed. "We must be in the Asteroid Belt."

Leo nodded, glancing out a nearby porthole before heading to the cockpit.

"Thought I told you to strap in?" Zixx mentioned as Leo came into the small room. "Uh…what are you doing?"

Beside Leo, Donatello squeezed past and took a seat in the co-pilot's position. "Helping you keep us alive." Donny replied smoothly.

Grudgingly Zixx accepted the help. It wasn't easy to pilot the small craft through the asteroid belt, even with two pairs of eyes and hands. Numerous small projectiles careened about the space before the ship, any number of them capable of causing fatal damage to the hull. It forced Leonardo to either strap in or meet the ground in a very painful way.

Zixx's words haunted Leo's thoughts briefly, as they maneuvered towards Ceres. He was doing all this for a woman. What sort of woman would make the smuggler act so? For a moment, he was curious about this woman but then his thoughts turned backwards. To Kiah.

Even here, in this new life, he missed her. She, like April and Casey, would be long dead. She'd never even known what happened to him and his brothers, and he would never be able to tell her. Had she wondered? Had she cried? What about Tokutaru? What about the war they had been fighting?

He didn't even know where she was buried.

Leo was left with no more time to dwell upon thoughts of the past as the ship slid up to Ceres. Zixx pointed. "Look, there's a port we can use." He pointed out a small access port partially hidden in a crater.

Donatello took a closer look. "That's not a port…that's an exhaust vent."

Zixx glanced at Donny, even as he continued to maneuver the ship towards the crater. "Won't that work?"

Paused by the question, Donny looked back at Leo, who nodded. "Yeah, Donny. Put us down there."

Once the ship settled Zixx stood by the lower cargo doors. "Luckily Ceres has a bit of an atmosphere so you won't go POP when you step outside. However, my ship's energy shield can seal up and act as a localized airlock." He shrugged a bit, as if it didn't matter either way and handed Donatello a small disk before explaining that it contained a description of the medicine. "I'll keep the engines warm for you."

Raph crossed his arms. "What's the matter Zixx? Not going with us?" He didn't truly think the smuggler intended on accompanying them, but Zixx had impressive fighting skills. They might come in handy.

Zixx didn't see it that way. Instead, he laughed. "If thought I could sneak in there and get the meds…do you think I would have called you guys?"

The turtle in red simply had no response for that, being it was true, and so shrugged and rejoined the others. They were looking around a small portable holographic emitter.

"…have a simple layout of their base." Donatello was saying, pointing out key structural details. "The storage area should be in this area here, as it's the largest open area without ships docked in it." He flipped the display off. "A complex this size could have a considerable number of people in it."

Leo nodded. "Alright then, let's keep our guard up."

"Is it ever down?" Mikey quipped lightly.

Something about this just didn't sit right with Leonardo and he refused to allow himself the humor. "Let's just get in and get out."

"Woah." Raph commented as he reached up and slapped the controls for the air lock. "Touchy."

When Leo didn't respond, Raph shrugged and let the matter drop. He was first out the airlock and as his brothers joined him, he removed the grating that covered the exhaust port.

Within seconds all four ninjas were padding silently down the metal tube. A slight stale breeze blew past them headed towards freedom, but they ignored it. At the end was a large slow moving fan that creaked loudly in the silence of the thin atmosphere.

Donatello panted lightly. It seemed like forever ago that he and his brothers had been prisoners on the Triceraton homeworld, but this brought those memories crashing back to the surface. The dank sulfur odor of the atmosphere, the low throbbing hum of Triceretron mechanics, that almost overwhelming stench of the Triceretons themselves, all worked to pull memories, separated by a lifetime, back into clear focus. He could smell the grunge of food cooking somewhere too, and it could have turned his stomach, had he let it.

As it was, he, like his brothers, worked to regulate their bodies that were unused to the nitrogen rich atmosphere. The breathers they wore helped some and so did their mind-over-body training, but it was still a strain. Donatello chewed on the end of the tube thoughtfully as he watched Leo jump through the lethal blades gracefully.

The others followed suit and, after a brief check for spectators, Don opened the access panel that let them out of the ventilation system. The turtles found themselves in a mechanical room, dirty and untended. Good. No one would notice them.

"Donny." Leo whispered. "Where are we?"

It was only matter of a few buttons and Donatello placed their position as just down the hall from the cargo bay.

Raph listened at the door. "I don't hear anyone." He stated before he opened the door to look around.

The hallway was long and almost ran the full length of the complex. The sounds and smells of food and revelry were much louder now, coming from a large double-doored room a few dozen meters away. It seemed like Tricereton lunch hour. Maybe luck would be with them.

This time Mikey was first out the door and he crept down the hall away from the smell of food. A part of him wondered what it was they were eating. As he remembered, the food on Tricera wasn't all that bad, in fact, some of it was downright delicious, even if he couldn't identify it, or even name it.

In a line behind Mikey, the others snuck into the cargo hold soundlessly and found a place among the crates to hide. "Ok…" He looked dauntingly around the dozens of stacked crates around him. "Which one Donny?"

The brainiac sighed. Why was it always on him? Then he shrugged it away and turned back to his handheld device. He held it up briefly and then shook his head. "No good, I'm afraid." He reported. "Those crates are proof against any manual scanner."

Mikey looked over the device in Donny's hand. "Can't you use your Tricorder?" He whined, not at all looking forward to a manual search.

"No Mikey." Don explained patiently. "Those crates are for smuggling, therefore, they are coated or lined with material that can defeat the handheld scanners that customs agents use. We'd need large ship-board scanners with a VERY narrow-beam threshold emitter…" he stopped talking. He'd lost Mikey around right around the word 'crates'.

Leo understood. "Alright." He said. "Spread out. The containers have labels. We need to hurry. Lunch can't last all afternoon."

The ninja's moved around the room in search of their prize. The crates weren't difficult to open, as most of them weren't locked. Those that were, were made note of, and Donny came to each of those to hack the locking mechanism. They found every sort of small-time weapon, some exotic drugs from other planets, a few rare textiles, and several boxes of illegal cybernetics and electronics.

Growing impatient and apprehensive, Raph yanked open another crate expecting to see more of the same. This time however, he found a crate filled with coarse white sand. Intrigued, he sifted through it and brought up a small metal container the size of a loaf of bread. On its surface was a digital readout of its internal temperature

He thought about it briefly. Hadn't Zixx said something about the medicine needed a climate-controlled environment? He quickly called out to his brothers, who gathered around the container as well.

Donatello examined the smaller box and then carefully opened it to peek at the contents. After a moment he confirmed it. "This is it." He said brightly.

While Donny confirmed their findings, Raph and Mikey dug through the sand and retrieved four more small containers like the first one. It was all of them and hopefully five would be enough. As Leo turned around, he announced their intention to leave.

But, the words died midsentence as he came nose to nose with a tricereton.