A/N: Another entry in my "Is it that bad?" series, this is and extra ending to the 1984 movie "The Ice Pirates".

Yo Ho Yo Ho the Pay Rate Life for Me

"Wait - what do you mean we'll have to find a new line of work?" Jason asked after a few moments of staring at the beautiful blue planet below. The sight of the lost seventh world had transfixed the whole crew of the pirate ship and after the fight with the Templar leader Zorn everyone was nearly paralyzed with relief.

"Think about it," Roscoe said as he continued to lean back in the navigator's chair.

"I'd rather not."

"Good idea - why start a new habit?" Killjoy asked. The burly fellow pirate had joined the crew after they had escaped a sentence of castration and servitude on the planet Mithra. The man had proved loyal in the fight during the time distortion so Jason let it slide. The fact that the man outweighed him and was much stronger had only a lot to do with it as well.

"Okay, well then if you won't think about it then maybe your new wife will." Roscoe pointed over his shoulder in the direction that he knew Karina, Princess of Argon was standing.

"Wife?" Jason asked as he moved about a foot away from the woman he had been standing beside.

"Of course," Karina's Nanny explained. "You don't want her to find her father with a child but no husband!"

"Wait just a minute. We only had our son during the time dilation thingy. Everything's gone back to where it was before," Jason said as he looked around. Doing battle with the Templar ship during the trip through the time distortion field, all participants had aged rapidly as they fought to repel the boarding party. Several had died from old age before Jason and Karina's son had been born and grew up to help finish off Zorn and the Templars. Exiting the field successfully, everyone had been restored to their original ages.

"Jason...you visited my cabin BEFORE we entered the field," Karina said firmly. "Or don't you remember?"

"Of course I remember! But that was years...ah, hours...oh, it seems like a long time ago. So if that's the case, then..."

"Count Vasco is going to have a grandson," Prince Wendon interrupted. "A chip of the old block unfortunately, unless he gets his mother's brains."

"Hey, that's my future son you're talking about!" Jason countered. "Um, he is still going to be a boy, right?" he asked Karina.

She rolled her eyes. "That part won't change either - it doesn't work that way. You're not going to suddenly be surprised with a daughter."

Maida snickered at her boss. The swordswoman tried to hide her mirth but was unable to do so. "I guess you don't know much about babies, either."

"I'm a captain of a pirate ship, not a doctor."

"By being an example for us all as you lead a stalwart group of freedom fighters against incredible odds..." Roscoe explained.

"That's right!" Jason quickly agreed.

"...by not being the best at anything," Roscoe concluded with a chuckle.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Except Killjoy is the strongest. Maida is the best with a blade. Zeno is better than you at computers and repairing the ship, and I'm better at navigation and robotics," Roscoe concluded.

"Then who's the smartest?"

"Probably Karina, but if you're half as smart as she is you won't ask."

Jason started to ask but stopped just short of doing so. But rather than dwell on the unflattering subject, with some difficulty he remembered what had started the conversation. "So why do we need a new line of work?"

"Just look below us. We came from a galaxy where only one planet has water and it rules everyone else with an iron fist. Even if Zorn is lost forever in the time zone, the Supreme Commander back on Mithra is still the boss and even when he's gone someone else will step up to rule over everyone. Sure, one load from that blue planet below and we'd all be rich - but we'd have to go through that time field again and we might not make it the second time - remember Lanky Nibs." Lanky Nibs had survived the trip through the field with Count Vasco, but a mere twenty minutes exposure had permanently aged him twenty years. "Then we'd have to watch out for other pirates, the Templars, stray asteroids, micro black holes and some other things I'd rather not think about. The way I figure it, with any luck this place is just perfect for a skilled roboticist."

"Going out on your own?" Jason asked. "I thought we were a team."

"Well, if you haven't planned our next move yet I have to come up with a backup plan for myself."

"Next move? I was a hundred years old a few minutes ago! Now I'm a father again for the first time and you want me to be thinking clearly? Don't say it Killjoy!" The big guy held his tongue but cocked his head knowing that the comment he would have made about clear thinking or the lack of it would have hit home. Maida grinned and elbowed Killjoy good-naturedly in the stomach before wrapping her arm around him. Jason noted that the two were certainly hitting it off. "I'm a pirate - it's the life that I'm cut out for, after all."

Now it was Karina's turn to laugh. "And you don't do THAT very well, either."

"What do you mean?" Jason asked, a little hurt.

"Now don't get offended my love, but look where you are right now. You're flying an old beat-up hulk that looks more like a cheap model than a real ship..."

"We were just in a battle!"

"...and didn't look much better BEFORE the battle," she explained.

"I told you we should have at least put some racing stripes on it," Zeno half-grumbled out loud. "And some of these lights over here have been blinking in the same pattern for three years and I don't think they even go to anything."

"And," she went on as she ticked off her fingers "you don't have a fortune set off somewhere to retire on, your robots are more than a little rickety, you would have been...ah...surgically altered if I hadn't intervened," she said as Jason and Roscoe both gulped "your swords are a little wobbly and quite frankly I don't know why I'm in love with you but I am. It must be your roguish natural good looks because those clothes are...uh...like some prop from a theater group or something."

Jason, who had been trying to absorb this critique without getting either mad or crying, cheered up somewhat. "It's just something I threw together."

"Maybe later you can throw it away. That planet down there must have SOME place to get something that isn't so...um..."

"Stiff and smelly?" Nanny suggested.

"Lived in," Karina amended.

"I could make a few suggestions," Wendon offered.

"From someone who surrounded himself with flashy female warriors riding unicorns? No thanks," Jason said as he shook his head. "So, our expedition is going to be led by someone who isn't good at navigation, repair, fighting, strength, robotics, apparently being a pirate and...did I cover everything?"

"Lousy exterminator too," Roscoe added with a shudder. Then EVERYONE shuddered. Since time had been reverted back, the space herpie that Percy had killed was probably still alive somewhere on the ship.

"Okay, okay. So with my ragtag crew of rejects..."

Several of the crew showed shock and hurt on their faces. Killjoy growled.

"...who are the best friends a guy could have and I wouldn't trust anyone else in a fight," Jason quickly said to repair the damage "we will storm the planet..."

"No!" Karina said. "My father..."

"...very quietly and stealthily we'll search for Karina's father and find out just what there is to do for a living on this planet that will reward us financially at a level that..." he said as he looked around "...will probably far exceed what we've been accustomed to. After all, the planet is mostly covered in water - as impossible as that is to believe - so there's a lot less land. How hard can it be to find one man?"

The End

A/N: Ice Pirates might have been a good, higher profile movie had it come out in the 1960s or early 1970s. But by 1984 the bar had been raised for just what people expected from the look of a sci-fi movie, and with the slashed budget this film was made on (and a complete rewrite and makeover into a comedy) that wasn't going to happen. But my aunt loved this movie and I remember her when I think of it, so that tempers my judgement somewhat. And I did like the concept of a fight while rapidly aging.