Travellers in this sector of the galaxy were known for passing stranded ships and leaving those inside to rely on the kindness of the next stranger to come by.
Most times, that next stranger would rob the marooned vessel.
It was premature for him to worry about the ship's operations; he had to scout out the interior first. Not having a designated place to sleep could be a problem, but nothing he couldn't work around.
It wasn't like he hadn't stowed away on ships before. Sometimes it turned out good. Sometimes… real, real
bad
.
This job, however, was imbuing him with optimism. He was sure he was 'this close' to claiming that sweet slice of miadne. A little creative scheduling… a hidden corner for sleeping… a mid shift sneak into the showers and galley—he'd work it out.
In their haste to depart Slide to examine whatever they had found in the vase, the redheaded woman and the Floop had abandoned him in the cargo bay and dashed up to the bridge.
Temporarily left to his own devices, it hadn't taken long for Kerreth to run into the ship's engineer.
The big, square
Kelvinator
was monitoring the engine's readouts, completely uninterested in the newcomer. He did not even turn from his console to acknowledge Kerreth's presence.
Kelvinators usually greeted strangers by offering them the cold shoulder. It was their way of saying 'how-do!' Unfortunately, no one really understood that.
Kerreth was no exception.
"Thanks for the warm welcome, friend," he muttered under his breath.
"Ur." came the disinterested reply.
Kerreth rolled his eyes and exited the cargo bay.
"So, what do you all think it is?"
Lucky bent over SpinDrift's bony shoulder to gaze at the monitor. They had literally fed the chip to Minmei—who had coughed it back up at first, then dutifully swallowed it and displayed it for them on the ship's screens.
"Maybe it's some kind of message… ?" SpinDrift cocked his head to the side as he viewed the blurry object.
Minmei continually rotated the item, as if that would help them decipher it.
"I have no idea." Lucky scratched the back of her head.
"Urrrrrrrrr." Clugot was obviously on the fence too.
Minmei yawned rather loudly. Apparently it was not easy being a computer with a short attention span.
Exasperated, Lucky threw up her arms. "Doesn't anyone have a clue as to what it is?"
She felt something rigid press into her thigh.
Lucky gritted her teeth. Since the android had come on the bridge a while ago, he had stuck to her like glue. "Stop leaning in so close to me, Slick! We are trying to work. Can't you go to your quarters until I call for you?"
"No mistress."
"Why not?"
"I do not have any quarters."
"Fine—go to my quarters!"
Kerreth shook his head. "I cannot. I must observe what transpires aboard this ship."
"Why?"
"How else am I to help you?"
"We don't need your help."
SpinDrift leaned towards Lucky and spoke in a singsong
voice. "Maybe we do-o-o. It couldn't hurt; we're getting no-o-o-o- where."
True. "Well, move back and quit crowding me, Slick. Geesh!"
"As you say." He moved back half an inch.
Lucky rolled her eyes.
How come machines never get it?! Who the hell programs these excuses for extreme annoyance
?
Minmei gave a dainty hiccup and giggled.
Lucky slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand.
Argh
!
"Whatever is on that chip seems to be locked."
Minmei concurred.
"THIS IS TRUE, I CANNOT GET INSIDE FOR YOU."
Kerreth leaned over Lucky's shoulder and pointed at the rotating, fuzzy image of the chip. "Can you clean this image up?"
"Well, I—"
"Not you; I was speaking to your ship. You do have an integrated systems op on this—" He looked around the deck with distaste. "—ship?"
"Of course we do!" Lucky bristled. The Sugarbabe might not look like much but she could outrun most corporate ships in a pinch. Wildcat had wisely put their money where he thought it counted: getaway power. All things considered, Mama Bros had patched together a pretty decent (if pitchy) system.
"Poor folk make
do
, you know?" Lucky whispered to Spin. "Seems the Masterstroke 6000s are kind of a snobby bunch."
"From what I've heard they have every right to be." Spin whispered back.
Minmei addressed Kerreth
sweetly
.
"YOU WISH ME TO CLEAR THE IMAGE?"
"Can you sharpen it up for me?" he purred back.
Minmei was smitten.
"OH, YES!
TEE-HEE-HEE
."
Lucky's mouth opened and her tongue dropped out. Thereby showcasing her extreme nausea.
Kerreth almost lost it by coughing.
Until it hit him that she was utterly adorable
. A line furrowed his smooth brow.
Why didn't he notice that before
?
Maybe he did… but ignored it for the sake of the job at hand.
Could she be trouble?
He sneaked a peak at her. Luscious full lips. Sweet upturned nose. Expressive, round green eyes . An asteroid's worth of curly red hair. And a real cheeky personality.
Oh, yeah, she could be serious trouble.
"Do you see anything?" Lucky scrutinized the image with him.
He saw something; only not on the screen. Yeah, he was
very
attracted to her.
"I know I do." He viewed her from under his dark lashes. "Do you?" he murmured right next to her ear.
The Masterstroke's hot breath skittered along Luckys lobe.
She jumped. Simulated breathing?
They even added warmth for realism
! Amazing. And a little scary. "Um… could you not do that?"
"Do what?" His warm lips almost touched her ear.
Lucky opened her mouth to let him have it but SpinDrift forestalled her. "For lick's sake, Lucky, he
is
a pleasure droid. You can't expect him to ignore his programming entirely."
"Why not?"
"I
am
programmed to seduce." Kerreth shrugged his shoulders.
"Well,
un
program yourself."
Spin examined one of his claws. "I doubt he can."
"I doubt I can." Kerreth agreed.
Lucky clenched her fists. "I swear, I will put you both off this ship if—"
"What are those markings on the side of the chip?"
"—you continue… where?" Lucky studied the screen.
"Here." Kerreth pointed to an area of the image that looked fuzzier than the rest.
"I don't see anything. Do you, SpinDrift?"
"Just some scratches on the casing."
"Those aren't scratches. Minmei…?" Kerreth looked to the console for both an acknowledgement of the proper address, as well as a direct response.
"YE-E-E-S-S-S?"
Hesitant. Shy. Yet game for fun.
You could almost see the pigtails, pleated miniskirt, and sailor blouse
.
Lucky made a face at the computer. "Could you enlarge this section of the picture for us?"
"FOR YOU, I WOULD DO IT."
Minmei's breathy tone made it clear that she would like to do much more for the android than simply enlarge an image.
The picture in front of them immediately swelled to ten times its normal size, filling the screen to the edge of the border. It spilled over to the screen on the far wall.
The implied message was not subtly done; the resulting image was impossibly
huge
.
"She never responds to me like that," Lucky groused to Spin.
"She does to Sensei Arrows, though."
Lucky grimaced. When it came to user interface, Minmei was a total gender whore.
"Hmmrn…" Kerreth stroked his jaw. "What do you make of that, Red?"
"Wishful thinking on Minmei's part?"
Kerreth's lips twitched. "Ah, I meant the image."
"Oh. Um… looks like even bigger scratches."
"Look closer; they're arrows."
SpinDrift gasped. "He's right! They are arrows! What does it mean?"
"I was hoping you could tell me." Kerreth stared at Lucky, expecting some kind of revelation.
"I have no idea!"
He quirked his brow. "Perhaps, Ms.
Arrows
, there
is
a connection between you and the chip that was left in a vase in the room belonging to the being who apparently boarded the last ship out of Volauvent after the Heart of the Merchandiser went missing?"
SpinDrift almost swooned. "Oh, oh, he sounds just like Poirot!"
Lucky ignored the Floop's buddying-up. Slick didn't seem at all like the Hercule type to her. Not one bit. She responded to him in kind. "That is ridiculous, Mr.
Slowhand
."
Okay, that sounded real stupid.
"In case you've forgotten, Slick, we are
looking
for that jewel. Why would there be a connection?"
"I'm not sure, but there appears to be one."
SpinDrift dropped his head and solemnly quoted the Belgium bloodhound. "Mon ami, what will you? You fix upon me a look of dog-like devotion and demand of me a pronouncement a la Sherlock Holmes!"
Lucky thought the android's programming had disconnected for a second because he just stood there and seemed to go
clunk
.
"What is he talking about?" Kerreth jerked his thumb in the Floop's direction.
"The same thing we're all talking about—the jewel. There's something I don't get, though…"
"Take a number."
"How did you know that only one ship had left Volauvent after the theft occurred?"
Kerreth blinked and did what
he
was famous for. Thought fast. "I scanned your ship's last transmissions from the cargo bay."
That was suspicious. "Why would you do that?"
"I wanted to be sure that the Slide Consortium was not alerted to my absence. I used your ship's sensors instead of my own to ensure that they could not track me via the transmission."
"Oh."
"Yes."
"If only we had something else to go on." Lucky chewed her lip.
Kerreth spoke in a sexy drawl to the computer. "Minmei, is there anything else you can tell me about the chip?"
"THERE IS A FIBER ATTACHED TO THE CHIP, SLOWHAND-SAN. IS IT OF ANY SIGNIFICANCE?"
Slowhand-san
. Lucky was this close to pulling Minmei's plug out. The recently grovelling computer never tried this hard for her and Spin.
"I don't know, Minmei. Why don't you tell me?" Kerreth whispered.
He could coax a hermit into a mosh pit
. Lucky sighed then felt immediately better when she realized what all that expert programming could do for the Sugarbabe.
No matter.
Wildcat was still going to kill her.
"THIS FIBER IS COMPRISED OF SKEKZIN; IT IS USED IN MANY MATERIALS FOR ITS DURABILITY. SKEKZIN IS COOL IN WARM CLIMES AND WARM IN COOL CLIMES. IT BLENDS—"
"Any unusual traits?" Kerreth interrupted her.
"MANY.
TEE-HEE-HEE
."
Lucky nodded.
There
was their Minmei. Back again and ditsy as ever. She reckoned pleasure droids were programmed to lose their patience as a way to increase the illusion that they were like real men.
Slick might be dripping testosterone—but ol'
Slowhand—san
looked like he was about to pop a cork.
"Care to tell me a few?" he gritted out.
Lucky, knowing what was coming, made ready to abridge the response for him.
"SKEKZIN IS STRUCTURED AS A PHOTOSYNTHETIC. EUKARYOTIC ORGANISM…"
"A plant." Lucky helpfully translated.
Kerreth crossed his arms and leaned back against one of the consoles. Clearly, he was prepared to wait it out.
"… WHOSE FIBER IS UTILIZED IN THE PRODUCTION OF…"
"Woven." Lucky supplied.
"… THESE FIBERS BY WAY OF THE PROCESS OF WEFT AND WARP…"
"Fabric."
"… SKEKZIN IS INDIGENOUS TO DUMFUG 8; GROWING EXCLUSIVELY ON THE SANDY TERRACES OF THE SLOPES OF—"
"Whoah." Kerreth stood. "Are you saying this fiber only grows in this one place and nowhere else?"
"THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING, SLOWHAND-SAN."
Minmei put on the screen a composite rendering of the fabric based on the fiber sample.
Ug-leeee.
"Is the fabric exported?"
"NO, SLOWHAND-SAN. SKEKZIN IS CONSIDERED A SACRED PLANT ON DUMFUG 8. FABRIC WOVEN FROM THIS PLANT CAN ONLY BE WORN BY A DUMFUG."
"No argument there." Lucky viewed the fabric with distaste.
A huge grin spread across Kerreth's face. He could learn to love that nasty fabric because it just brought that wondrous hunk of miadne that much closer to his hands. "We just got real lucky, Lucky."
"That was the clue we were hoping for?"
Kerreth nodded. "That was our clue."
"Good. You know, you have helped us, Slick. I'm almost glad we brought you onboard."
Kerreth winked at her. "It was sure
Lucky
for me."
Her cheeks colored. He was playing her all right.
"Minmei, send a course for Dumfug 8 to Clugot." Lucky punched the link to the engine room. "Clugot, we're heading to Dumfug 8; we'll need all the speed you can give us. If we got this far on the hunt, others will too. We can't afford to lose that prize."
"Urrr." Clugot out.
Lucky stretched, spreading her arms wide to work the kinks out of her back. "Now we can relax until—"
"MINMEI HAS EMERGENCY! MINMEI HAS EMERGENCY!"
Lucky snapped upright. "
What
? We just started out!"
SpinDrift waddled by. "Oh, it can't be anything too serious; you know our Minmei."
"THE SHIP WILL EXPLODE IN FORTY-FOUR POINT THREE MINUTES.
TEE-HEE-HEE
."
"WHAT?!"
"What?"
"Braaaak!"
Everyone started talking at once. Except for Spin who was running around in circles clucking hysterically.
"What is going on?" Lucky demanded of the console.
"What is the danger?" Kerreth snapped the question more like an order. Even though this wasn't his ship, he damn well knew how to captain one.
"Ur?" Even Clugot wanted some answers. Quick.