The mood was panic, shuttle bay doors opening, Duffy rushing beside Lawg to sickbay where Uka was laying unconscious on a table and Roy was focusing his glowing blue eyes on a syringe.

"How bad is she?" asked Duffy.

"Hard to say, I'm not a real doctor. It's fortunate we live in a technological age where you can just download emergency medical helpers into your android, but there are always limitations. For some reason a human or alien doctor is always better than an artificial life form. From what little I have seen, she was bitten by some kind of insect and went into shock. I gave her 2 CC's of Floraflor and an IV of Tetro-deu-tetrozene"

"What the hell is that?" asked Lawg.

"Your basic cure-all that the Galactic Federal Empire uses to treat anything serious, just a basic "don’t die" medicine administered in this here medical clicker. Floraflor is an herbal medicine, not sure what it does but the people who snort it claim it heals just absolutely everything. Despite the hype, it actually has numerous medical uses and tremendous potential for healing, so naturally it's highly illegal because you can get high off it too." Roy shrugged. "I'm covering both angles here."

"Can we help?" Duffy asked.

"Not unless she goes critical." he shrugged. Uka suddenly arched her back and went into a seizure. "She went critical. Grab a medical bi-scanner." he ordered. She opened the drawer and looked lost.

"Which one?"

"They all do the same thing, just grab any of them and put this coin-like device on her scalp, the side with adhesive. These seem to do good stuff." he added. She placed the patch on her and held the scanner like a gun.

"Now increase spinal stimulation neuro-probe to 42 jiggaflops and a bandwidth of .3 millimeters." he said waving devices over her and administering clicker-shots.

"Damnit Roy, I'm an engineer, not a doctor." she blurted Irishly.

"The big dial, turn it left and just wave it around a little."

"Seriously? Now what?" Duffy shouted.

"I'm afraid I don’t know. I followed Federal medical procedures and she should be healed…yet she isn't. She is stable but her DNA appears to be modulating into something entirely different." he sighed.

"Quick, kill her with a brick and print a new one off the teleporter." suggested Lawg.

"We can't just do that every time a life is at risk, it puts huge strain on the mainframe and could blow up the ship. Plus there are serious medical repercussions that I can't fully explain to you. It has to do with Quantum Spleefter and the cohesion of protons, very medically technical, something 20th century doctors wouldn’t grasp so there is no point elaborating to someone like you. We got away with it once but if we attempt again with her, we could cause a spatial tear and rupture the time-space confluctuum. Just trust me, I'm a robot with an illegally pirated, government sanctioned, medical programs." he assured, they both nodded.

"What is she turning into?" asked Duffy.

"I have no idea, but the insect virus is adapting her cells and mutating them to some specific end, I will try to disrupt it but it could adapt again. It's evolution."

"No that's mutation." Uka said opening her eyes. "Evolution takes generations because it uses death and reproduction to adapt, why does nobody get ever that right?"

"You're awake." said Duffy almost hugging her.

"What is the damage?" she asked.

"You are evolving into another species." said Lawg.

"Mutating! Seriously, find a dictionary. Anyway, if I turn into something horrible, just kill me and print me back." she sighed. Roy sighed too.

"Can't, quantum spleefter." he mentioned.

"Damn, never considered that. That changes everything and completely kills that game-changer revolution we made just days ago with the immortality machine. But I don’t wanna live as a monster, so if you can't fix me and I'm no longer myself, kill me." she said to Lawg.

"Oh don’t worry, I would have done it at that point, regardless of request. We don’t have the structure and supplies to keep a monster locked up in this ship; you could claw right through the cardboard walls and eat us in our sleep. Sorry." he said drooping.

"Thanks, I think. How much time do I have left?" she asked.

"No way of knowing, maybe ten years, maybe ten pages in crew logs…medicine is not an exact science, apparently." Roy mentioned.

"Find a cure, get me fixed and if you run out of options and there isn't anything left of me to save…" she growled at Lawg.

"Airlock." he nodded.

"No, not airlock! What the hell is wrong with you? Blood boiling, skin freezing, suffocation and popping like a balloon, screw that. Just shoot me in the head or give me a lethal dose of sedative, damn Lawg. Even the brick idea was better than airlock." she objected.

"Just seemed more peaceful to me. Sedatives are expensive and we can't fire guns on this ship without endangering the crew. Think of the impact on your friends having to murder you versus the easy and quiet way of sending you into the void peacefully." Lawg explained.

"Actually, Uka is right." Roy noted. "It’s a violent and horrible death, though technically silent, since there is no sound in space." he explained. "She'd be screaming but we wouldn’t hear it. I could literally just whack her with a wrench and then ghost her into space after, painless and unexpected." he finished.

"Thank you, Roy." she said squinting at Lawg. "Why can't YOU ever just be the man to volunteer to whack me with a wrench?" she asked.

"I have considered it." he muttered as the ABC song played out of tune over the alarms.

"What is that?" asked Roy.

"Alphabet song, but it's out of pitch. I thought it sounded more menacing in B sharp." he shrugged.

"First of all, I meant what does the alarm mean? Jackass, not what song it was…plus you don’t know shit about music…there is no B sharp." he objected.

"Fine E sharp, they sound alike. It’s an energy signature alarm, we're being fired at by someone we have been fired at before." he explained. Marley rolled his eyes.

"Boy, that narrows it down." he muttered, heading to the bridge as the ship shuttered with another hit. He punched up the com system and the screen flickered to life.

"Hey! Captain Lumber, of the frosty-treat." grinned Rage, Captain of the blood-storm. Roy rolled his eyes.

"Close enough, Rage. How is the crew of the Blood-storm?" he asked.

"Not bad, few diabetic incidents from all the candy but the Twick Leftists have developed a cure for that." he shrugged.

"Speaking of Cures, we have a sick crewman." Interrupted Roy.

"Sick of what?" asked Rage

"We don’t know, she got bitten by a bug on this nearby planet." he said bringing up the computer files. It displayed a 3-d rendering of the bug.

"Ah, yes…we are familiar. The virus lies dormant in the insect's venom and it causes the victim to mutate to suit its environment. Its actually quite fascinating." he smiled.

"Can you cure it?" asked Lawg entering the room. "Is it contagious?"

"No, to both." He replied. Lawg bust pumped sadly.

"Damnit, and also thank God." he sighed.

"Luckily the virus adapts to its host and is not otherwise transmittable, but she is probably going to die…or just turn into something entirely different without a shred of memory or former DNA intact. I'd wait and see what she becomes before shooting her, you may gain a valuable member with unique abilities and most of her personality still there." he suggested.

"Well that doesn’t sound too bad." Lawg smirked with relief.

"She could also mutate into a murderous beast and kill you all, you still have cardboard walls?" he asked.

"Yep." he sighed.

"Well, let's hope for something cuddly and sentient. Maybe if you keep the temperature down it will slow the mutation, I'm just totally guessing here." Rage said.

"Worth a try. Marley, turn the internal temperature down to minus one-hundred degrees." he ordered.

"Since that would kill us all, how about I drop it to a chilly 5 degrees and we all wear coats and, ya know…keep on being alive and whatnot." he suggested.

"Yes, we'll do that." he nodded. "Anything else that may help?" Lawg asked.

"Well…" Rage pondered. "I had 2 crewman contract the virus, one of them turned into a slug and melted when he tried to eat popcorn, the other one is fairly healthy, granted he did grow horns and no longer responds to his native language, He reverted to a primal mental state and became obsessed with mating, so we left him on the third planet in the Sigmund system, but he seems content eating grass and frolicking last time we checked on him."

"Does Uka like to frolic?" he asked Marley discreetly.

"Dude?!" Marley objected.

"Well, if she goes primal and starts craving grass we can drop her off there and she would have a friend." he suggested. Roy blinked a few times.

"You realize the odds that two different species would adapt to two different environments in the exact same way is virtually impossible." he suggested.

"I'm just looking for options here." Lawg said, suddenly looking like he had an idea. "I got it…we confine her to her bunk and she will adapt to her own things and just become more Uka!" he said with a smile of optimism.

"Wow…really?" asked Rage dryly. "You really don’t understand anything about anything do you?" he shook his head. "I mean, I'm a diabetic lizard with no medical experience and even I know that makes no sense. Was Lawg your family name or was it earned?" he asked

"I understand when I am being insulted!" he barked.

"It was a compliment." Rage said dryly.

"Oh…now I am unsure and since I don’t know if that was sarcasm or genuine, I'm gonna assume it was both. Thank you…but also watch your mouth!" he said switching from calm to angry and then to calm.

"Why don’t we just give her wide-band antibiotics and sedatives and hope it goes dormant?" asked Marley.

"She could just adapt to them and render them useless forever." Roy noted. Marley scratched his chintacles.

"Damn…this is tricky. How do you expose someone to no stimulus to prevent any adaptation? There must be a way to completely suppress evolution and render someone basically frozen in their state. Lawg…what was your childhood like…you seem to have quit evolving entirely." Marley suggested.

"Hey, wait." said Roy. "Cryo-freezing tube, we can literally just freeze her solid until we have better medical stuff.

Roy paced the room and went over the results.

"How did it go…she frozen?" asked Marley.

"No, the more we dropped the temperature, the quicker she adapted. She plumped up and then grew fur and now she is rapidly gaining weight for insulation. I tried raising the temperature back but the adaptation seems to have stuck.

"I need to see this." he said opening the makeshift medlab doors. He stopped in his tracks and bugged his eyes out. Uka was sitting up, crying and now resembling something more like a humanoid panda.

"Go away, I'm hideous." she sobbed.

"No, you're not hideous…little bit different, but look at the bright side." he suggested. "Now you get to wear a fury suit all the time and nobody thinks your crazy." he said with a very obviously faked grin.

"Thanks, but I'm not in the mood for humor." she said wiping her eyes. Lawg walked in and jumped at the sight of her.

"I came here to be supportive-Holy shit!" he exclaimed

"Good job with the supportive dialogue, Lawg." Marley said dryly.

"I mean…how…panda?" he asked to himself aloud.

"I'm fine, leave me alone." she said throwing a wadded up tissue.

"Violent behavior…I'm not sure if that is the primal monster she is turning into or just Uka." he said softly.

"Given the situation I'd say she is handling it well. Go get us a beverage, Lawg." Marley barked.

"And a salad." Uka-bear added. Lawg slowly and awkwardly backed out of the room trying to think of a reason to object or a comeback…he was blank.

"Well." said Roy, waving a scanner over her. "Your mental faculties seem to be the same despite physical adaptations. The good news is that we have picked up a ship on long range sensors that may be able to help. It’s a very large ship and with any luck they are advanced humanoids with better medical technology." he said.

"Luck of the Chaffee, I summon thee." muttered Uka, with a slight smile.

A shiny and mighty ship hovered in front of them, its engines humming in the soundless void of space.

"Hail them." ordered Lawg, adjusting his collar.

"Greetings." said a woman in a red uniform, giving her hair a slight fluff as she raised an eyebrow.

"Greetings yourself, this is Captain Lawg of the SS Tast-E-Chill. We have a crewman that is very sick. May I speak with your Captain? We need advanced Federal Empire medicines to save her life." he asked.

"I AM the Captain. Captain Patricia Goodspeed of the Federal Starship Nomad." she said with slight irritation.

"…but you’re a woman." he said puzzled, his eyes got very big and he looked apologetic. "I am so sorry." he said looking solemn.

"It's okay, I forgive you." she said, still irritated.

"Your Captain must have been killed and I am deeply sorry you had to take his place. It must be difficult, I assume there are no capable ranking men on the ship, or that you were his lover?" he sighed. "or daughter?"

"What? What the hell is wrong with you? We have a balanced crew of almost 200 people and most of them are capable officers regardless of gender. Do you want help or not?" she asked.

"Absolutely…could you give us a lift to your planet or base?" he asked.

"We sustained a massive power overload the other day, so our distortion drives are offline and the Teleporters are down too. At your present speed it should take you about 5 days to get to us, what is your maximum speed?" she asked.

"Current speed." he said. Her eyes got big and she threw her hands up, looking flustered, and rubbing her forehead.

"Damn, we're not supposed to interfere with pre-light speed species. Why do I dick this up all the time? It’s a damn Federal directive." she sighed, rubbing her face and inadvertently causing one lock of hair to stick up out of place, as she assessed her blunder. Roy entered the bridge with a tablet, picking up the conversation.

"Technically, with your propulsion systems down…aren't you a pre-light speed technology vessel yourself at this time?" he asked. She blinked and looked back to her first officer who just shrugged.

"Good enough for me. Maintain course and velocity and I will prepare a medical team to await your arrival. What seems to be the problem with your crewman?" she asked.

"A virus, non transmittable but it is causing her to evolve at hyper-speed." Roy said leaning, spotting someone he seemed to know, waving like a kid who spotted a friend at a ball-game. She turned and looked at one of her crew with confusion.

"You know my tactical advisor?" she asked.

"No, but it's nice to see another black robot on a starship…respect." he said throwing up a hand gesture that made him look perplexed. The security officer shrugged in confusion.

"I'm not a robot. I am Valerian."

"Could have fooled me." Roy said looking disappointed. "Do you have Experience with this virus?" he added.

"Not specifically" Goodspeed nodded. "But our medical officer is incredibly adaptable and seems to have a fix for everything we encounter, weather it be lethal radiation or bio-weapons. He can cure anything in about 40 minutes or less, depending on the severity and weather or not the patient is important to the adventure. We had a crewman recently go so fast during a flight test that he turned into a newt. Doctor had him back to normal in 30 minutes, no side effects." she bragged.

"That’s incredibly convenient yet void of any logic." Lawg said with disbelief. "You did say he turned into a Newt?" he repeated.

"I don’t wanna talk about it in detail. It was weird and a very long story short… there was some regrettable breeding; body parts fell off, a really bad day on the Nomad. What did you say your ships designation was again?" she asked.

"SS Taste-E-Chill." Lawg Beamed proudly.

"Geese, I assumed you were being funny. It suddenly lost its humor." she said closing her eyes.

"Yes, that is absolutely a rouse, we have to keep from intimidating potential allies. The official designation is the SS Blood-Storm." he bluffed.

"I get it, you're an idiot in an ice-cream truck, moving on. So what symptoms does your infected crewman have?" she asked.

"Yesterday she was a humanoid Zeroxian, and now she is a Panda." Roy said.

"I see…just to be clear, this is a serious distress call, correct? You aren't just wasting our time on a prank or anything?" she asked.

"Dead serious." he assured.

"Are you the ships Emergency Doctor?" she asked.

"I'm a dance robot with identity issues. My only medical briefing is a pirated software patch on Delmarian Geriatrics and most of the files involve ritual Fupar…so our medical capability is currently: antibiotics and herbal cure-alls."

"Medaprovaline?" she asked.

"Don’t have any." Roy smiled.

"My god, it’s a wonder any of you survived your first oil change." she sighed.

"EEEExactly." Roy said, his eyes flickering from blue to red, whistling as he walked away.

Captain Goodspeed sipped her coffee and struggled to keep her massive plume of hair in a tight bundle as she debated what to do.

"I think we should help them." said the token Asian officer to Captain Goodspeed.

"Well we already tampered with the regulations and they don’t pose any threat to us. The robot looks outdated, the Captain is an idiot, and the only one with a brain seems to be the child sized space-bunny. Have you scanned their ship?" she asked him

"I have. The diagram here shows the basic layout."

"Holy crap, it’s a shuttle craft. I thought we couldn’t pick them up because they had cloaking, I didn’t realize the whole ship was the size of our mess hall. It's 37 meters from nose to the tape on the tail-lights."

"Actually it’s a fully supported ship, it has a shuttle pod of its own, and ironically it's jammed in a shuttle bay that looks like it was made from a slightly larger shuttle pod."

"Ugh, God it actually does say Taste-E-Chill on the side." she said appearing to have a headache.

"It seems that way. The engines are pretty antiquated; I am frankly amazed that it even runs. Combustion generator, no stock shielding, mono-aluminum hull, no lasers or rockets, just one antique cannon that probably doesn’t work."

"They may as well be flying a cave. What about the ships data files, can you hack them?" she asked.

"Didn’t have to, the password was just "password". No crew logs, no manifest or cargo documents, just a Captain's diary that totals about 15 chapter, a few special features files, 3 of them appear to be bathroom details and personal sexual conquests." he noted.

"They're like animals."

"They do have a rabbit and a panda, excluding the robot that makes animals literally half the crew. I can't imagine how they could be a threat to us, I'm not even picking up any Holographic systems." he shrugged.

"Is that a chimney?" she asked zooming on the top of the ship.

"Woodstove flu, an ancient Earth heater fueled by pieces of wood." he added.

"Where does the smoke?…never mind. By the time they get here they'll all be dead of old age, how soon can we get engines back online?" she asked.

"Maybe 15 hours if I work a double shift." he guessed.

"I want it done in 5." she said firmly crossing her arms.

"Then I guess I can do it in 5 hours, since you made it a direct order." he nodded obediently.

"And somebody bring me another Cappuccino." she barked.

"What do you think?" asked Lawg.

"Bout what?" asked Roy.

"Can we trust them?" he asked skeptically.

"Why is that even in question? Uka might be dying or undergoing permanent Pandization, there are no ships or planets in the nearest lightyear except the one with the virus and we found a fully stocked Federal Cruiser. There is no reason not to trust them and if they aren't trustworthy we are screwed anyway because they could vaporize us just by flying close enough to engulf us in the afterburner plasma. Is this because they have a female captain?" Roy asked.

"She seems a bit…grumpy…on edge. Like maybe she needs a good bath and some descent nookie." he muttered. Roy raised an eyebrow.

"You actually going to attempt to seduce a Captain of a Federal Cruiser, while 20 percent of our crew is undergoing a genetic panda reassignment?" he asked.

"Ugh, you sick robot. I didn’t mean I was going to give her the Captain's log; I just mean she looked deprived and angry. That’s disgusting. Just because she clearly needs to get laid, doesn’t mean I'm volunteering my services."

"Because it is wildly inappropriate to make a move on a fellow Captain, or because it could jeopardize Uka's life, or because she is twice your age?" Roy asked.

"She is like…40, 45 maybe. Still doable. Besides, even if I was remotely interested…and I am not, even I have standards…she is clearly a lesbian. I can do way better than an angry lesbian gilf with a sinus problem."

"Oh goody-joy, please explain to the ambiguous, minority-group robot how you can instantly and offensively tell she is a lesbian, aside from the fact that she didn’t seem to like you." Roy said, looking peeved.

"Well that part mostly, but it was numerous things in addition. Her stance, her butch demeanor, those shoulder pads in her uniform, and she is a female Captain. Nobody would let a woman rule a starship, let alone a government funded goliath like the Nomad unless she had relative connections or a tremendous testosterone boost. 50/50 chance on those odds and that's not counting the hairdo."

"Yea, I'm just gonna suppress that discussion for now." Sighed Roy

"Good, because I have suspicions about this. How convenient that their teleporters are down and the engines are offline too…and a female Captain? With no way of getting to us, we are forced to go to them, outgunned and helpless to their vessel. I smell a trap." he squinted stupidly.

"It’s clearly a trap." Captain Goodspeed said sipping her Cappuccino."

"How can you be so sure?" her robotic demeanored tactical officer asked, checking the schematics.

"My gut instinct. Captain Lawg? Please. It's obviously a fake name. It's not even a clever joke. We get sucked into a inter-dimensional vortex and go a week without communications and just as we take weapons offline for repairs…a tiny recon ship appears, asking for medical help…their teleporters are conveniently down, sub-light engines only…so we have no choice but to let them dock in our ship, right where they could hurt us. No ship this small or derelict could be in deep space alone, there is something cloaked out there waiting for an opportunity and this is either a decoy or a Trojan horse." she said plotting her defense. the scene cuts abruptly back top the Taste-E-Chill as Lawg scratched his chin.

"A what?" asked Marley as Captain Lawg stood paranoid.

"Trojan whores…an ancient Roman Earth myth. These women would sing to sailing ships and lead them to their doom. Horny sailors would take the bait, quite literally since they were fish from the waist down." he explained, sipping his bubblegum cherry daiquiri.

"Kinda like the shrimp you almost had sex with." Marley grinned.

"We don’t ever speak of that, but yes. Only instead of puppets, they were actual women, half fish and half mer-prostitute. Somehow they built a wooden donkey from shipwrecks and sealed themselves inside so when the sailors brought it on their ships…BAM, they spring out and killed them all." he explained.

"Why would they hide in the donkey if the horny men were already going to let them onboard to fornicate?" Marley asked.

"I don’t know…it's Roman myth, nothing made sense. They worshipped golden gods and used communal-sponges to wipe their asses, these were not intelligent people, hell they probably couldn’t even build a road…point remains, it’s a metaphor for letting your enemies too close. If we let this nasally vixen lure us in, we must have a plan to spring out and strike, build our own donkey, so when they take the donkey in, having no idea one of us is inside…BAM, we got them first." he said looking oddly serious. Marley stood dumbfounded.

"Is this drugs? Are you on the drugs right now, because you are acting more schizophrenic than usual." Marley asked.

"I don’t mean building a literal wooden donkey, we don’t have that much wood, just some sort of weapon or device that they wouldn’t suspect and would accept as a gift, that way when they strike…we have the checkmate pieces ready to fold… Uno." he said dramatically scratching his head.

"Maybe…and this is just a crazy idea, maybe we can just generously accept free healthcare from an advanced Federal Ship, and then as payment, you could NOT build a bomb or try to bang the Captain…because that sounds like a fair deal to me. I would totally take that offer over your usual ideas." Marley countered.

"No, this dyke wouldn’t take the honeypot anyway, she doesn’t like men and our only hot chick now looks like a woodland creature." he sighed.

"You know beauty is relevant. Some people might think Uka is attractive now all furry and plump, whereas before she was just another unappealing hairless humanoid." he muttered, suddenly noticing a strange look from Lawg. Marley's eyes got wider. "Obviously I am being hypothetical, I just mean it’s a bad idea to use anybody for a honeypot trap in a galaxy this obscure. Can't we just get the medicine and go without an incident? Just this once?" he begged.

"If it's an incident she wants…it's an incident she will get." he said with a maniacal chuckle.

"Nope. Doing the bad idea. Not a brain in your head, Lawg…nothing."

"Nothing, I scanned them 3 times." said her almost-robotic advisor. "I can tell you what color wallpaper they have in the plastic outhouse, and yet I detect no ship weaponry aside from a manual cannon that probably doesn’t work. There are no hidden weapons of mass destruction. No antimatter core to detonate, not even enough fuel to be an explosive risk with a level 6 phase field cast around it. They only have 3 hand-held weapons in the cargo bay. This crew and ship is of zero tactical threat whatsoever. We can scan them again for weapons before they leave the shuttle bay, and there are no other ships within sensor range waiting to pounce on us." explained the tactical officer to Captain Goodspeed.

"None that we can detect. They could be cloaked, they could open a singularity and have a fleet waiting for us on the other side." she said sipping her 6th cappuccino and shaking slightly as she lowered the cup.

"May I speak freely, Captain?" he asked mechanically.

"Of course, you are one of my closest personal friends and for the last 12 years I have looked to your wisdom when things were difficult. Whatever you say, I will consider it." she said with a soft smile.

"I believe you be trippin." he said coldly.

"What the hell?" she shrugged, moderately offended.

"An ancient Earth saying. When bitches be trippin, it means you are having a moment of unclarification and may be delusional or paranoid, usually over another woman, but in your case I believe it is merely sleep deprivation and caffeine overdose. You haven't slept for 29 days and you have consumed nothing but caffeinated bean soup and sweetened dairy product. By all logical human standards, you should be dead by now. The fact that you are conscious and forming sentences is astonishing in itself, and to assume there is no mental stress or lapses in judgment is just dumb." he said hesitantly glancing his eyes to see her reaction as he remained statue-frozen in a military stance.

"You think I am crazy?" she asked.

"Not crazy, but suffering exhaustion. You are irrational and bitchy when you don’t sleep and your emotions become indecisive and erratic."

"That’s insubordinate talk of mutiny and I could have you thrown in the brig. I am not indecisive!" she said with elevated tone and volume.

"Yes you are."

"Ugh, damnit your right, maybe I am indecisive, I don’t even know anymore. I am losing my mind." she said placing her head down on the table, lifting it up with one stray lock of hair now looped over the top. "With the crappy meals on this ship and the constant breakdowns, I just can't handle one more fiasco. I don’t know why I let that damn Cook prepare anything, all he does is turn rations into inedible slop and poison the crew…you know 3 people have died of aggressive diarrhea this year alone?"

"I have suffered many nights of this very horror. I once asked for vegetable broth and he gave me an alien blood-soup with at least 20 percent of it being Frankie's flamin buffalo sauce by volume." he nodded.

"I just can't help myself but scoop up every wayward stray and bumbling psychopath that comes our way, despite already having shortages in everything from food capacity to power usage. What if I end up adopting the bunny? You know how I am with pets. The puppy I got died less then an hour after I got him, not to mention the fish. I can't handle losing a talking bunny" she sighed.

"I admit, I was shocked that a goldfish could hang itself." he noted.

"I want to help them but there is no room on the bridge for 6 new people, we already have 8 or 9 main crewmen to keep track of and 190 anonymous extras running around, getting pregnant and abducted left and right. We simply can't afford to bring in another 6 established characters." she said looking stressed. "And these people seem like some real odd characters indeed."

"Might I offer a solution?" he asked.

"You might."

"I think I will." he added.

"Permission granted." she nodded

"Permission Granting approved, Captain. We could send the ships medic to their ship wirelessly and avoid any direct confrontation. He could treat their sick panda and return when he is done, keeping the frozen dairy vessel at safe firing distance, thus alleviating your concern of any traps."

"That's brilliant… download the doctor to their robot and if they try anything that puts the ship and crew in danger we can just outrun them and leave his grouchy digital-ass on the SS Waffle-cone. No lives at risk, everyone wins."

"Except the doctor." reminded the tactical officer.

"Yea, but whatever, he's not a real person." she waved casually.

"You are sending a medical robot?" asked Lawg.

"I'm sorry, but we can't risk contamination or shenanigans. We are sending a download of our robot temporarily to yours." she said over the view screen.

"We all had Shenanigan Vaccinations in grade school. Plus we have no medical supplies!" he barked.

"We will send the data stream through the wifi receiver you have on the roof. It shouldn’t take long to download the virtual doctor software to your robot and we have sent a care-package adrift with medical supplies. If you are streaming any movies, I suggest shutting them off before the transfer." she nodded.

"Care package?" he asked, X-ing out of his current shows. "We have crates of generic medical crap here, we need highly advanced equipment, diagnostic beds, CT machines and a physical biological doctor who understands the technical aspects of advanced space-procedures." Lawg complained.

"I assure you, Federal Space Medicine is so advanced on our ship you can basically cure death with just a 2 person sickbay and a glitchy backup robot with 4 identical tools. We don’t even have a real nurse and we managed to resurrect our cook at least twice now. We pretty much use the same syringe over and over and the same 4 or 5 medications to treat anything from cancer, to rabies, to Thermion plague." she assured.

"Gross. What about a cure for baldness?" he asked.

"Unfortunately no, even our robot went bald. Teleporters are after all, a radiation nightmare, we all know that risk." Goodspeed reminded.

"Worth asking. Okay, send the virtual doctor and the crate of 4 or 5 medicines." Lawg said hesitantly.

Roy stood, his eyes turning yellow as he downloaded another personality to his already confusing stockpile. He suddenly smiled.

"Hello, I am Medical android 001. What can I do for you today?" he asked, suddenly losing his smile. "And how did I get on this ship?" he added, looking concerned. Marley looked irritated.

"We downloaded you to our robot. Captain Goodspeed sent you here to fix our panda, I mean our Uka. Our Uka is now a panda." he yawned.

"She sent me here? Not Copy me? Why would she send my original data files instead of just making a copy of me? If there is any problem, my personality will be lost forever, that’s the only benefit of being artificial software…you can make backup copies! Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?" he barked.

"We can make a copy before you go back, essentially making you immortal." suggested Marley.

"But then I only exist on this ship as a backup and I am disconnected from my backup matrix. It makes no sense; if I was lost they would have no way of retrieving me regardless." he said in despair.

"I didn’t mean it would help you, I mean it would help us. We need a doctor and there would be no point in keeping you and denying a ship of 200 people when you can just be copied. Actually, a ship that big with 200 people would need more then one doctor. Why wouldn’t they just download ten of you so you could have a whole medical crew?" asked Marley. "There is plenty of storage space, hell you could store it on a portable thumb drive and wear it as a pendant.

"Because organic people are stupid and never use technology for their best potential, but don’t worry, I occasionally have one or two completely untrained humanoid volunteer on off days assisting me, so there is that towering benefit." he said irritated.

"Oh boo-hoo" said Lawg entering the room drinking a 40oz regular-beer float. "Can you un-panda our friend or not?" he asked as the robot looked appalled.

"Is that alcohol? What would your captain say if he or she saw this behavior?" asked the smug doctor. Lawg slid his feet together and saluted.

"Captain William T Lawg at your service. I am just sterilizing the equipment, and since I am prone to injuries, I'm keeping my blood-alcohol over .4 for everyone's safety.

"So Captain Goodspeed just assigned me against my will to another ship and now you plan to keep me here as a copy regardless of my wishes…does everyone regard me as property rather than sentient life just because I am artificial? Artificial data has been deemed sentient life for almost a century, why is this still a thing? I have rights. I may be artificial, but I have feelings… digital subroutines that mimic feelings and I am representing anger right now. This is essentially slavery." he objected.

"Don’t look in the mirror, it gets worse." Marley smirked, trying not to laugh.

"How can it possibly get worse than robot slavery?" he asked, turning and getting even more shocked as he saw the mirror.

"I'm black? I'm a slave and I'm black? Do you realize the irony in that? Racism was wiped out over 200 years ago?" he asked Marley chuckled.

"Unfortunate coincidence. If it makes you feel better, that was totally not our fault. I promise you the Captain doesn’t treat him any shittier then the rest of us, we are all equally disposable on this floating brick. Lawg isn't racist…he is obviously, horribly sexist and narcissistic, but not racist…Politically incorrect yes, but he will give you the same indifference as any other male." smiled Marley.

"How can you be so casual? This is violating my digital rights and making me feel like property. The color of my polymer skin is irrelevant, treating any sentient program like a tool is morally wrong. " he objected.

"And that’s why I am modifying your emotional subroutines, so you'll basically just be a mindless drone with no feelings or opinions, just something Roy can use when someone breaks a femur, or ruptures a giblet. Humans have giblets, right?" he said finishing his program and hitting send on the tablet.

"I refuse, I will not be treated…Hello, I am medical android 001." he said suddenly changing demeanor.

"That was easy, gotta love robots. Any objections to working with me on saving Uka's life?" he asked.

"Other robot personality Roy shook his head and gave a thumbs-up. Lawg finished his beer and hopped off the table, brushing his spilled dribble with his hand.

"Okay, we gonna un-panda her now or what?" Lawg asked.

"Medical database files are completed and it looks pretty simple, just modify the genome and mix it with 200 cc's of Xanaprovaline and DePandatol. Should take a day or two to synthesize and then just a quick spray and watch the hair melt away. Good thing someone got turned into a newt on the Nomad ship or this serum and procedure wouldn’t exist." Roy smiled.

"Pandectomy approved. How did that newt thing happen anyway? I've been wondering. Alien virus? Contaminated radiation leak?" asked Marley.

"No, he just went way too fast." Medical Roy shrugged.

"I don’t get it…how does going really fast turn you into a newt?"

"That's really the only way to do it, other then witchcraft. Just really, really fast flying. Once you hit the maximum velocity, physics gets stupid."

"How fast?" asked Lawg.

"All of them…all the fasts ever, all at once. Its just too much fast for biological life to handle…so he evolved into a Newt…a creature apparently better suited for fastness far better than any humanoid." he explained with a dead-serious expression. Lawg sighed in relief.

"Good thing without the stealth-drive we cant exceed about 450 MPH in this turd, I don’t wanna be a newt. Hey, I bet all those medical records would make one hell of a good TV show." Lawg said scratching his chin.

"You'd think, but I bet you'd still be disappointed here and there."

"Hey, I got an idea." Marley said hopping up. "Can you stop her from evolving further and make it where she won't lose any of her memory or personality, but not make her look like she was before either?" he asked. Roy and Lawg looked confused.

"So…" Roy pondered. "Keep her a panda…but prevent further changes and personality degradation…any reason exactly?" he asked.

"I just think she might like being a panda, it's only fair to let her decide that, isn't it?" he awkwardly argued.

"Has she ever, even once expressed her desire to be a furry creature?" asked Roy.

"Not…specifically, but I could talk to her and let her know her options, she deserved options, it's her life damnit!" he barked.

"You feeling okay?" asked Lawg.

"Just promise me you won't dose her for like…ten minutes. Would ten minutes hurt anything?" he asked.

"It shouldn't hurt anything, plus it takes at least 10 to 35 hours for the serum to brew, so she isn't going back to humanoid any time today." Roy noted.

"Oh good…and your sure that isn't detrimental?" he asked.

"Hope not…cuz we can't go any faster." Roy said.

"I'll be in the medlab." he said darting off. Roy and Lawg watched him scurry away and gave a moment to ponder the weirdness of his actions.

"That was really weird." Lawg said looking around.

"Why would Marley want ten minutes to convince Uka to stay a panda?" asked Roy. Lawg's face slowly turned into a smug grin and he chuckled to himself.

"Cuz he is banging her, he's been banging her for weeks…and now she all fury like him. Horny little bunny is gonna be so pissed when his little sex-panda turns back into a humanoid." he chuckled.

"That’s dark, bro. You know you might be slightly evil?" said Roy with a blank look.

"It's still funny. Uka is gonna be fine, she always is, and Marley has to keep slummin with a humanoid." he chuckled.

"Haven't you banged the fat girl like twice?" he asked. Lawg looked appalled and suddenly slapped Roy, immediately coddling his sore hand. "Yep, still a robot…titanium jawbone." he said softly.

"You'd think I would remember that." Lawg whined.

Captain Goodspeed sat up from her nap to the sound of the door beeping. She quickly peeled off the napkin adhered to her face.

"Just a second." she said putting her hair up and answering the door to see her security officer waiting patiently.

"What is it?" she asked.

"We have picked up another ship heading our way." he said.

"I knew it, battle stations, code orange, shields up and lasers set to full power." she said rushing to the bridge. She stepped into a mostly empty room. She paused and threw her hands up, noticing everyone seemed to be on anything but high alert, yawning and sitting around, arriving at a casual stroll one by one."

"Why is everyone just moping around?" she asked.

"The new ship is a long way off, it looks like a freight hauler, minimal armor, half our size, no weapons detected."

"I don’t care, something is about to break loose and I want full battle stations ready. This trap is about to spring and prove I'm not insane and we need to be ready to survive it and then tell me how I was right."

"Captain…" said the token Asian guy. "We really don’t do much to prep for combat, everything is automatic and we mostly just tell you what is happening. Push buttons and say aloud what's going on."

"So when I tell you to bring shields up and charge weapons…" she started.

"Weapons are always charged…their just lasers with battery banks and rockets that are already in the tubes, shields automatically come up to full power when a ship reached scanner range, Federal Safety Standards. All we do is damage reports and steer the ship, essentially." he shrugged.

"Damn, why doesn’t anyone tell me these things? Never mind, forget all that, just look busy and be alert in case we need something done manually."

"We are being hailed." he muttered with a yawn as a few more bridge crewmen took casual positions.

"On screen." she growled.

"I AM RAGE!!" hollered the lizard that appeared on the viewer.

"I can see that. This is Captain Goodspeed of the heavily armed Starship Nomad, state your intentions."

"I am Captain Rage of the Blood-storm. I am here for the ship you are harboring." he barked.

"Here to retrieve your shuttlecraft or activate your Trojan horse?" she smirked.

"N…no." he stuttered with confusion. "What?"

"Drop your shields and reverse course, or I will target your engines." she ordered.

"Whoa, calm down lady…I mean no harm, especially to a more formidable ship." he smiled nervously.

"How many other ships are out there?" she asked.

"Just the Blood-storm and that damn ice-cream ship as far as I know. I don’t understand the hostility. I just came back because the historical merchandise they traded was fake." he said getting very passive.

"You sent your scout ship to size us up and now you want it back with tactical data, I intend to make you aware that we will not be intimidated." she said targeting his engines.

"Damn lady…" Rage scoffed. "We are not with this small ship, but when we last encountered, I was promised valuable goods for medical assistance and information…I received none. You can have them when I'm done, I just want compensation in goods and I owe Captain Lawg a good ass-kicking." he said powering weapons.

"They have hidden offenses, target the weapons bank." ordered Goodspeed.

"No, don’t target weapons…I have no intentions on firing on superior vessel, we are Leftist Twicks, normally passive, but that bastard owes me money, please do not impede our business." he asked nervously.

"Leftist, rightist, you're all the same. Ready guns." She ordered.

"Oh shit." muttered Lawg, noticing the new and upgraded Twick ship approaching. "Um, everyone take stations, we have a problem."

"Twicks?" asked Marley, hopping into his station. Roy entered the room and his eyes changed to tactical blue.

"They have upgraded their weaponry, I am guessing you never paid them for the medical information?" asked Roy. Lawg scoffed.

"Like we have money?" he asked. "Besides, they won't fire on us with the SS Nomad this close. We're probably fine." Lawg said taking position. Roy's eyes got big.

"Two more ships just dropped from light-speed. Both Twick vessels are powering weapons. Two heavy battle cruisers." Roy added.

"Correction, we're all screwed." Lawg said pressing buttons frantically. Duffy came staggering from the back room.

"Okay, who the hell pissed off the Twick Armada?" she asked. "You know they usually come in pairs!"

"Where have you been for the past day?" asked Lawg.

"Full shuttle rebuild, takes hours. Why do the Twicks want us dead this time?"

"Before Uka went panda, I kinda implied some things were valuable and owe them money we don’t have." he shrugged.

"Frig…did you say Uka was a panda? What does that even mean?" she asked.

"Complicated situation seeing as how we are taking evasive maneuvers to not die right now." hollered Roy, rolling left to hide behind the Nomad, sending Duffy and Lawg rolling.

"Why do no ships have seatbelts?" Duffy barked. "Wait…did we piss of the Leftists or Rightists?" she asked. "Because those are Rightist battle cruisers." she noted. Everyone looked even more concerned. "A left and a right in the same territory makes sense, but if you got 3 in the same pack, something went bad wrong."

"Emergency maneuvers, hide behind the Nomad!" hollered Rage, panicking at the sight of the Enemy Right Twick ships that had tracked him down.

"Everyone remain calm." ordered Captain Goodspeed. "Nobody has fired a shot, this can be settled diplomatically. She said as the Rightist warship hailed them. She pulled it up on screen. A rather Intimidating Lizard appeared in front of a throne of bones and bloody trinkets. He bared his sharp teeth and stood up, pounding on his chest armor and showing his horns.

"I am Captain Summer Breeze of the Rightist Warship Windleaf. Let us have the Leftist vessel and it's puny prey or we will cut your ship in half." barked the rather aggressive looking Right Twick. Goodspeed lowered the audio and turned to her Tactical officer.

"What kind of weapons do they have?" she asked.

"All of them." said the officer.

"Crap. That’s a lot of weapons, can we handle them with full shields?" she asked.

"Unlikely. Each ship is comparable in armor and shielding to the Nomad, a diplomatic solution would be advisable or we will all die." he said robotically. "There is also a noteworthy anomaly forming a thousand kilometers off starboard, it could be a singularity forming." he added.

"You mean there could be more ships arriving unannounced?" she asked, growing concerned.

"Unknown. But the freighter is trying to hide behind us for cover."

"That’s not fair." she barked. "What kind of candy-ass Twicks hides behind another ship?" she said frustrated.

"That one right there." informed the Tactical advisor.

"Right or correct, I thought it was the Left Twicks?" she said confusedlyish

"I don’t know anymore." he honestly replied.

"Inform them that this is a misunderstanding." she ordered.

"I don’t think they care, Captain." he replied.

The Tast-E-Chill nearly hit the Leftist ship trying to use the Nomad as a blocker for the Rightist Warships. Captain Goodspeed looked alarmed.

"I'm Lost here guys, why are we in the middle of this dispute?" she asked.

"Because we have a large enough ship to do so. I don’t think this conflict intended to involve us, but we are now floating between at least 2 warring factions and it is unclear who is on the side of the shuttlecraft." he said as a laser beam raked across the front glass, narrowly missing the Nomad. He sighed.

"I stand corrected. The Bloodstorm appears to be trying to fire on the Taste-E-Chill. They are circling us for cover. The remaining warships are powered and standing by, it is unclear who they are attempting to apprehend."

"Tactical formation Delta." she said as they all held on for safety.

"Tactical formation Delta!" hollered Lawg as he fell from his chair.

"We don’t have the integrity for tactical formations, this is a manual ship, we don’t even have working guns." barked Roy. "I suggest formation RUN AWAY."

"What the hell?" shrugged Goodspeed. "They just stopped. We both did. Why aren't we moving?" she asked.

"It appears we both went with attack pattern Delta and are just executing the same movement, negating the point entirely."

"What are the odds of that?"

"Given that the ship has only one for each letter of the Greek alphabet, we both had a 1 in 24 chance of choosing any maneuver. I suggest we add more maneuvers if we survive."

"Surely there are more than 24 maneuvers possible, why didn’t we allow more options?"

"Because we ran out of Greek letters."

"Should have just used English, would have given us more maneuvers." she said rubbing her scalp.

"Captain…" said one of the rightist lieutenants, to Captain Breeze. "The Blood-storm appears to be chasing a small ship around the larger ship. We can't lock onto them without risking hitting another ship. We don’t know who's side they are on."

"Then shoot THROUGH them, I want the Blood-storm in pieces and I don’t care who else will die in the crossfire." he growled. The Windleaf powered weapons and aimed for the cluster.

Sparks flew from the consoles of the Nomad as Captain Goodspeed held on, letting one lock of hair fly wildly out of place, spitting it out of her mouth as it obstructed her view.

"Why are they firing on us? I want guns returning fire back on that Warship." she ordered.

"We can't, starboard Lasers are damaged, we need to turn around to get them in range." The advisor advised.

"Cant we go around?" she asked.

"We have to spin in place, if we move forward or any direction, we risk colliding with the two smaller ships circling us like moons."

"Damnit, you Dipshits…move out of my way." she yelled as the Tast-E-Chill soared a few feet from the nose of the ship and another energy blast from the Windleaf weapons rocked the bridge.

"Singularity has closed." said the Tactical Advisor.

"Good, we don’t need any more confusion in this rotating gaggle of assholes." Goodspeed sighed as a rather hefty jolt shuttered the ship.

"We got bumped." said the token Asian.

"Which ship? Did anyone take serious damage?"

"Um…neither of the two ships hit anything, something entirely new broadsided us. It appears to be invisible, but the impact created a gravity anomaly on the scanners.

"Are you kidding me, another ship…on who's side?!" she asked.

"No idea, but they are parked between us and the Windleaf." he replied.

"So let me see if I get this…two lizard warships sniping us at a distance trying to hit the other lizard ship stuck in geosynchronous orbit around us, because it's following an ice-cream truck pulling the same maneuver as us and now an invisible ship between the Pair of Twicks and the spinning pile of bullshit?"

"Correct." he nodded.

"I should have been a baker." she sighed.

Captain Lawg stood proudly, clutching his bottle as the missiles from the Windleaf grew closer.

"Men, women…toasters and critters of all types. It was a pleasure serving with you all, and I want you to know that I always considered you my…" he paused, realizing the missiles hit something invisible and didn’t reach them.

"Care to finish that?" asked Duffy.

"Nevermind…we may live a little longer." he smirked.

"Uh, I got nothing on sensors." shrugged Marley. "Missiles hit something invisible between us and the Windleaf.

"Hazaa! Fate loves us again!" cried out a triumphant Lawg as the ship suddenly jolted and lights went out.

"Yea we do still have that Leftist ship trying to kill us." reminded Duffy.

"I'm so confused…who doesn’t want to kill us?" asked Marley just holding his paws up in frustration. The Windleaf suddenly exploded into particulates out of nowhere. Suddenly the nothingness between them materialized into a rather menacing stealth ship, approximately double the size of the Nomad and with several glowing weapon ports charging.

Captain Goodspeed's eyes widened.

"That’s a big damn ship…I seriously hope they are on our side." she said as it turned, and a beam of blue light narrowly missed the Nomad. "Of course not." she said, taking her hair down. "Why would we get that lucky? Full spread, Lasers and missiles, target the weapons of that stealth ship, starboard shields at full, prepare to jump to light speed on my command, we may need to reposition in a hurry." she growled.

"Um, Captain…I don’t think I can time that without hitting one of the circling smaller ships, the timing would have to be down to the millisecond or we would all collide. It's physically impossible for anyone to do that." said the token Asian.

"I believe in you, you can do this…tell me you can do that." she ordered.

"Your right…it's just a matter of willpower, if I believe I can, then I won't let you down." he smiled.

Lawg suddenly flopped over as the ship took a hit from below.

"What was that, did we have a hall-hull breech?" he asked. Marley climbed back in his seat.

"No, the Nomad tried to go to light-speed and collided with the Bloodstorm, just a glance, but both ships lost an engine pontoon and are drifting away." Marley informed.

"YYYYes!" Lawg jumped. "We are a force of nature. Luck of the Chaffee cannot be stopped or destroyed." he said striking a pose. Roy sighed.

"Yea, about that. You realize it didn’t prevent most of your species from dying out, so it's total bullshit, also we did nothing and the only reason we are alive is because Captain Goodspeed took a dumb risk and rammed the Blood-storm. Also there is still a Rightist Warship trying to lock onto us and a massive Stealth ship like, meters away that could kill us with one shot." reminded Roy.

"Such negativity won't be tolerated on my ship." Lawg ordered.

"Rightist Warship has locked on weapons to the fuel tank. They are firing" added Roy.

"Well, we're boned. I appreciate all your services." Lawg sighed.

"Who is even piloting that thing?" asked Goodspeed as the stealth ship turned and shot down the Blood-storm with cold and vicious precision before returning its attention to the other Warship.

"I suggest we play dead, Captain." the advisor advised.

"This is a Federal Empire Starship under my command, I don’t play dead. Target the stealth ship and wait for my command. Fire the biggest thing we got." she growled. A yellow flame-trailing rocket neared the stealth ship and detonated, rolling off its energy forcefield like it was a thrown grape. It powered one of its energy weapons and with a gingerly delicate little "bip", it fired its smallest and barely charged laser, rattling the Nomad.

"The stealth ship took out all weapons with the last shot. A direct hit to the power coupling with minimal yield. It was clearly not mean to kill, but to disable." said the Tactical advisor.

"That thing knows our ship." she said coldly.

"Or they just have such vulgarly powerful systems that it's all that was needed."

Marley ducked under a thrown box of tissues, nearly running into the medical closet.

"You pervy little pigmy!" hollered panda-Uka "Animal!" she added.

"If you haven't noticed, you are kind of an animal now as well, it was just a suggestion! You dress up furry so I assumed you might want the suggestion of staying fury." he barked, taking a hit from the flying boxes.

"I don’t plan on being like this for the rest of my life." she said switching to harder boxes with food rations in them. Marley ducked the first.

"Considering the rest of our lives will likely be a about 5 minutes, that seems like something you can't avoid. You were born humanoid, you're gonna die a smoking hot panda…that’s life. I just threw you a compliment… why is that so terrible? Everyone else finds someone, and now that I finally have someone my type on the ship, just for a few days…we get attacked by 50 different ships and I get to die with my dream girl throwing candy bars at my face…that’s just great!" he barked angrily, throwing one back.

"The Twick's ship has been crunched in half like a cookie." said Roy with a look of triumph. Lawg gave him a high five, rushing to Duffy to give her a hug and noticing Marley was missing.

"Hey, where is the furball?" Lawg asked.

"Who cares, the Stealth ship is on our side." Duffy said celebrating, opening a can of citrus blast.

"Hold weapons fire." said Goodspeed. "I don’t think the stealth ship was trying to kill us…it was just protecting the shuttlecraft." she said looking deep in thought, as the Advisor face-palmed at the obvious repeating of his observation. The Asian hit a few keys.

"It appears to be ignoring us completely now that the Reptilian ships are all destroyed. I would suggest we go to light speed but you tore off one of the engines already and we would be torn apart from the uneven force with just one." Reminded the token Asian. Goodspeed stifled her urge to strike back.

"Whoever those dipshits are…they have powerful friends." she said as the Starship Nomad limped its way into the void.

"Okay, so seriously…who just saved our asses?" asked Roy. Duffy and Lawg seemed to be befuddled and just stared at the view-screen. Suddenly the system flickered and the lights came back on. The viewscreen flickered on and a very dark bridge was illuminating a shadowy figure standing still in the darkness. It was alarmingly silent.

"Um…I am Captain Lawg, of the SS-" Lawg stuttered as he was interrupted.

"Yea yea, I know, I've been tracking you for weeks." said the creepy shadow.

"…and now I suddenly feel like we might still be dying again. Did I offend you someway? You don’t have a daughter between the ages of 21 and 25 do you? Perhaps you did some cargo trading with us recently?" Lawg asked, covering the basic groveling.

"Relax Lawg, if I wanted you dead, I'd just have the Robot kill you already." said the voice with a laugh. All eyes turned to Roy.

"Come on guys…y'all looking at me like I am the bad guy here. Not cool." he said looking disappointed.

"So, who exactly are you and why are you tracking us?" asked Lawg.

"Well, I had to make sure Duffy was safe." he said. Duffy's Eyes lit up like Christmas morning and she began smiling from ear to ear.

"Captain Ominous!!" she hollered.

"Who the ass is Captain Ominous?" asked a confused Lawg.

"He was my former Captain…on the starship that exploded. He survived…I told you he was a tough cookie."

"Seriously?" asked Lawg. "They guy you said was on the ship when it exploded…and I told you he was dead and you said he probably got thrown into space and landed safely on some planet…that guy?" he asked.

"Yep." she grinned.

"It wasn’t quite that pleasant actually, but it takes more than an antimatter reactor detonation to kill me. Luckily I crawled in a cryo tube and sent a distress beacon that you guys picked up." replied Ominous.

"The alien box we installed in the robot?" he asked.

"Yep. All my crew wear tracking chips, so when the core ruptured and I regained consciousness, saw Duffy was still alive in the escape pod scanners, I bailed and connected my cryo-tube to a remote beacon emitter."

"That's just confusing." Lawg said scratching his head.

"Simple version…you cant kill Captain Ominous that easy and I have been hacking the Robot for weeks to keep an eye on you till I could get a ship and chase you down. You never wondered why the Robot's eyes glowed blue every time he saved your asses?" he asked, removing his sunglasses and revealing the blue display.

"What the hell are you?" asked Lawg.

"Mostly human, little extra here and there, and a whole heap of salvaged alien tech." he said winking at Duffy. "Ever hear of an Osirian?"

"No." Lawg admitted.

"Damn, well let me know when you do, because I got something they wanna see." he smirked menacingly.

"So you just saved Duffy, and you couldn’t care less about me and the rest of the crew?" asked Lawg.

"Not a single fragmented fraction of a fart. You are just lucky enough to pick her up and earn a little backup by proximity. Luck of the Chaffee. Keeping her alive and safe means keeping you guys alive as well." he said moving around in the darkness. "But sadly, I have to leave." he said Duffy looked slightly sad.

"But…we just found each other, why would you immediately leave?"

"I got a bigger mission to settle, and by my calculations I need to be ready in a few months for a shitstorm of epic proportions. Plus, I kinda like my solitude. I'm weird as hell, and I gotta stay free and unfettered like any token Badass." he said lighting a cigar with a small flamethrower he totally had next to him the whole time…probably just for cigars

"Can't you stay a little bit?" Duffy asked all dreamy-eyed.

"Oh I will always be looking out for you, I promise. Always watching." he grinned.

"In spirit?" asked Lawg.

"No…in the damn robot. Remember? I can remotely access the…did you seriously miss that entire point of that conversation?" asked Ominous.

"He is exceptionally dense." said a very sad looking Marley, shuffling onto the bridge.

"Aren't you curious who I am?" asked Ominous. Marley shrugged.

"Not really, I'm kinda depressed about some stuff." he said hoping into his chair.

"Don’t worry little guy, Things will get better soon." Ominous assured.

"Whatever." he said noticing a data file appearing in the navigational systems.

"Well, anyway…I call that a successful weapons test. Try and keep safe you crazy kids." Ominous said, switching the singularity drives back on. "I got some revenge mission stuff that will take at least an Earth season or so to complete."

"Wait…you're just leaving?" asked Roy.

"Yep. Unless Duffy wants to come with me." he said raising an eyebrow. She pondered it for a moment.

"Actually…I feel at home here. This pink cardboard turd may not be anything special…but these idiots are like family to me. Just knowing you are alive and well is enough to make me sleep better. You were the best Captain ever, but they need me, and I know we never had a real chance, you can't bottle a force of nature." she smiled. Lawg turned slowly.

"Hey!!" Lawg said, suddenly realizing in a delay he was offended about Ominous being the best Captain ever.

"I understand," Ominous said. "And as long as you need me, part of me will always be on this ship." he said saluting.

"In Duffy's heart, and all our gratitude's." said Lawg, with a deep look of respect. Marley smacked him in the head.

"In the damn robot…get with the program Lawg. I've been here for 20 seconds and I grasp it…he's A Rogue Blue, he can hack our android so he can basically just pop up here at will…he's been doing it for weeks. How do you not grasp this?" he said returning to his post. The stealth ship disappeared and the singularity closed behind him.

"So did we ever get the thing for Uka or is she just a panda forever now?" asked Lawg. Roy checked the system files.

"I guess we have to find out in a few hours when the serum is done. That's one hell of a open-ended situation that would be annoying if left unresolved." he said pointing out the cliff-hanger.

"I'm sure its fine." Lawg yawned.

"Anyone else notice that the Cargo bay received a teleported crate?" he asked.

"Don’t care, setting a course." said Marley, looking determined as she opened the data file.

"Where are we going?" asked Lawg.

"Trang system, ten day journey." Marley said hopping up and heading to his bunk. Lawg thought for a second.

"Awe man, I hate that system." he whined.

"Well, get used to it. The stealth ship left us about 800 pounds of Icarun Bamboo." smiled Roy.

"So?" shrugged Lawg.

"It's worth 50 credits a pound to the inhabitants of the 4th planet of the Tran system." Roy smirked, realizing they were about to hit serious payday, as his eyes glowed red.

"Still, that planet is populated by a bunch of annoying Bears." Lawg scoffed.

"I know you struggle with basic math but that is enough money to buy a new ship if we wanted." Roy said patting him on the back and walking away to tinker with his bike. Lawg began to beam with excitement. "Holy crap, your right, and enough to start my Earth-museum." he said striking a triumph pose. "Yyyyyes! Thank you Space-Santa, whoever you were!" He said saluting the remnants of the singularity trail. Marley stopped just behind Roy and crossed his arms for a moment. Roy turned and tilted his sunglasses down to reveal his now blue eyes.

"So you have been basically part of this crew for weeks…And you are a Captain, remote piloting a crewman here. Does that technically make you the acting Captain on this ship?" he asked.

"Oh, I don’t need titles to know where I stand." he grinned. "I basically just do what I want and enjoy myself." he smirked.

"For the record though… you knew the Trang system was inhabited by Pandas, didn’t you?" Marley asked.

"You can do way better than that rude humanoid in a panda suit." he assured him.

"And you were active when Roy went rogue and stole the Captain's trailer-trash frozen princess, weren't you?" he smirked.

"He can't win them all, Marley." Roy said sliding his sunglasses back on.

"Duffy was right…you’re the best Captain ever." Marley grinned giving him a furry fist bump of approval.

"Yea, I kinda am." Roy mumbled to himself. "Best of luck kid, I have a hunting trip I've been dying to go on." he chuckled darkly.

"What a cool way to wrap up a really confusing few days." Mar yawned.