Teeg pulled up her black leather thigh-high boot and reattached it to her garter. The pleasure on the face of her "servant" turned to trepidation.

"You were told not to touch me," she asserted, putting down the electric nipple prod she had found in his kitchen next to a very old bottle of balsamic vinegar. She flipped her long platinum hair over her shoulder playfully. This is exactly how she had expected things to go down.

The small human male handcuffed naked to the chair got his right hand free from the cuffs and went for a feel when he was instructed not to do so. "I-I-I'm sorry mistress. I just couldn't help myself," he pleaded. He knew Teeg's rules, and although he had paid good money for this encounter, he should've known better.

She unsheathed a long thin sword she had leaning against his teak coffee table and without him even seeing it, his guilty hand was soon on the floor, having a shower in the vodka thinned blood pumping from his wrist. He went into shock immediately.

"I'm afraid that will cost you a little more," she purred calmly. She picked up his pants from the floor and fished into his pocket, pulling out a handful of credit disks. "Oh! Mr. Granit...you were holding out on me!" She smiled mischievously as she slit his throat.

She emptied his pockets and put the disks into a small rucksack. She had no pockets. The PVC bodysuit, garters, thigh-high boots, long black gloves, and the leather mask that started halfway up her exquisite nose and extended to the top of her lovely forehead, was her regular day-to-day outfit. She wore it when she shopped. She wore it when she went to the bank and to the dentist. She would have even worn it to her friend Cheryl's wedding, if she had a friend Cheryl, and Cheryl had finally decided to tame her wild ways and settle down.

It distracted the idiot men she often had to deal with, and it intimidated everyone else. Plus, quite frankly, it made her feel like a superhero.

Though she did enjoy humiliating people, she did not only accept the role of a sadomasochistic mistress for money; she also accepted the role as an easy means to kill and rob rich and disgusting citizens of the already over-populated Lyme Node when funds were low and bounty hunting work was sparse.

She left moronic Mr. Granit tied to the chair, bleeding out over his nakedness. She grabbed a sandwich from his fridge and headed back to her ship with money for a few repairs and enough fuel to get her and her shipmates Gekko and Clory back to their hideout on the "rumoured" moon of Barbohd.

Teeg was stolen from her family on the now-lost planet of Flet at a young age and sold to the harem of Fat Dante, where she grew up, learned to fight fiercely and learned love-making techniques that would make a sex circus acrobat blush. She had joined the order of the Barbohdeans after murdering the abusive and detestable Fat Dante and escaping.

The Barbohdeans were a not-so-secret secret society of often violent-for-good-reason women of many species led by another Flettocean, a six-and-a-half-foot, musclebound Amazonian-of-a-woman that aptly called herself K'ween.

Teeg trained further there, where she mastered many martial arts, sword fighting and torture techniques. She would never be captured again, and her overt sexuality would forevermore be a lush rainforest of power and strength, not a bleak desert of forced slavery and submission. Teeg now called the shots for Teeg.

Aboard Teeg's ship, The Muse, were her two fellow Barbohdeans. The Squambogian "Gekko" was a blue fire-breathing Kancorian assassin, and Clory was a very odd and very very rare sentient plant species from Quarolode known by the humanoid Quarols as Sentaphylls. They were usually seen and treated as peaceful gods on Quarolode, but not Clory. She was exiled for murdering an entire village of the humanoids. Every species has its assholes.

Gekko was exiled for "multiple regicide" after killing five different Squambogian kings, all named Catjack.

When Teeg entered The Muse, Gekko climbed down the wall from the ship's ceiling and Clory moved across the bridge on her vines like a swirl of entangled wooden snakes to greet her. Though Clory could not talk and Gekko never had, the three joined hands and Teeg silently communicated to them that she had been successful. They had never doubted that she would be.

One of the communication screens pinged and announced "incoming bulletin" in a voice that sounded like a game show host. Teeg raced over excitedly and read the message.

"Work! The Node is calling all Bounty Hunters on Lyme Node to meet in his Great Chamber. If The Node is hiring bounty hunters, I think it's safe to say we'll be able to afford more than just a few repairs and some beef jerky," she smiled wickedly.

~~~

As The Shiv slowly made its way back to Lyme Node, Aye put his feet up on a control panel. He was finally able to relax, catch his breath, and think about his very important next move. "Let's not dock at Central. Let's dock above Ginny's and go for a drink. I still might be able to get some use out of this uniform before they have to tear it from my cold dead corpse."

Potto didn't answer. In fact, Potto was unconscious in his chair. Something was happening to his brain as his system left behind the effects of the Life Core. Aye didn't notice. He was used to being ignored.

Inside Potto's mind he was right smack-dab where he was in waking life. He was piloting The Shiv, but Aye was nowhere to be found, and through the window he didn't see an approaching Lyme Node, he saw an approaching sun. He was heading into it and he didn't feel any reason to steer away. He didn't feel panic. He didn't feel anything. He just stared into the sun which was kind enough not to burn out his retinas.

A small firefly started flitting around his head, swooping and diving. He waved his hand around his head in a half-assed attempt to shoo it away. Its light was dim but getting brighter, and it was growing. Finally, it pulled his focus from the sun and by the time he got a good look at it, the bug was the size of a squirrel, and the glow had changed into a sparkling golden shimmer.

He also noticed that it wasn't a bug or a squirrel at all but a beautiful winged woman. It was a fairy.

"Potto of Quarolode, I am Bundle," said the fairy. Potto did not react. He wasn't surprised, he wasn't afraid, he wasn't amused, nor was he annoyed.

"Hello, Bundle," he said in his usual chipper manner, his gaze drawn back to the sun.

"It's pretty isn't it?" she mused.

"Hmm?"

"The sun."

"The sun?"

"The sun. The sun in front of you."

"Oh yes. Yes. It is beautiful," he said, his gaze turning back to her with a startle, "Oh! Wow! So are you! You are the most beautiful thing I've seen since..." he trailed off, his dark, white-less eyes fogging over.

"Since?"

"Since...something. Something I used to know. Someone I used to know. I think. I can't remember. I can't." He smiled softly and turned back to the sun.

"Not even going to try to remember who?" She asked.

"Nope."

"Try."

"Nope. I don't wanna."

Bundle fluttered around, getting between Potto's gaze and the sun. He smiled at her. Her sparkle could not compete with the sun's intensity and she was now in silhouette. "Please try," she pleaded.

He tried to remember what else he had seen that was as beautiful, while her shape was burning into his broken memory. A face or a name seemed far away, like a stone dropped down a bottomless pit, but very suddenly he started feeling something. He felt it first in his legs and his arms. It moved to his chest, and up his neck and into his empty head.

At once he felt like the warmth of the sun had entered his body and filled him with a feeling of comfort and home. He felt forests and mountains and rivers.

He lifted off his seat and started floating weightless around the flight room, not because the artificial gravity had been turned off, but because his heart was full. He was dreaming and he was the living embodiment of love.

Bundle laughed and clapped her hands. She did somersaults in the air and fluttered around him as tears of joy and release flowed from his eyes.

"There you go!" she beamed.

"What is happening to me?" He sobbed through a smile that was big, even for Potto.

"You are remembering!" she cheered.

~~~

When Potto opened his eyes to his reality, Aye was shaking him. Everything he had just dreamed was instantly forgotten, but he still felt so good.

There were no bright suns through the window, but instead a dark and slightly damp Lyme Node they were quickly approaching.

"You dozed off. I'm no pilot, but I don't think it's a good thing for the pilot to doze off," Aye complained.

"This ship is easy!" Potto said, reassuring him.

"We are approaching Lyme Node. I should probably request permission to dock," Knutt announced.

"Yeah, request docking at Docking Station 6678, not at Central Stationing. And don't use our real ship code. Make one up. They're probably going to be looking for me," said Aye. Usually he was merely being paranoid when he thought people were looking for him, but this time he was right.

"Clearance electronically requested, dickhead." Knutt replied. Aye didn't notice; the slur didn't register.

"Have you ever been to Ginny's?" Aye asked Potto.

"I don't think I've even been to Lyme Node," Potto answered.

"Wha? Weird. Ok, Knutt, he doesn't know where to find Docking Station 6678, so direct...um...

"Potto of Quarolode," Potto offered, only remembering his home planet's name because he wasn't thinking about it.

"Wow, you're a Quarol? I thought they were all extinct."

"Extinct?"

"Well I dunno. Rumour mill. It's one of the lost planets. But it's a big universe; could be out there somewhere. S'ok. My home planet is one of 'em, too. I just know there are probably too many Towerscappian Tophers around. Mostly on the prison moon of Tract—oh. Well I guess there are way less of them now." Aye mused.

Once at the docking station, Knutt took over and landed the ship. Aye couldn't wait to get off of The Shiv. He had to relieve himself and had trouble peeing in space. Through the light drizzle of rain, they made their way to the elevator. Potto looked over the edge as a blast of moderate temperature wind blew him over the side of the building, presumably to his death.

Aye looked at the ledge and then back at the elevator. He had a difficult time trying not to ignore Potto's fall with his own need to get to a bar. He caved and sighed heavily looking over the edge, holding onto the railing much tighter than Potto had. Potto was on another ledge two stories down.

"Have a nice life, Potto of Quarolode!" Aye yelled down.

"You too, Dickhead!" Potto yelled back.

~~~

Much further beyond the planet of Squambog, deeper into space, and with no discernible neighbours to complain about the noise, was the small planet of Chagrin.

Chagrin was feared throughout the universe. Even The Node chose to ignore it. What made it so frightening were its inhabitants, a species of varied adorable anthropomorphized woodland creatures commonly called Teddy Bears. It was a name that humans gave them as they resembled fuzzy plush toys, and though highly intelligent, they lacked proper vocal chords and were unable to speak up for themselves.

Not knowing what a teddy bear actually was, they soon accepted and responded to this name, figuring it meant "terrifying". And soon it did.

They didn't actually resemble bears at all, but all manner of different animals from the pre-mall Earth, Squambog, and various other planets' fauna, only smaller, fuzzier, and cuter. And each one was deadly. They all possessed razor sharp claws, animal dexterity and all of them were trained in every martial art and fighting style in the known universe.

Among the Teddy Bears of Chagrin was their fiercest and most feared warrior, Toobli Dentatan (or at least that is what his name was off planet in Lyme Node's database of bounty hunters). His name was a misspelled old-earth scientific order name for the aardvark, Tubulidentata, which basically meant "tubular dental work". Though Toobli looked more like the plush version of a baby anteater than an aardvark, he, like the aardvark, possessed a circular row of teeth at the end of his long snout.

Unlike most of his brethren, who preferred not to leave Chagrin, Toobli had a spherical and small, but amazingly armed and incredibly fast space ship called The Gooseberry.

Most names of various things on his planet were vastly less terrifying and more darling sounding than the Teddy Bears of Chagrin realized, but no one would dare correct them or laugh for fear of being eviscerated.

There was one who did not fear Toobli Dentatan, and that was a greater Kancorian male named Jorge Jorge Jorge. At close to eight feet tall, the reptilian was huge, even for a Kancorian, and feared very little.

It was in the space over Lyme Node that the two bounty hunters met up. They had both been in the area when The Node's call went out to any nearby hunters wishing to make some coin. When Toobli saw the Kancorian's ship, he instantly recognized it and started firing.

Jorge Jorge Jorge was having none of it, and never backed down from a fight or a possible bounty. He fired back, narrowly missing The Gooseberry. Each hunter was very apt at outmanoeuvring each other and they swooped and fired at each other like dancers dancing amongst fireworks, almost depleting their ammunition before they finally got bored.

Another bounty hunter, the humanoid Blankton, tried to avoid the two as he made his way to Lyme Node, flying his ship where Tractos once was. Blankton was one of the many (very flawed) clones of the late inventor of the (very flawed) Master Cloner, Emperor Reginald Zophricaties. They all went by the name Blankton, making things very confusing for anyone who had to deal with the idiots.

With one last attempt to shoot Toobli down, Jorge Jorge Jorge missed again and hit Blankton, causing the clone and his ship to be torn apart and incinerated faster than he could say, "No, wait!"

He would not be missed. There was another Blankton flying right behind him.