There was a clanging of tools from the back, and First Officer Mary Sue emerged. Mary Sue was a genius who ANDY had found orphaned on a planet with her parents killed by the evil Zlorg and that he had raised as a spacedog. Her preternatural ability to make the ship go on literally qtips and nail polish had become legendary.
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She leaned over Bruce's seat, and the burly pilot manfully avoided peering into her shirt. Mary was ten years his junior, far too young for Bruce to consider sleeping with--even though he'd imagined it many many times.
"So this is Altair Six," she said. "Ain't much to look at."
"We don't have to make a full repair, you know. Just enough to--"
"I know," he interrupted the android. "You think I've already forgotten? Let's go about this one step after the other." He put on his infamous optimistic grin and turned around to his displays. They'd arrive at the dock soon; an old, long decommissioned mining base that now served the pirates of this sector as a hideout. Well known enough to make it basically worthless as a retreat, but with a bad enough reputation to keep the vultures on his track away, at least for a while.
"I might or might not have a deal waiting for us," he said, keeping the grin up, even though the robot couldn't see his face anymore.
"This deal?" asked ANDY, gesturing toward the only entry in the ship's commercial log from the past 2 weeks, that read:
- Get Q-dust
- "Sell" Q-dust to Rodney(do not tell Zilkon)
- "Sell" Q-dust to Zilkon.
- Tell Z and R the Q-dust was stolen by the other"
Danner, distracted by how bright and loud all of the delicate half-broken machinery around him was, darted a glance at ANDY.
"That entirely depends on the tone I think you're using." Danner grilled over at the evenly modulated droid.
"It isn't that it isn't a direct and potentially effective plan, it just seems remarkably similar to the previous plan that ended with you being stabbed." ANDY scrolled up to the previous, nearly identical entry.
"And now, obviously, the plan is refined. We've got all the wobbles out!" The Captain held a hand to his still sore abdomen.
"Yes, Captain. I also see you've marked down the note in the commercial log available for public viewing rather than your own, encrypted and private Captain's log."
"ANDY, I won you at that Zilgo-poker game to gain access to an Asynchronous Neural-Data Yokefellow, the helpful robot companion a captain appreciates, not some disagreeable toaster! Hand me that laser-trimmer, will you?"
"You cowboys finished shooting the breeze?" Mary Sue brushed a lock of fiery red hair from her brow. "I need to get these reactor coils powered down before they overload. TERF - the ship's AI - is telling me we have twenty minutes to go before the core goes supercritical."
"Moan, moan, moan," Danner chuckled. "Put on your radiation suit and strap in. This is going to be a bumpy ride."
ANDY hated being corrected by the captain, and voiced his displeasure by waiting for the last possible nanosecond to fire the retrorockets. "Minimum Delta-v required. We're at shut down and the reactor coils can be taken offline."
"Perfect," Mary Sue grumbled. "It's gonna take me a month for these safety belt bruises to fade."
"Package the Q-dust and send a signal to Zilkon," Danner ordered. "I need something to drink before I start bargaining with Rodney."
"Oh please," Mary Sue demanded. "Stop being such a ... man!"
"Being a man's my business sweetheart," Danner's friendly droll dropped faster than a feather in a feather-and-hammer experiment on the moon.
Meanwhile, in Zilkon's lair, Zilkon himself sat astride his bejeweled but armless great chair, resplendent in his indigo robes. His majordomo stood by nervously with an electronic clipboard, nervously trying to get his attention.
"Ahem. Sir, if I could..."
"What is it this time, Atash?"
"I see that you've got an appointment today with that trader Danner. I thought you should know, I've been chatting with Wren. You remember her, right? She works for you-know-who."
"Who's 'you-know-who?'"
Even more nervously than before, Atash gulps before whispering "Rodney".
"RODNEY!" Zilkon screams. "You know I hate him! I hate even the sound of his name! Why do you dare bring him up?"
"Be-because of something Wren told me about Dinner that I think you'd want to know about."