Pon-shea watched as Jitter pulled his fangs back up into his head and wiped his mouth with a swipe of his tongue.

"All better?" she asked.

"I've been feeding on these monkeys for a year and the blood tastes like piss and vinegar."

"Through no fault of your own," said Pon-shea. She considered the short hairy creature more of a friend than a servant. "Cows are too big to be viable in the hold of the ship"

He knew she was right. The starship Coremark had been gifted to Pon-shea as a peace offering, but spacious wasn't its strong suit. Fast, powerful, and deadly were the hallmarks of a Marangetti Green ship.

"Maybe we can buy a cow on Faraday," said Jitter optimistically through a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

"It's a poison desert, what's the likelihood of that?" she asked. Formerly she was the Princess of Popular Opinion, elected to control the most technically advanced Subdivision in the Milky Way Galaxy. Now she roamed the outskirts of DW Subdivision as a prisoner of Social Justice. Free within ten cubic light-years of star rich space, it was still a prison.

"We're making our fast approach to Faraday," intoned Griff, the young pilot. It had taken a week to slingshot into the system utilizing the ultra efficient gravity drive and complex guidance maneuvers.

"We're not shopping for food on this trip," she continued, "and I probably feel worse than you." It wasn't her life sentence that made her heart ache, it was her love for Jet. Jitter saw the shadow cross his owner's otherwise beautiful face and knew the depression wasn't far behind. He jumped onto the weapons console, standing eye to eye and cupped her face in his furry hands.

Her golden brown hair fell straight over her shoulders, with two French braids wrapped in a crown around her head. Her dress was held up by blue straps circling her neck and crisscrossing down her shoulders, with a silver bodice closed across her chest and blue bottom falling to her knees.

"He's out there, and he will come find you," hissed Jitter, ears pulled back with concern. Jitter had seen a picture of the elusive detective once. Jet seemed average, with scruffy blond hair and crow's feet already forming at the corner of his eyes. Jitter knew Jet was thirty two years old with a slight paunch and steel grey eyes. That's where the attraction was. Mysterious and far away, those eyes cut to a person's soul.

"He's my soul mate," said Pon-shea, "but the day he told me he loved me was the last time I saw him. It's been over a year and I don't know if my heart can take it." What she couldn't describe was the rending of her physical being. They were joined in a way that made it feel like she was torn in two.

"Faraday dead ahead," yelled the pilot. The starship Coremark descended towards the yellow ball below. The planet was half desert half yellow ochre scrub moss, a deadly plant which threw poison moisture in the air like rain. When they kissed the upper atmosphere, it felt like they hit a rock. The ship was thrown violently about as it descended. Inertial dampers screamed in protest and the infinite sponge came on line to sip up any residual energy. The hull shields began to glow a deep orange and she could feel her teeth rattling in her head.

Coremark was a green ship, relying on quantum gravitronic principles in space, but it acted like a rock in the atmosphere. The ground came rushing up too fast, and the pilot was white knuckled as he tried to control the descent.

"Reverse the main engines in three nano-second micro pulses." He looked at Pon-shea like she was crazy, but it was her ship. Normally she left the flying to her second in command, but today she was on the bridge and it was a good thing.

"It will tear the core out of the planet."

"Adjust the drive force twelve degrees off axis and do as I say." His hands flew across the controls. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, and Pon-shea wanted to tell him to hurry. With a mind click he allowed the advance guidance computer to complete the task. The view out the front was blurred yellow. Then the ship slowed and they watched as a hundred square miles of the planet's surface was stripped away.

"They'll thank us for clearing some of that poison crap out of the way," said Pon-shea half joking. "By the mark, take us in." Now the ship arched gracefully to the east and skimmed low over a small ocean. The water was thick pea green algae, hardly fit for swimming, but it was water. Soon they approached a city built on stilts. The tall legs of a thousand towers disappeared down into the yellow jungle below, where thick clouds of poison swirled around in an unending rain. But up here the air was clean thanks to the density of the atmosphere.

The pilot had his hand on the control stalk, but he guided the ship in with his mind. The human machine interface was seamless, allowing him to slice into the computer without effort or thought. The machine was an extension of the pilot's will, and the guide beacon called with a life of its own.

The good ship Coremark settled on her landing pads with a strange grunting noise. The massive assemblies were a complex maze of levers and pistons designed to absorb the weight of the ship, but they had been tucked up in the belly for thirty years. Today one of them failed. The ship keeled to one side and crashed into the deck plate of the space port, lodging itself in place.

"What was that?" asked Pon-shea."

"One of the landing struts must have blown out," said Karadeen, the commanding officer. She glared back at Pon-shea, not one to take crap. She was the only officer on the ship and had been running the entire operation with the help of the rookie pilot.

"My apologies," said Pon-shea, "you've done well with a skeleton crew." She realized she was taking out her personal problems on Karadeen.

"Damn right I have, and two people don't make a skeleton crew. We all know I run the entire ship myself."

"Hey," protested Griff.

"Me and my rookie pilot have been running the ship for the last year," Kara corrected.

"I know," said Pon-shea, "the ship's been in space and those systems weren't maintained."

"Be thankful it wasn't the life support system," added Jitter from a small ledge where he liked to look down on the proceedings.

"Good point." Pon-shea ran her hands across the railing circling half the bridge. The materials and craftsmanship were impeccable. Except for a few scratches and one blood stain on the deck, the interior looked new.

Pon-shea fingered the gold medallion hanging between her breasts. Griff turned in his chair and glanced out the corner of his eye. She was stunning and the way she had saved his career and their lives only made him admire her more.

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