STAR TREK: THE LAST GENERATION - The Sensational Scholes Sisters

'Well, partially it's because you're an important member of the crew,' said Leila.

'Partially it's because we'll need your know-how about the warp engine when we re-calibrate it in two days' time,' added Commander Sigma from her seat on the bed.

'It's also got quite a bit to do with the fact that we want to have meaningless, passionate sex with you,' said Graham, and then looked around at the faces that were watching him. 'What?'

'- it's because Chaedy will be in charge of Engineering while you're gone,' they all finished in unison.

'Guys, I'm taking my maternity leave to stop by Vega 3 and pick up some nice silk-wool for making baby's jumpers from, and I'm not going to have my mind changed.'

'But why do you have to take it now?' Ratbat asked. 'I mean, you are only,' she pulled a padd out of her pocket, 'two months gone.'

'I'm taking it now,' Bobbi explained, 'because when it comes time for me to officially take maternity leave, i.e. when I have my baby, the chances are we'll be in the middle of something big and important, and I'll barely have time off for the delivery.'

It was Christine. She, too, had a rather large suitcase and was wearing the look of expectant worry that most travellers have before their journey has started.

'Almost, there's just one thing left to do. Computer, locate any engineering staff except Chaedy.'

'Lieutenant M^cCallum is currently in 10-Foreplay with Ensign Benson and Lieutenant Murto. Lieutenants Vincent and Flanagan are in Engineering. Ens--'

'That's enough, thanks computer,' she said, tapping her communicator. 'Scholes to M^cCallum.'

'Eamonn,' asked Robyn, eager to stop this conversation right now, 'would you like to be acting Chief Engineer while I'm on Vega 3 for two weeks?'

There was a pause while Eamonn considered this question with the single-minded concentration that only comes to the excruciatingly inebriated.

There was a mumbling of assent, and so she closed her case and moved out into the hall.

The Stepfather of the Leorcone family was surrounded by his - for want of a better word - loyal generals.

As befit a man of his stature, his crest was a brilliant azure, his eyes almost matching it, all three of them. Like all Vegans, he forsook clothing, instead growing his scales tight-packed and shiny, to give the impression of fine-link chain. His metre-and-a-half frame was dense and muscular, and he had risen to the rank of Stepfather, not through intrigue and intelligence, but by simply beating the crap out of his rivals. His fifty years in the post had taught him many things about employing intrigue and using his intelligence, but he still preferred to break the occasional skull. Sometimes with both hands.

'The Stepfather says that he is very upset with the high level of police honesty.'

The assembled crime lords all nodded agreement, and The Stepfather smiled inwardly. Cowards.

'What can we do?' One of the braver criminals, Lima Leorcone, asked. 'We can't offer them as much as the government pays, you know that. If we offer them a bribe, they tell their superiors and they match, or better it.'[3]

There was another collection of nodding and muttering, all of which was geared at agreeing with Lima, while at the same time distancing themselves from him.

'The Stepfather says that this is right,' the nods and mutterings increased in volume and vigour, 'But that it is no excuse.'

The nods and mutterings turned, almost instantly, into shaking of heads and negation of Lima's point.

Bobbi hugged the command crew before stepping into the hatch of the runabout Mulgrew. Turning to give one final wave, she called, 'It's only two weeks, you'll hardly notice I'm gone.'[4]

So saying, she and Christine ducked into the runabout, and, closing the hatch behind them, took off from the ship.

The Mulgrew landed with a hiss of thrusters, and Christine, looking sheepish, ran out of the hatch, closely pursued by cries of derision from Robyn, and picked up her bags. Giving everyone a final wave, she ran up the gangway.

'I've been looking forward to this for ages,' said Christine as she emerged from the rear of the vessel, clad in a long velveteen dress.

Robyn sighed and mentally beat her head against the wall. There wasn't much you could do with reasoning like that.

'This is Vegan control to Starfleet vessel Mulgrew. You are cleared for landing at the Laurel spaceport, bay 327.'

The runabout's engines flared, and it began its slow descent toward a very exciting episode it might not survive.

'I hope so,' said Bobbi, dumping her luggage on the ground and waiting for Christine to catch up. 'Booking for two rooms for two weeks, name of Scholes.'

'What? But how did you know?' Robyn caught sight of herself in the large mirror behind the desk, saw that she was still wearing her uniform and stopped. It got so you didn't notice you were wearing it after a while. It was just clothes.

'Whatever,' she sighed. 'So long as it doesn't take too long, I'm kinda knackered and would love to go to bed now.'

'Certainly, ma'am,' replied the Vegan receptionist. Being a Vegan, Robyn was not sure whether it was male or female, as it had its crest clean-shaven. It clicked its tongue and a service droid came out of its niche in the wall. 'Take the ladies' bags to rooms five-three and five-five.'

'Thanks...' Robyn paused. Its voice sounded feminine enough. 'Miss?' she hazarded.

The Vegan beamed at her. 'How did you guess? I expect its your,' she pronounced a word that sounded to the Scholes like a cat purring through artificial vocal chords.

'I'm sorry, I meant only that your companion must have been told my sex by the,' she paused for a moment, thinking, 'child in her belly.'

The receptionist just waved what Robyn hoped was an arm and muttered another robo-purr, but in a tone of voice that greatly suggested she had just mentioned the Vegan equivalent of Woman's Intuition^TM.

Bidding the receptionist good day, the Scholes Sisters made their way to the turbolifts at the back of the lobby, and to their rooms, little knowing that fate was waiting for them, with a tazer and a chloroform-soaked handkerchief...

The two goons waited until the door was open, and Robyn had dismissed Christine and the droid (in that order) before grabbing her arms and pulling her into the room. One held her immobile while the other reached into a bag he had slung around his waist and removed a flat, angular hand-weapon. Raising it to her chest level, he advanced.

The hands which grabbed Christine belonged to Duigo Leorcone, The Stepfather's personal thug, and were much less kind than those which grabbed her sister. Duigo's companion reached into his bag and came out with a square of material, from which the heavy scent of chemicals came in almost physical waves.

Robyn's lethargy fell away the instant that the hands grabbed her, and when she saw the weapon that one of her attackers held, her mind raced to only one question; What will that do to the baby? The answers she came up with were far from pleasant.

Not willing to test her suspicions, she slumped, as if in a faint, hoping that her assailant was stupid enough, and mean enough, to still want to use his weapon. He was.

'Lift her,' he barked, and as her captor jerked her hands up, Robyn leapt with all her strength.

The one holding her was flung backwards, and she stood, free and angry, staring at the one who held the weapon.

Now, let us take a step back from all this violence to make a simple observation.

Miss Robyn Scholes is, as we all know by now, a little over two months pregnant. She also has, as has been witnessed in the past, a very strong maternal instinct. These two things, combined with hand-to-hand training designed to take out a Klingon, are about to add up to one thing for her aggressors.

'Chris!' Robyn called as she charged into her sister's room, only to find it completely empty. There were the subtle signs of a struggle. Signs which only a well-trained Starfleet officer could detect. Little things, like a smashed window, drops of definitely non-human blood and the stench of chemicals. Also in the room was a note, written in careful script, it read:
If you ever want to see the Starfleet officers again, you will demand that government of this planet be immediately handed to the Leorcone family.

Hurrying back to her own room, Robyn knelt beside the two slumped forms of her would-be kidnappers and, after a small search, found an identically worded note, written by what appeared to be the same hand. By this time, the noise had gotten the attention of the hotel porters, and two very large, very male, figures materialised at the door.

'Is dere a problem?' asked one of them, while the other went and checked the next room.

Robyn looked about herself, at the two unconscious- if they were lucky- bodies, at the strange weapon lying in the middle of the floor, at the broken glass littering the carpet, and turned to the porter.

With the slow, careful diction of one who is unused to deductive reasoning, the porter began; 'I fink, dat dose men...'

'I tink dat day...asked for too big a tip,' he finished, apparently pleased with himself.

'Very good,' said Bobbi, almost to herself, and then stood up, her face a mask of calmness and serenity.[5] Clasping her hands demurely in front of her, she drew in a small breath, slowly counting down from ten in her head, just as she'd been taught as a child. Just like when she was younger, this countdown had no noticeable calming effect on her anger, but it did make it more focused when she let it out.

'WHAT KIND OF HOTEL ARE YOU RUNNING HERE?' she bellowed, actually making the porter (who outweighed her by a good hundred kilograms, and was taller by about sixty centimetres[6]) take a step or two back, until he hit his companions, who he then tried to be absorbed into. This sort of thing was not in his job description. Look menacing, throw out the deadbeats, pose and hit people; that was his job description, not get yelled at by Terran females who, if truth be known, scared the [robotic purr] out of him.

'My sister has been kidnapped,' Bobbi continued in a perfectly rational voice. 'Kidnapped by someone who appears to want to take over your planet, so if you would be so kind as to direct me to the Minister for Justice, I'll think twice before I file a report suggesting your status as a sentient being be revoked, 'kay?'

As the porters considered this, Robyn turned, bent and picked up the angular weapon.

Christine remembered little about the ride through the city. For the most part, she was giggling happily to herself, and asking if they could please give her the hankie again. As they neared their destination, and her head started to clear, she was feeling too terrified to pay attention to anything specific about who was in the hover-car with her, let alone what buildings and landmarks she was passing.

After an hour and a half's driving, they had arrived at a low, wide building and parked the car in a dingy garage by its side. Chris was hauled from the vehicle, and taken through a back entrance to a small, dark room. There she was made to sit on a chair in the middle of the floor, while her hands were tied.

'Don't move,' said one of her captors as he left the room. 'The Stepfather will see you in a minute.'

Bobbi approached the bar and tried to order a drink of water.[7] She had ditched the porters, and her uniform, at some point, having decided that the 'lost tourist out for something not quite legal' approach would work well. She soon discovered, much to her chagrin, that this was actually the case. As she sipped her... she wasn't sure what it was, but the barmaid had insisted that it was quite good for her baby,[8] she asked the barmaid where one could get something a touch... risqu�.

'I beg your pardon,' replied the barmaid, trying to radiate an air of quiet innocence and failing miserably.

'What I meant was--' Bobbi began, but was stopped by a large, clawed pseudopod that descended onto her shoulder.

'Duigo Leorcone, special requests officer.' He smiled, revealing needle-like teeth the colour of Kahlua. 'If you'd like to come with me, I'm sure we can find you something.'

Bobbi followed him to a booth in shadowy corner of the bar between the jukebox - which was currently playing some Vegan music[10] There were already two people at the table, but they made no motions to move, and Bobbi wondered if she hadn't made the right choice. When they were seated, Duigo turned to face her.

'Well...' This was the hard bit, what to ask for that would get her closer to finding Christine. 'I'm looking for a human, a female.'

'Yes. She's an officer in Starfleet, and I have a... score to settle.' No lies there. She was going to have a word with Chris when she found her. Let's go to Vega 3, she had said. It's nice and peaceful, she had said. You'll be able to kick back and relax, she had said.

'Oh that? I heard from my sources that your Stepfather was planning a take-over of the planet, and that he'd kidnapped a couple of,' she spat the word, 'Starfleet to help him do so.'

Robyn had barely finished her sentence before Duigo's piscine face leaned close to hers.

'Everyone knows about it,' said Bobbi, trying to sound cool and derisive. She failed miserably, and surely would have been discovered as a liar, if she hadn't noticed that Duigo had gone into total mind-lock at the words 'everyone knows' and just shut up.[11]

He grabbed Robyn's hand and stood and moved toward the door, taking her with him.

'Si'down,' growled Duigo, and he thrust Robyn into a metal chair, opposite a table-full of Vega 3's most wanted criminals.

'She's after the Starfleet we found. She says she's got a score to settle, and she wants her when we've finished.'

'She could be one of them, don't you understand the trouble we could be in. Didn't you think? How can we find out if she isn't a Starfleet?'

Duigo's smile twisted into a grin. There have been less pleasant grins in the history of the multiverse, and less pleasant circumstances surrounding them, but rarely have these two properties come together so readily.

The door to the cell was thrown open, and two large Vegans entered. Without saying a word, they grabbed Christine by the arms, picked her up- chair and all- and took her out into a special back room of the club, where Bobbi and the Leorcone family were waiting...

Robyn managed not to gasp when she saw Christine brought in by the two large Vegans. Her sister didn't look hurt, but that meant very little. Christine was placed in the corner of the room furthest from the door. She looked at imploringly at Bobbi, but her sister appeared not to know her. Instead, she was looking at the short, fat one at the far end of the table.

Duigo reached into his pouch and brought out a small disrupter pistol. This he handed to Bobbi.

Two very bruised and battered Vegans limped into the main area of Vinnie's Bar. They had been laying low since their discharge from the hospital twenty minutes ago. It had been hard for them to convince the paramedics to let them out, but they had figured it would have been harder still had they not been there to explain to The Stepfather personally what had gone wrong.

They could only hope that Duigo had been more successful, they had heard what happened to people who let The Stepfather down. Often for hours at a time.

The two goons entered the room at the same moment as Robyn raised the disrupter and pointed it at Christine. Gangsters, thugs and Starfleet made a perfect tableau for two full seconds. Then one of the bruised thugs raised his arm.

'That's the other Starfleet!' he yelled. As an after-thought he added; 'Arrgh' and clutched at his shoulder.

Duigo and his two closest hench-fish acted at exactly the same time, which would have been great had they not been in such a small room. They all tried to rush Robyn, and consequently tried to occupy the same space at the same time. The hollow sound of their skulls banging together brought another silence to the room, one punctuated by the sounds of their passage to the ground.

With two shots, Bobbi had vaporised the edges of the ropes that held Chris and together they ran from the room as The Stepfather yelled orders at his cronies which, fortunately for the Scholes sisters, no one understood.

Robyn and Christine rushed out into the main bar area of Vinnie's bare seconds before the goons following them.

Robyn looked quickly around the room for a diversion. Then, as her eyes fell on the group of Vegans playing Clam, she had an idea. Just as the thugs burst through the door to the back rooms, the Quantum physicist was about to answer the question. As he opened his mouth, Robyn leapt up behind him and yelled out; '42!'

The ensuing chaos that resulted - caused by the bookkeepers not wanting to pay because the answer hadn't been given by the actual thinker and by the players who had bet on 42 as the answer[12] - gave Robyn and Christine the chance to slip out unnoticed and run for their lives.

They sat in a corner booth and contemplated their next move. It was obvious the police would be no help. It wasn't that they were crooked. For reasons mentioned before, they were one of the straightest police forces in the galaxy. Their main problem was funding. Almost eighty percent of the department's budget went on matching the bribe offers from the various criminal families, and they just couldn't afford things like high-tech crime computers, 0-60miles-per-hour-in-3-seconds hover cruisers and - in one particularly heavy week - coffee for the percolators in the station houses.

'How far are we from the space-port?' asked Christine as she took a sip from her herbal tea.

'About half an hour by hover-car...about an hour's walk,' said Robyn absently, something had been gnawing at her mind, and was making it difficult to concentrate.

'Then what are we waiting for?' Chris exclaimed. 'Let's go.' She stood to leave, and Robyn grabbed her and pushed her back down.

'They'll have thought of that, they're not that dumb.' She paused. 'Maybe Duigo is, but that Stepfather looked like he had an intelligent, if ugly, head on his shoulders...' she trailed off again, her mind groping for the insight that was eluding her like soap in the bath. Suddenly she had it.

'The disrupter!' she all but shouted, and drew the weapon from her pocket, placing it on the table. She looked at Christine with fierce triumph. Christine looked back at her with undisguised wariness.

'If you say "I love you, Pumpkin", I will scream and run away from you,' she said.

'But standard issue for who?' she prompted. Christine looked at the disrupter again. She paused. She looked again and shook her head. Robyn nodded.

'So they got away.' The voice was coming from a shadowy corner of the room, and The Stepfather was finding himself experiencing an unfamiliar emotion. Fear. He was feeling like he should explain himself, and wasn't enjoying the feeling.

'I know what The Stepfather said. And excuses are irrelevant. I have given you guns, funds and training, and still you failed to capture two weak, female humans.' One of Robyn's would-be kidnappers opened his mouth to add to the discussion at that point, but mercifully the wave of pain prevented him from speaking. 'I offer you this planet, and all I wanted was Robyn and Christine Scholes. Was that too much to ask?'

'How I know their names? That is not important. What is important is that I get them back,' said Chick Collette, stepping out of the shadows and smiling. She was dressed in a Romulan officer's uniform, and had taken temporary cosmetic measures to make her disguise complete, but there was one thing she could not, or did not, cover up. Her fangs were very white in this light.

'What I want to know,' said Chris, 'is why the hell do they need to kidnap us. Surely they know that Starfleet wouldn't let a criminal take over a planet, even if it meant sacrificing us.'

'It must be that Romulan. He probably wants us so that he can get information out of us.'

'Obviously, he thought that while Starfleet mucked around trying to negotiate our release, he'd have open slather on us. He's probably worked out a deal with The Stepfather.'

'Probably something along the line of Vega 3 coming under Romulan rule and getting Romulan military assistance.'

'The Vegans would never go for something like that. At least, most of them wouldn't.'

'So? If you're a crime boss in control of one of the most profitable planets in the sector, are you really going to give a shit if you have subjugate your people?'

Chick smiled to herself. So they'd got away. She hardly cared. They'd be caught again, and when they were... Starfleet would be bound to send the Compromise to deal with such a crisis, especially if it was Robyn and Christine who were involved. That reactionary dolt of a captain would come whether Admiral Page wanted him to or not, and they did currently have Starfleet's top diplomatic officer on board.[13] The Compromise would be sure to come, and when it came it would bring Urac 'my days are numbered and a two-year-old can count up to them' Sigma.

The car banked tightly as it moved into the flow of traffic. It was cut off from moving into the inside lane by an Air-taxi, and would have crashed into it, had Chick's driver not been The Stepfather's personal chauffeur. This would have been most inconvenient for Chick, not to mention Christine and Bobbi who were in the taxi and also on their way to the Spaceport.

'Don't worry, it'll be fine,' said Robyn, trying to be reassuring. It was difficult because she, too, was worried. She had no better plan than sneak onto the Mulgrew without being caught, and she was starting to fear that wouldn't be enough. Suddenly, Christine sat up with a start.

'What's wrong?' hissed Bobbi, trying to look out of all the windows in the taxi at once.

'I've got a great idea! I know how we can get to the runabout! Bobbi, don't you get it, I've actually had a really great idea!'

'Right. Well, what we do is...'[14] and Christine explained for another couple of minutes, until they were almost killed by a large hover-limo merging with the traffic.

'Pull back and let them have their accident on their own thanks, driver,' said Bobbi when she had swallowed her heart.

And Robyn's reaction to the near miss, when compared to Chick's, explains a big difference between their personalities, which we don't have time to go into as the episode's climax is approaching.

Chick approached the office of the spaceport's senior controller. She was flanked by Oolie and Duigo, and she was not very happy. They had nearly hit the taxi a second time as it slowed down and they sped up, and she had nearly spilled the martini she had been drinking down the front of her uniform. Sure, the Romulan who had owned it before would not, in all honesty, need it where she had gone, but it was still expensive to dry-clean.

A Romulan walking around with two Vegan hench-fish would have raised some comment, but a Vegan under guard by two spaceport security officers was something else. Oolie and Duigo were thinking about the cheers they had got, and the shou-- well, loud purrs they had got from the people in the concourse.

'Come in,' said a muffled voice from behind the door. Oolie opened it and Duigo and he ushered Chick through. Chick was momentarily taken aback by the Vegan behind the desk. While most planets favoured this sort of office to be taken up by a fat, messy officious boar of a man, the Vegan controller was as skinny as a rake and kept his office almost painfully tidy.

'What is it?' he asked without looking up. It sounded as though he wanted to speak in alphabetical order, and was rather annoyed at the world that he couldn't. Chick had expected to have to distract him with her carefully constructed story just long enough for Oolie to get close enough to hit him. The way his head was bent down over the desk made it look like he would have reacted to a nuclear detonation in his office with only a mild click of irritation for the mess it had caused.

This guy's so anally retentive, he probably only craps once a decade, Chick thought. She had a hunch, and she wanted to confirm it.

Robyn and Christine made their way through the concourse. There appeared to be great excitement about the place, but they were not interested in what was happening. They had a plan to impliment. It was a rather good plan, and would probably work. Hopefully.

Firstly, Bobbi and Chris found a 'Staff Only' door and walked through it purposefully. They had both had enough experience in ducking out of clubs to avoid ex-boyfriends, tax representatives and - in one case for Christine - the Saturn Philharmonic Orchestra, to know that no one bothered people who walked purposefully through 'Staff Only' doors. They were right. Then they found two security passes, a clipboard and some pieces of paper with the 'Laurel Spaceport - because 99.984326 percent of our shuttles reach their destination' letter-head and walked out of the door.

'It's a piece of paper. You've got to have a piece of paper to wave under people's noses.'

'Stop! Didn't you listen to me in the limo? We don't need to get involved.' She picked up the controller's PA mike and spoke into it. 'Security to bay 327, possible customs infringement. Security to bay 327, possible customs infringement.'

Christine and Bobbi arrived at the Mulgrew just as the spaceport security had started to bash the hatch in.

'Hold it right there!' called Christine, and Robyn just followed her. It was Chris's show now, she was cast as a lackey.

'What do you think you're doing?!' Christine yelled, her voice full of officious outrage.

'You heard! What do you think you're doing?! You with the electron ram, stop that this instant or you'll be cleaning toilets in the spaceport bar for the next month!' The one with the ram threw it down hard enough to crack its casing. If the food looked terrible before it went in, he could barely imagine what it would be like after it had come out.

'We were told there was a customs infringement going on in this bay, and we came here to check it out,' said the bravest of the security officials. Christine rounded on him with a look that all but blistered the tarmac it passed over before nailing the face of the officer to the outer hull of the Mulgrew. The security officer found himself wandering what he was guilty of. He was aware he'd never broken the law in his entire life, but that look made him think that this human knew better.

'You were told?' asked Christine with withering scorn. She was enjoying this. 'Well look here, buddy. I've been told to impound this vehicle, and my friend and I are going to do just that, get me!'

'But--' began another of the officers, and instantly regretted it. Christine's head span round and her gaze struck him like a cobra.

'But what?! Maybe you don't realise the severity of this situation.' She took a piece of paper from Robyn's clipboard and waved it under the lead security officer's nose.[15] 'That vehicle is wanted on a 487!'

Christine rolled her eyes at Robyn. 'He doesn't know what a 487 is. Can you believe that? Not knowing what a 487 is. And they wonder why so much contraband gets onto the planet! A 487, you amoeba-minded legume,' she hissed, turning her attention to the officer, who's badge she now noticed proclaimed him to be Namuel Thims, 'is illegal carrying of high-explosive materials.'

She waited for that to sink in. The security officers, especially the one who had been operating the electron ram, looked from Chris, to the runabout, and back again.

'Do you realise what could have happened if you'd used that thing to bust in the hatch?! I didn't believe my superiors when they told me about you, Namuel. Not even a yoghurt would be stupid enough to use an electron ram to get into a ship containing trilithium explosives, I thought. Only canned peaches would be moronic enough to contemplate sending five large men into a vehicle containing an explosive so sensitive that a mosquito breaking wind in the same county can set it off, I said to myself. Surely even someone with less braincells than teeth would realise the stupidity of attempting a forced entry into a ship belonging to the Leorcone family, I had to hope. Now I see that you have less brains than yoghurt, less self-preservation than canned peaches and quite a few less braincells than teeth. Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't fire you here and now!'

The security officers had formed a loose line in front of Chris as this last tirade had been fired at them, and so Robyn was able to get closer to the door than any of them, which was rather fortunate, because at that time, a voice called out from behind Christine, 'Because you're not an officer of this spaceport.'

Robyn, Chris and the security officers turned as one to see Chick, free from make-up, binding, uniform[16] and hench-fish standing behind them. Robyn acted first, leaping towards the Mulgrew and opening the door and diving through. Chick had grabbed Christine, and the security officers were advancing toward them.

'Computer, emergency launch procedure, and emergency beam-up procedure. Activate now, by order of Chief Scholes.'

'Which target do you wish to beam up?' asked the computer as it brought the engines on-line.

'Shit!' Robyn had bare moments to think - the security people would have hold of Christine by now. 'Both of them!'

With a familiar sound, two shapes formed on the transporter pad behind her. With no time to think, Robyn drew a phaser from the seat-pouch and set it on stun. She fired as soon as the shapes had fully formed, and turned back to the controls. 'Engage impulse engines!'

'Runabout Mulgrew you have not been given clearance to take off. Shut down your engines and wait.'

'But I've got three eyes,' Namuel said automatically. Duigo drew from his pouch a long, thin knife.

'Thehumansweretryingtogetontheshuttle,butthenanotheronecameandtheytookofftogetherandwewerereallyscaredandpleasetakeyourfootoffmychest.'

After she had set course for orbit, Robyn went back and retrieved Christine from the tangle of bodies. She gave her a stimulant, and looked at Chick. She'll be out for another couple of minutes, and I've got to pilot the craft. She'll be okay. She looked over to Christine, who was groggily coming to, and back at the screen. It was at that point that the formation of ships on her tail opened fire.

The small ship skimmed the bottom of the canyon, its thrusters kicking up spirals of dust that its driver would have found pretty, had she not had other things on her mind. Another bolt of energy slammed into the hull, causing the runabout to narrowly miss a jagged outcropping of rock.

Chief Scholes muttered something unlady-like and threw the Mulgrew into another tight, banking turn.

'Power re-routed, shields now at eighty-percent. Warp power will fail in five point eight minutes.'

The viewscreen was briefly clouded with static as the computer informed her; 'Rear shields at forty percent.'

Now I'm screwed, Bobbi thought. Why couldn't I have listened to my mother? Don't join Starfleet, dear. It's dangerous, darling. But did I listen, oh no. And now I'm gonna buy it on this gods-forsaken rock.

In one of the pursuing vessels, Duigo Leorcone gunned his engine and moved his sights directly onto the rear hatch of the runabout. Two more seconds and she'd have to pull up to avoid that large tower of rock, and when she did...

Bobbi looked up from furiously re-routing power conduits to see a large pillar of stone looming on the screen. An idea formed, but she'd only have one shot at it, so to speak.

'Computer, prepare forward phaser bank. Lock onto the base of the pillar at two o'clock and fire a full-power burst on my mark.'

'Bobbi, what the hell are you doing?' Christine slurred, the stimulant starting to take effect.

Chick felt the ship rock underneath her as consciousness returned. Say one thing for the chiropteran gene. It might mean you get teased a lot in school, but when it comes to recovering quickly from knock-out drugs and beams, you can't beat it. She got unsteadily to her feet and took a Romulan disrupter from behind her back. Advancing towards the two women in front of her she heard Christine say unsteadily;

The two energy bolts slammed into the base of the stone pillar. The phaser blast from the runabout would have been sufficient to sheer the column from its base, but with the added power of Duigo's beam, the pillar shattered from the base up.

Bobbi and Christine were lucky enough to be strapped in, but Chick was buffeted about the cockpit Robyn and Christine had the momentary joy of watching her two pursuers smashed into fiery oblivion by chunks of rock before the computer informed them that 'Inertial dampers have failed,' and then they were engulfed in darkness.

Christine came to, and instantly regretted it. Her head was a constellation of agony, and the rest of her had taken the week off. She crawled over to where Bobbi lay, and a sudden horrible thought struck her. With feverish energy, ignoring the sharp edges, she tore the emergency medi-scan from its moorings. She hauled it over to Robyn and placed its sensor against her body.

She looked about the wreckage, and found an intact readout. This she plugged into the medi-scan and switched on. Looking at the screen, Christine breathed a sigh of relief. All four of Robyn's babies were safe, and so was she. She slumped onto her back, the happy grin of the mildly concussed forming on her lips

Suddenly, her eyes grew wide and she jerked upright. All four?! She's having quads!

'Where's Chick?!' she cried. Chris, who had honestly forgotten about Ratbat's arch-nemesis couldn't answer.

Christine and Bobbi both turned to see a bruised, bloodied but very-much alive Chick Collette standing, pointing a disrupter at them. 'I'd say �don't move�, but it'd be redundant.'

'I planned this for three months!' she yelled suddenly, kicking savagely at a defenceless piece of runabout. 'Do you know how hard it was to fake my Romulan identity!? How long I had to wait for that stupid Stepfather to make up his mind?!'

'But I only started planning this four days ago,' Robyn put in. Chick glared at her.

'All right! So I had a spare Romulan ID! So The Stepfather is so eager to get his claws on this planet that he'd do anything! The point is, you've screwed my plans up!' Robyn's finger tensed on the trigger of the phaser she had behind her back. It was set for stun, but that didn't mean she wouldn't enjoy using it. 'Well, if I can't get Sigma, I'll have to make do with you!'

When they appeared on the transporter pad, Euan was surprised to see that Robyn was holding a phaser as if she was about to shoot someone with it. He was even more surprised when she saw what had happened and rounded on him.

'She was so close, it would have been easy! But no! You had to go and beam me up!' With that, she strode from the room.

'But-- I-- But-- You were-- But--' Euan was completely lost. Christine came up to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

'Don't worry, Euan. She'll soon cheer up. After all,' an evil smile spread across her face, 'she's got some great news coming.'

[2] Not to be confused with the Terran bivalve, Clam is a Vegan game of chance that involves betting on the outcome of a mathematical equation, as it is answered by a quantum physicist, an accountant and a three-year-old.

[3] Perhaps some explanation is called for. The governments of Vega 3, a very prosperous tourist and merchant planet, reasoned thus; crooked law-enforcement officials end up costing the state millions of dollars. So, if you make it a policy to match any bribe attempts, you get a straight force, and end up saving the difference.
Oddly enough, this actually works.

[4] And we all not what that kind of comment always leads to...

[5] Anyone who knows anything about Bobbi, women, or narrative causality is ducking right about now...

[6] But who, as has been noticed, was about two hundred IQ points down on her. These things all even up.

[7] It didn't work. You know the old joke; 'Would you like a glass of water?' 'No, thank you, fish make love in it.'? Well, the Vegans are essentially fish. She didn't get her water, but she did get a couple of disquieting looks from some of the males, and a couple of the females, around the club.

[8] It had better be, as it wasn't doing much for her...

[9] Many things have been said about Vegan music. When you're old enough, I'll tell you some of the tamer ones.

[10] There is a law in the multiverse: All good guys meeting with bad guys will be taken to a dingy corner booth between the jukebox and the billiard table. Nobody knows why this is, perhaps the constant flow of noise interferes with hidden microphones, or perhaps not even the most dedicated police officer would be willing to sit through fourteen repetitions of Achey Breaky Heart just to make a couple of arrests.

[11] The fact that he was as thick as two very short planks, Robyn thought, might also had something to do with it.

[13] If half the things she'd heard about Euan's exploits as captain of the Compromise were true, they'd need Starfleet's top diplomatic officer.

[14] Oh come on, like you expected me to write the thing out. Just wait and see.

[16] She had changed into something else. Dirty children.