My muse has been bugging me to work on this again, so I thought I'd get
warmed up by revising this. Almost sent it out without a revision. Boy, that
would have been a terrible mistake. I must have made a hundred corrections
to what was there before. I suppose it's nice to know I've improved some,
but I thought it was better than that. I'm sure there's still plenty wrong
to find, though.

Anyway, here we go

A Dirty Pair/Iria: Zeiram, the Animation fic

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot
Chapter 1


Any and all C+C appreciated. You can contact me at:
sommer@3rdm.net

Standard Disclaimer:
I disclaim I own any of the Dirty Pair characters or the other series this
crosses over with.

My stuff is stored at:

At Larry F's at:
http://lwf58.tripod.com/fan_fiction/d_b_sommer/index.html

Or R+C books at:
http://dbsommer.rcbooks.org

And also Angcobra is now storing all of my fics, at
http://dbsommer.web1000.com/dbsommer.html

Version 1.1, now with revision. Head smashed in and body nearly severed in
half via crushing by some heavy object that had been taken away shortly
thereafter

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The stars slid past, streaking across the front viewscreen like a swarm of
raindrops striking the windshield on a high speed drive on an open highway,
propelled across the surface until trickling out of sight off the edge only
to be replaced by others at the front once again. Despite the hundreds of
times Yuri had witnessed the spectacle, traveling through hyperspace made a
slight thrill run down her spine. Not that she would admit such adolescent
feelings to anyone, especially her partner.

"We'll be coming out of hyperspace in about twenty minutes," Yuri announced,
turning her head partially around so that her voice would carry down the
passageway that led from the bridge towards the interior of the 'Lovely
Angel.' Somewhere in the recesses of the ship Kei was ostensibly cleaning up
debris, but in reality was lazing around while portraying the illusion of
work. Or so Yuri assumed, since that was Kei's usual method of operation.

A groan of stressed metal and a light hint of ozone filled the recycled
atmosphere of the Lovely Angel, seemingly in response to Yuri's
pronouncement.

"Okay, if we hold together, we'll come out of hyperspace. How's that?" she
qualified softly to the ship.

Apparently the ship found it unsatisfactory as the sound of circuitry
shorting out reached Yuri's ears. The noise seemed to come from the corridor
that Kei was currently working in. "What was that?!" Yuri cried out in
alarm.

"I'll check it out," Kei shouted back in a much calmer tone than her
partner.

Despite the reassurance, Yuri turned in her seat, keeping one eye on the
controls and the other trying to catch a glimpse of Kei, who was floating
around in the zero gravity of the ship. "Why don't you come up here and
pilot and let me take a look?"

"I said I'll check it out," Kei snapped in irritation.

Several moments later, the sound of cursing and metal being hammered reached
Yuri's ears. She felt something uncomfortable shift in the pit of her
stomach. Oh yes, Kei's training in the 'Hit It With a Big Blunt Object Until
It Starts Working' school of engineering was going to end up dumping them in
outer space and kill them. At least Yuri would know it was all Kei's fault
and not hers. There was something reassuring in that.

 After several more strings of colorful curses, Kei shouted, "I think it was
the Kahrome-5T circuitboard that was fried. That's not important, is it?"

"Nothing major." Yuri released a long sigh of relief. "It controls the water
supply, though. If it's blown, we won't be able to take showers. And we'll
probably have to drink that awful beer you brought with you if we get
thirsty." Yuri had tried a can of the yellow-green colored fluid earlier on
the trip. It tasted like battery acid. Badly brewed battery acid. Naturally
Kei drank it like it was water. She probably could subsist on battery acid
if she had to with the way her liver had been abused over the years.

"Ah, hell. I'm a mess. I was planning on grabbing a nice hot shower after I
was done cleaning up. Ah, there's that tool kit."

Yuri heard the sound of tools being moved around behind her, which made the
hackles stand up on the back of her neck. "Why don't you come up here and
fly while I go back there and fix the circuitboard?"

"I can do it. It's a simple repair job."

The statement received a sad shake of the head from Yuri. "You're about as
mechanically inclined as a drunk baboon, unless it's an object that can be
used to shoot or blow up something else."

"Hey! Just because I have the ability to shoot straight, unlike some people
who shall remain nameless, doesn't mean I can't replace a lousy
circuitboard. I'll show you."

The sounds of a heavy object being thumped against metal reached Yuri's
ears. Kei was remaining true to form, choosing to beat some poor piece of
machinery with a heavy object. Actually, that tended to be Kei's first
response to men that annoyed her as well. And people they were trying to
arrest. And...

Kei's triumphant shout interrupted the ever growing list. "Ha! All finished.
I told you I could replace something as simple as that. It was a piece of
cYAHH!"

Reflexively, Yuri hit the auto-pilot button and jumped out of the pilot's
seat. Using her legs, she kicked off the back of the chair and floated as
quickly as she could into the corridor beyond. The smell of ozone and other
acrid scents permeated the stale recycled air. Yuri hit a junction and
headed to where Kei should have been, praying her partner was all right, if
for no other reason than to yell at her for screwing up once again.

As Yuri grabbed a bar, bolted to the wall specifically to turn the corner in
zero gravity, and used it to change her mid-flight direction, Kei finally
came into view.

Yuri's eyes narrowed. "Please tell me you weren't stupid enough to grab both
the positive and negative poles at the same time."

"So that's what the plus and minus signs meant, huh?" A small puff of smoke
escaped Kei's lips as she spoke. Her skin, of which there was a great deal
showing given the revealing nature of her uniform, was now almost completely
singed from the slight charring she had taken from the charge.

Yuri was much more ladylike in her swearing as she surveyed the damage to
both ship and 3WA agent. "Congratulations, Kei. Now the whole system is
burned out. Looks like you're going to have to use that beer of yours to
shower with, not that you don't usually splash enough of it all over
yourself when you get loaded."

Kei had always thought it was remarkable how Yuri could carry an "I told you
so," underlying in any sentence. Her raven-haired partner once managed to
insert one into a "Would you please pass the salt?" Kei always thought it a
pity that skill couldn't be listed on a personnel file. It would have done
Yuri proud.

"Quit bawling," Kei chided. "We're almost to the space station. I'll just
grab a shower there." Feeling significantly better, and finally noticing her
scorched state, she propelled herself down the corridor toward her room.
Twenty minutes would give her just enough time to change her ruined
clothing. Maybe wiping her face off with a beer soaked washcloth wouldn't be
a bad idea either. Then she could see if she had a trenchcoat to cover
herself up, at least until she had a chance to properly  shower.

Kei was outside the door to her room when she noticed that Yuri was
following her. "What're you doing?"

"Oh, nothing," Yuri said casually, trying not to show any concern for Kei.

The blatant deception was impossible to manage around someone who had been
her partner for over a decade "I'm fine," Kei assured her. "I didn't take
that much amperage. No more than, fifteen, twenty at the most."

"Kei, that's enough to kill most people!"

"Good thing I'm not like most people then." Kei laughed as she entered the
room and she shucked off her blue top and bottom in favor of a different
blue top and bottom. It wasn't worth the hassle to try to figure out what
else to wear. Besides, they were traveling openly as 3WA trouble consultants
and were supposed to introduce themselves to the station personnel in
official uniforms. She couldn't find a regulation trenchcoat, but unless one
of the station commanders was a cute guy, looking dirty wouldn't matter.

Just as Kei finished putting on her top, she felt the light caress of
fingers gently play across the small of her back. The cold touch surprised
her, and she let off a yelp as she turned in anger on Yuri. "What're you
doing?"

"Hold still," Yuri admonished as she spun Kei around and examined her back
more closely. "It looks like you took a nasty cut. I didn't notice it before
because your other outfit covered you rear end better."

Kei felt the small, partially healed line right above her bottom. "Oh, that.
Riggers nicked me with a vibro-blade. Nothing major. I nicked him worse."
She had lopped his head off with her trusty Slashmaster-2000. There was
nothing quite like a molecularly sharpened blade to slice through one's
everyday psychotic cyborg's titanium neck.

"It's noticeable," Yuri warned. "You'd better have that professionally
worked on when we get to the station. Wouldn't do to have a scar there,
especially since the pounds you packed on to your backside call attention to
your butt." She gave Kei a playful smack to her rear, then stuck her tongue
out and mocked her.

Kei spun in anger. "Well at least my waistline didn't blow up four inches
since we started the mission!"

"But I can lose the weight in a couple of days, unlike you. And it's only
two inches, not four." Yuri was surprised to see Kei pout in her direction,
then head out of the room without another word.

Yuri was left staring at where Kei had been. As impossible as it seemed,
apparently her partner had been offended by the remark. That made no sense.
The duo had ragged on each other about their looks since they started their
partnership. It was always in good-natured fun. While Yuri knew that she was
definitely the more attractive, charming, and smarter of the pair, Kei was
no slacker in the looks department. Certainly she had never reacted so
seriously about a casual jibe like that.

Before Kei gained too much of a head start, Yuri quickly exited the room and
caught up to her partner. "Look, I was kidding about the big butt. You don't
look any bigger." Not much, anyway.

Kei grabbed a handhold and stopped her flight. She turned and gave a sad
look towards Yuri. "You don't remember what yesterday was, do you?"

The question caught Yuri off-guard. "I thought it was the day we completed
our assignment by preventing General Golgotha from stealing over a dozen
interplanetary radioactive atmosphere missiles and using them to threaten
star systems." True, one had accidentally gone off and sort of blown up one
of the major cities of Nansite-4, which made most of the continent
uninhabitable for the next thousand years, but it wasn't their fault: the
3WA Central Computer said so.

"It was my birthday." There was an edge of bitterness in Kei's voice.

"So?" Yuri shrugged. "You've had plenty of birthda..." The words died on her
lips as the point Kei was trying to make finally hit home. "Oh geez. I
forgot."

"Yep. The big 'double three'." Kei became even more despondent. "The years
ARE starting to take their toll on me Yuri. For the first time in my life, I
feel old. I still ache a little from the mission. The only guy that really
worked me over was that poster boy for genetic enhancements, Shezwan. Oh
yeah, I was shot out of a battle suit too, but that hardly counts. I mean,
there was a time I could have taken someone emptying a whole magazine of
high velocity rounds into my impact armor and not felt it a couple of hours
later. Now I get a rooftop blown out from under me and my knees hurt until
the next day from taking a twenty foot fall.

"It gets worse. Did you know that on my last drinking binge I woke up with a
hangover that lasted more than a couple of hours? And I didn't even have
more than a pair of six packs at the most. And maybe two or three mixed
drinks as well, but that's not the point. I never used to get hangovers. And
then there's the men. Not one guy hit on me this entire mission. Not even
that sleazy-looking lieutenant with the planetside police. There was a time
when I had to beat them off with a baton, and I don't mean like that gang of
guys on the Alatiar mission that were hopped up on that sexual enhancer
drug. Lately, I hardly get hit on at all. And when the guys do occasionally
flirt with me, they aren't good-looking. Most of them are downright ugly.
I'm not getting any younger, Yuri, and one of these days I do intend to
settle down. Really. But what sort of guy am I going to be able to snag if I
ain't got it anymore?"

Finished with her confession, Kei seemed to deflate as her shoulders slumped
forward. She felt spent after uncharacteristically speaking so openly about
her fears. But now, with everything having been explained, she waited to
hear the words of consolation Yuri would have to share with her. She watched
closely as Yuri open her mouth and said....

"Oh my god! That means I'm going to be thirty-three in a couple of months
too. I'm going to be almost as washed up as you. WAHHH!"

Smile twitching, Kei grabbed a floating lug wrench and moved towards her
partner.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You're sure that wrench was floating on its own when it connected with the
back of my head?"

"Just shut up and get us out of hyperspace!" Kei tilted the can back and
took another gulp of beer.

Yuri rubbed the back of her head, where the noticeable lump was, as her free
hand moved deftly across the controls, and she brought the ship out of
hyperspace. Assuming the navigation computer still worked correctly, they
would drop out of hyperspace slightly over a five hundred kilometers from
the space station. From there they would be escorted in by traffic control
and placed in a docking bay for repairs. The Lovely Angel really needed it
this time. The final battle with General Golgotha's Warkon Heavy Cruiser had
taken them to the limit. The Lovely Angel had emptied its entire stores of
missiles, had most of its armor burned off, and suffered over thirty percent
structural damage. About all that was left working were a couple sets of
short range lasers, communications, regular engines, and the hyperdrive.
Even the refrigerators were broken, meaning Kei was left to drink warm beer,
which, combined with her birthday blues, had made her temper fouler than
usual.

The ship emerged from hyperspace. Yuri was relieved that they had dropped
out at the point they were supposed to.

>From where they materialized, Yuri could see the space station hanging in
space directly in front of them. The station itself was unremarkable in
appearance. A standard deep space DX-11000 unit, constructed and owned by
Yurenex-Solvar Corporation, who controlled approximately twenty percent of
the space station manufacturing industry. Its basic design was that of a
giant, gunmetal gray top, constantly spinning in deep space as though it was
a giant wheel. Having a ten kilometer diameter and fifteen kilometer height,
it was a self-sustaining facility that could contain and provide for
hundreds of people without difficulty. According to the reports Yuri had
glanced over, this station had suffered no problems and served admirably
since it was christened five years ago. It was unremarkable in every way.

Yuri activated opened a channel to the station. "This is the Lovely Angel,
requesting clearance for a landing in one of your docking bays, over." She
transmitted their ship's registration to the station.

After thirty seconds, Kei said, "Shouldn't they have sent some sort of reply
by now?"

"Maybe our communications system went down?" Yuri ran a diagnostics scan on
the system. "No, it says everything's okay. Unless the diagnostic program is
malfunctioning too."

"Maybe their communications are down?" Kei offered.

"That's a fully functional space station, Kei. It might be a bit out of the
way, but it has a full crew of over a hundred, plus over three hundred
residents, plus whatever guests are there on layovers. I sincerely doubt
that they don't have a single working communication system somewhere on
their entire station."

"Okay, smart-ass, so why aren't they responding?" Kei said through
half-lidded eyes.

Yuri shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know. But in any case, once we get
closer, they'll deploy some ships to escort us in." To prove her point, Yuri
activated the Lovely Angel's engines and began to slowly draw closer to the
station. They pulled within fifty kilometers and there were still no
attempts at communication, nor did any vessels come out to greet them.

"Okay, something really weird is going on," Yuri muttered under her breath.
"What do you think we should do?"

Kei considered that for all of two seconds. "Grab some big guns out of the
armory, get on board that ship, find out what's going on, and shoot anyone
that tries to shoot us."

"Sounds like a plan." A typical Kei plan, which Yuri couldn't argue with at
the moment. There was something to be said for the direct approach. She
guided the ship closer.

Cautiously cutting across the kilometers that separated the Lovely Angel
from the station, Yuri and Kei divided their attention between the ship's
sensors and a visual inspection of the station itself. As their instruments
indicated, there were no outward signs of what could be causing the
problems. There were no holes in the station or debris from fighter craft.
No indication of Minvinsky Particles to jam communications. Everything
outwardly appeared normal, yet there was an ominous inactivity about the
spinning wheel of metal floating in space.

"It looks like they still have main power." Kei pointed at the many exterior
station lights that cut through the darkness of deep space.

"True, but it still feels..." Yuri trailed off.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. It feels like a lot of places we've visited
after we leave them," Kei agreed.

The pair traveled in silence as they drew closer to the exterior hatches
leading to one of the numerous docking bays that lined the middle of the
station. They matched speed with the rotation of the station, and waited for
any sort of response. If anyone was manning the main bridge of the station
or within the docking bay, they would be aware of the Lovely Angel's
presence and open the bay doors to allow them entry. A forcefield would
automatically come on line to prevent the station from losing atmosphere,
while at the same time still allowing the spaceship to pass through and
land. Despite the precautions, the interior of the bays were reinforced to
withstand atmospheric decompression to protect the rest of the station's
atmosphere, leaving it intact. Even if they had to blast their way in,
landing wouldn't cause any problems.

After waiting outside for a full minute, still nothing happened.

"We could shoot our way in?" Kei offered.

Yuri shook her head. "Only as a last resort. I want to see if the other
docking bays are the same way."

Kei let out a long drawn out sigh. "Okay. But I'm telling you it's just a
waste of time. They're all going to be like that."

Two bays later, Kei continued grumbling at Yuri's, "What was that about a
big waste of time?"

As they approached the bay, they saw that the thick metal doors leading into
it were already open to outer space. That was unusual. The bay doors were
only supposed to be opened for craft that were actually in the process of
landing, since, regardless of a forcefield, most people felt uneasy being
next to the vacuum of space with only a dull haze of blue separating them
from instant death. Many people insisted on wearing spacesuits no matter how
little time was spent in the bay.

Maneuvering in front of the opening, they saw that its force field was still
up and that atmosphere was still be in the bay. "Odd," Yuri mumbled.

Kei activated a close up on her sensor array. "It looks like the exterior
locks were disengaged and manually opened from the outside."

"Well, that saves us the trouble of doing the same," Yuri said. It was yet
another sign that something was wrong, since anyone opening the bay from an
exterior lock could easily be overridden by anyone inside the bay.

Yuri eased the ship into the station. Inside, there appeared to be nothing
out of sorts. It was a standard landing bay that could have been identical
to a thousand she had visited. A number of ships were berthed on the floor
of the area: several smaller private vehicles, an expensive looking yacht,
and a couple of cargo haulers, one about twice as big as the other, possibly
an ore hauler. Fuel lines, tools, docking clamps, and an assortment of
standard equipment that one would expect to find were all lying in their
proper places. The only thing it was devoid of was people.

With practiced ease the Lovely Angel touched down on the deck and landed
without incident. Before exiting their craft, Kei and Yuri did a sensor
sweep of the bay. The monitors reported no anomalies of any kind and
breathable atmosphere. A visual inspection proved the same.

Both of the agents walked slowly down their landing ramp and exited the
craft. Kei opted to carry a heavy laser rifle while Yuri was satisfied with
her side-arm to provide protection. The duo held both of their weapons at
the ready.

"No signs of fighting," Kei said as she continued looking for any signs of
trouble.

"No bodies either." A feeling deep in Yuri's gut told her that they would
discover no clues in the docking bay. Instincts said that the answer to the
mystery lay somewhere within the main part of the station itself.
Cautiously, she took the lead and headed to the doors exiting the bay,
waving her hand at Kei, indicating she should follow.

As Kei stepped over a set of fuel tubes, she said to Yuri. "Well, at least
there's one good thing about all of this."

"What's that?"

"No one can blame us for this one. Whatever's going on here happened before
we arrived."

Yuri nodded her head in agreement. Not that that little detail would prevent
others from accusing them anyway.

xxxxxxxxxx

"What the hell is going on here?!" Kei's shout cut through the palpable
silence of the made the station feel more like a tomb than a functioning
deep space habitat. The first fifteen minutes of their search yielded
absolutely nothing. No people. No announcements or warnings. No robots
wandering around. All of the signs indicated there wasn't a single person
left on board the station. Admittedly, the pair were searching slowly,
having only making their way to the shopping district located along the
center of the station, but they should have heard something or found some
sign of what had happened.

The only things their search had uncovered were occasional signs of people
leaving in a hurry: several overturned, cold meals at a restaurant, a tool
box that appeared to have been dropped with no one picking up the mess, a
sidewalk painter's wares left out in the open. There was even someone named
Youshi Ghetter who had left her purse laying in the middle of one of the
sidewalks. Her money cards were still in it, meaning no thieves were around
to lift any valuables on it.

"Maybe there was some sort of mass evacuation," Yuri offered.

Kei looked at her incredulously. "Without leaving a repeating SOS signal or
at least a distress buoy? And you saw all those ships in the docking bay. No
way. Maybe some people left in a rush, but not all of them."

Kei raised a good point, Yuri admitted to herself. "All right. Enough of
this. Let's split up and cover more ground that way. I want to get to the
bottom of this quickly. Whatever's going on here couldn't have happened all
that long ago or we would have heard something about it already."

"Aren't you worried about not having enough firepower in case you run into
trouble?" Kei held her rifle affectionately before her, then pointed at
Yuri's pistol at smirked.

Yuri smiled back. "Unlike you, I don't need to fire fifty shots to hit one
target." She waved the pistol around, then turned serious. "If you run into
any trouble, any at all, call me over the communicator, and I'll come
running."

"Same goes for you."

Over ten years of being partners allowed each to know what the other would
do automatically. Having complete confidence in each other's abilities,
neither bothered to look back as they separated and began their individual
searches.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hello! Are there any kidnappers, aliens, or just plain unpleasant people in
here?" Kei called as she peeked around the corner of one of the long
corridors leading from the residential section to the engineering facility.
For over half an hour she had searched the station and still had uncovered
nothing. Judging by the lack of communication from Yuri, she was suffering
from the same. Kei was beginning to wonder if this was all some sort of
elaborate trap designed to capture or kill them. There were a handful of
powerful people they had crossed that might have engineered the situation
somehow. That seemed to be the only thing that made any sense at that point.

Kei was more than halfway down the corridor when she discovered the first
signs of what might have happened.

She touched her earring comlink. "Yuri, I think I got something here."

There was only a moment's pause for the reply. "What is it?"

"Scorch marks in the metal of a hallway wall here. Maybe from an
incinerator. Pretty recent too. I also have several impact points near it.
Got to be from some kind of solid projectile firearm." Kei placed a hand
next to one of the holes and measured it with her fingers. "We're looking at
about a five centimeter hole. Big piece of artillery made those."

"Sounds like something up your alley," Yuri remarked.

"Yeah. What it doesn't sound like is something that would be standard issue
for defense forces on a station this size." Kei looked more closely at the
placement of the holes. "Another weird thing, not many of the holes are
below two meters. There aren't too many people that would try to headshot
something using a cannon that big. Especially not at close range."

"Which means?" Yuri asked.

"I don't know, other than whatever they were shooting at was tall. No sign
of blood or pieces of metal from a battle suit or anything. I guess they
didn't hit whatever they were aiming at. Be advised though, we might have a
problem on our hands."

"Got it. Want to regroup?"

"Nah," Kei said. "Just because they have a big gun is no cause for alarm.
Let's keep searching separately. Just scream in terror if you run into
trouble." Kei returned to her search, more cautious now. The search took
longer due to her wariness, but Kei figured it was still moving along a lot
more quickly than if she was dead.

As she peered around what was supposed to be the last turn to her
destination, watching carefully for any quick or furtive movements, a
thought suddenly occurred. Generally, the engineers in charge of the
engineering room would have made brief status reports every six hours on the
readings from the power core and any other anomalies that might have
occurred. If she could find that report, she could get a general idea of
when whatever it was that had made everyone disappear might have occurred.

Kei was halfway down the last hall when Yuri signaled over the comlink.
There was an edge in the dark-haired woman's voice. "Kei, listen up. I just
made my way down to one of the emergency shelters on the ship. I figured
that if there was some sort of accident, this was where they might have
gathered, and maybe they got locked in or something. Maybe that's why they
couldn't get to us or-"

"Yuri, you're rambling," Kei warned. That was cause for concern. Given some
of the things the duo had experienced, it took a lot to disturb Yuri.

"Sorry, it's just that I was right."

Kei spoke excitedly into the comlink as she continued towards the power
plant. "You mean you found the people on the station?"

There was a pause, followed by, "Yes, but not the way you mean. When I got
there, I saw that the doors had been ripped out of their tracks. The metal
was torn to shreds near the bottom. And I mean torn, not blown up. Kei,
those things are made of tririteam alloy six inches thick. Even a Ki-Wan
Heavy Powersuit with modified strength enhancements couldn't break through
that."

"That doesn't sound... good," Kei confirmed.

"That's not the worst of it." Yuri's voice hesitated a moment before
continuing. "Kei, there were people inside. At least a hundred. It's hard to
tell, they... most of them were torn to pieces. Some of them looked like
they were blasted by some high powered energy weapon, and some looked like
they were cut with a blade, but most of them were simply pulverized by
something with tremendous strength. It looks like a slaughterhouse in here.
I have no idea what could have caused it."

Kei paused as she arrived at the entryway to the engineering section. "I
think I see what you mean about tremendous power." Kei brandished her rifle
in the direction of the doorway.

"What do you mean? What's going on?"

"Looks like whoever dropped by to visit those people came calling here too.
The door leading to engineering's been ripped out and tossed aside too.
There are grooves in the shape of fingers etched in the metal itself.
Whatever did this was a strong son of a bitch, all right."

"Wait there, Kei, I'll catch up to you."  The sounds of running feet on
metal came over the comlink.

"Negative," Kei said quickly. "Just hold on until I have a chance to check
the room. Just because it was here too doesn't mean it still is. It might
have hit here first and then moved on to where the people were hiding, or
gone somewhere else, like back where that firefight took place. There are
other shelters where you are, right?"

"Yes." Yuri admitted. "But I have a better idea. I'll go up to the main
bridge and see if I can bring the sensor systems online. An internal check
should tell us if there are any survivors or not. If nothing else, I'll try
sending an SOS so that we can get some reinforcements and try to figure out
just what the hell happened here. How does that sound to you?"

 "Good plan." Kei knew she could have come up with one just as good as that,
at least if she hadn't been distracted by having to search the room.

Now that she and Yuri had a course of action, Kei decided to enter the room.
First she trained her gun on the door frame and looked through the opening.
There was nothing visible from where she was, but her view was severely
limited by the shape of the room and the position of where the door was in
relation to it. Drawing closer, she dared to peek inside, ready to duck back
under the cover of the wall next to her. The brief glance afforded her a
look of everything on ground level in the large chamber. Several bodies were
visible from her position, but judging by their condition, they wouldn't be
moving anytime soon. There was no other indication of anyone alive.

Moving almost too fast for the eye to follow, Kei quickly darted past the
doorway and fully into the room, ready to fire upon anything at a moment's
notice. She looked up at the second level of computer controls for a spilt
second, then turned back to the first level of the room.

There was no reaction to her intrusion, relaxing Kei ever so slightly. The
barrel of her gun dipped to the floor as she approached one of the nearest
bodies to examine it more closely. From where she stood, it appeared he had
died from having his head smashed in as though it were nothing more than a
ripe grapefruit that someone had tried to peel using a sledgehammer, but she
wanted to make sure. There was the potential for some sort of clue on the
body. After a quick check, she could take the time to search the computer
for its update logs and try to solve the mystery.

She was poised above the body, and about to nudge it over with her
toe --since there was no way she would risk getting blood on any other part
of her body or outfit-- when a heavy weight landed in the middle of her
back. The impact was hard enough to slam her into the ground, knocking the
wind out of her as the object remained perched directly on top of her.

As she tried to roll to get the thing off her back, she could feel it move
as though it were alive. Her suspicion was quickly confirmed as a man's
voice, cracking high with stress and the hint of something else, shouted,
"Die!"

Her attacker must have been on the upper level, hugging the floor and just
out of her sight, waiting until she had been in the right position. It
served her right for being sloppy in her search. Now she had to do
something, and fast before her attacker disabled her, or worse.

Exerting every ounce of strength she could muster, Kei freed her left arm
far enough to bring it forward, then back, elbow first, into where she
thought the man's solar plexus would be. As the elbow sunk into something
firm, yet with a bit of soft give, she heard a grunt from behind. Knowing
she only had seconds to use the opportunity, Kei raised her head and started
to adjust her body positioning as best she could in order to gain enough
leverage to force the man off her back. Just as she raised herself up enough
to force a deep breath back in her lungs and almost force the man off her
back, Kei saw something silvery flash across her line of vision and then
below it, touching briefly against the metal floor. Reflexively, she brought
her hand up in front of her throat just in time to feel something press
against the side of it. The contact was quickly followed by something sharp
cutting clean through her blue glove and into the flesh of the hand beneath
it.

Biting back a cry of pain, her mind quickly identified what the weapon was:
a garrote. Even after many centuries, a slender length of wire was still
used as a basic method of silent execution. Simple, yet effective, the
device was easy to go unnoticed in a galaxy full of high-tech weapons of
destruction. Only fools or professionals still used them, and Kei had a
terrible feeling about which category her opponent fell under.

If the wire had managed to loop around her throat, she would have been dead
within several seconds as it cut through the soft tissue of her throat and
windpipe. The fact that it had only sliced through the flesh of her hand
meant she had a chance. Shutting out the pain, an experience she had plenty
of familiarity with, she used every ounce of flexibility she had and brought
her right leg up so that the heel was on the floor and pushed off. Hours of
painstaking exercise, in combination with the man's poor positioning in
straddling Kei's back, paid off as she managed to flip over on her side,
though the man was still attached to her back.

Just as Kei was about to reposition her body again to work herself free, she
felt the man's legs lock around her lower torso, nearly catching her free
arm as well. The grappling attack gave him enough leverage to counter the
move she had been planning to use, as well as enabling him to keep up the
pressure on the garrote: definitely a professional. A good thing for Kei
that she was one too.

Years of service and countless hand-to-hand fights enabled Kei to maintain
her composure. She was less than a second in reacting to the shift in the
fight. Her free hand came across her body and managed to grab onto the
handle of her pistol that still rested in her holster, though by the side of
the grip so that she wouldn't be able to fire it without adjusting its
position in her hand first. Rather than waste her time trying to change the
grip on the pistol, and being vulnerable enough to risk losing it, she
brought the gun back. Visualizing where her opponent's head should be, and
hoping he wasn't wearing some kind of headgear, she lashed out awkwardly
behind her. There was a moment of satisfied resistance as she heard a brief
yelp of pain come from behind her and the grip on the garrote go limp.

The split second was all Kei needed as she forced her lacerated hand
forward, and ripped the garrote out of the man's grip, sending it flying
across the chamber. She rolled to the left even as the wire with attaching
handles flew across the room, and finally managed to force the man off her
back before the weapon had hit the ground.

Kei caught a glimpse of her attacker as she tried to stand up. He was no
taller than her, and probably only twenty kilograms or so heavier. He was
dressed in a tight black body suit that hugged his wiry frame, showing taut
muscles lying underneath. There were several tears in the outfit: signs of a
recent of a vicious fight. He was helmetless, with a dried streak of deep
crimson decorating the right side of his face that resembled a form of
primitive facepaint. The handle of a knife stuck out from a boot sheath, but
no other weapons were visible.

The man was rolling to his feet even as Kei regained her own precious
footing. Seeing this, Kei gave a slight twist of her wrist and released her
hold on the gun, giving it a very slight toss as she did so. Lightning fast,
her eyes calculated the position of the gun in mid-air and grabbed it
properly by the handle so she could fire it in an instant. She brought the
sidearm to bear and pointed it in the man's direction.

His reactions were equally as fast as he brought his arm up in a sweeping
motion and struck Kei's wrist, deflecting her aim and causing her shot to
sail past the right side of the his head. There was a spray of sparks as it
struck a nearby computer bank. Following through with the motion, the man
gained a secure hold on her wrist and used his slightly greater mass to
drive Kei off-balance, sending her body backward into one of the walls.

"You won't liquidate me just because I failed, bitch! I won't let you!" The
man's words, only the second spoken since the fight had begun, seemed to
invigorate him. He slammed Kei's wrist once, then twice, against the corner
of the wall where it met a control panel whose lights flickered off and on
like a Christmas tree. The second blow knocked her weapon loose and it
sailed out of her hand, landing across the console several feet away.

Kei's reaction was instantaneous as she brought her right arm up and
connected with a blow to the jaw. His grunt of pain was joined with one of
hers as she was forcibly reminded of which hand had been the one to take the
brunt of his earlier attack.

As the man kneeled for a moment to draw the knife from his boot, Kei could
see the look of sheer terror in his face. It wasn't the type she was used
to, even when she identified herself and people would shout,
"OhmyGoditsoneoftheDirtyPairrunforyourlives!" It was one that she had seen
before, but far more rarely. It was the sort of glazed gaze one gained when
staring straight into the mouth of hell and even in managing to escape it,
one would still never really get away since the experience would always be
with them. Death was or drugs were the only escape from it.

The man swung wide with the knife, a cut meant to disembowel his opponent as
it slashed towards her abdomen. The second slash came in high and Kei
deflected his aim by striking his knife arm. His free arm came up, catching
Kei in the side of the head with a meaty fist. The redhead shook off the
effects of the blow in time to avoid the straight knife lunge aimed at her
head. A fourth swinging cut was avoided, but Kei found herself backed
against the wall, her options suddenly limited.

Originally Kei had been hoping to capture her attacker alive and interrogate
him, which was why she had chosen to evade until she could find an opening
to disarm him. Now lacking the room to properly evade, she was going to have
to end it quickly. Kei gauged the man's distance and stance. So far he had
been a bit sloppy with his knife work, either thrown off by his mortal fear
or just inferior training with that particular weapon. The time he caught
her with his fist had been more of a testament to luck rather than skill.
Now it was time to finish it.

The man had enough coherence to realize his opponent was backed against a
wall and went in with a swipe for the throat, hoping Kei would foolishly try
to back away only to be caught off-guard by her close proximity to the wall
and meet her end. Instead, Kei brought her arm up and caught the inside of
his wrist with the back of her hand. She stepped forward, away from the wall
and towards her opponent, spinning on her heel and bringing her elbow
upward. It was the man who was caught off-guard as he was unable to block
the move when Kei brought the point of her elbow up and caught him in the
throat, crushing his windpipe instantly. For one moment, he looked deeply
into Kei's eyes, and then a wave of peace washed over him as consciousness
passed and he fell limply to the ground, never to wake again.

Kei backed a handful of meters away from her attacker before his body hit
the ground. She remained on guard, cautious about the man returning to his
feet despite the fact she delivered the blow perfectly and by all rights the
man was dead. There had been far too many occasions when someone she was
certain was dead turned up alive, usually quite angry with her from trying
to kill them, even if it was in the line of duty or self-defense and they
had it coming.

Her fears were unjustified as the man remained motionless on the ground. Kei
recovered her sidearm, suppressed the urge to put a few laser shots into his
remains --since she might accidentally fry a clue-- and took several steps
forward to nudge the body with her foot. The instant the tip of her blue
boot touched the side of the prone figure, she darted back quickly, just in
case he tried grabbing onto her foot. That had happened on more than one
occasion, and it always freaked her out, even after all of those years.

With no movement from the body, she gave it a swift kick outright. Not
gaining a reaction for the second time, she bent low, keeping her gun at the
ready. Turning the body over, she searched for the man's pulse and found
nothing. Bearing his entire weight on her back earlier, she knew there was
no way he was a robot in disguise or some kind of cyborg; he was far too
light. He had to be dead.

Confident the man would not be causing her any more problems, Kei began a
more careful examination, eager to discover some hint as to what was going
on. His body was in good shape, though not excessively muscled. The man had
possessed a wiry strength that had been difficult to overcome. He was in his
late twenties or early thirties, estimated by the look of his face. His hair
was cropped short to the scalp, and he bore several faint, old scars on his
face. Kei wagered there would be even more on his body. He had seen a good
bit of action in his life and wasn't vain enough to have them removed.
Judging by the several obvious and more recent wounds on his body, mostly
lacerations across the torso and arms that she had not given him, the man
had been in a fight shortly before encountering Kei. A difficult one, given
how deep several of the gashes were. Not all that recent though, as the
blood was mostly dried and several of the wounds bound.

The uniform and the material it was made of shouted out some kind of
affiliation with either a military or para-military operation, though there
were no identifying markings indicating what outfit the man belonged to.
That would also explain her opponent's hand-to-hand combat expertise. Not
too many people could go one-on-one with Kei nowadays and last as long as he
had, even with getting the drop on her. A quick examination showed his
ammunition belt and pockets were empty. Either his weapons had been taken
from him or he had ended up in a high powered firefight. In either case that
had been a stroke of luck for Kei considering the man had tried to kill her.
Someone trying to strangle you was better than them trying to blow a hole in
you, as Kei was fond of saying.  Those sorts of injuries were the hard ones
to come back from. There seemed to be no other clues on the man, not even a
tattoo.

A professional, one that had run into something, or multiple somethings,
tough enough to injure, disarm, and drive the man mad, if the look in his
eyes had been any indication of how fragile his sanity was. That made it
something that Kei had no desire to run into, not with the shape she was in.

Kei took a moment to closely examine herself for any injuries. The only
major one was to her hand. The wire had cut all the way down to the bone and
she was still bleeding profusely. She ripped off part of the man's outfit
and wound the material around her hand, binding the wound. It was a rough
bandage that wasn't nearly as effective as a proper medical skin patch, but
it would have to suffice until she came across a first aid kit. Pain was
something she had become used to long ago and just about anything short of
having an important body part lopped off or over a fifth of her bones broken
wasn't going to stop her.

Seeing nothing else of use on her assailant, Kei went to touch her earring
communicator and contact Yuri. As her hand went to her left earlobe, she
discovered only the upper half of the device still pinned to her ear,
rendering it inoperable. Apparently it had been broken at some point in her
scuffle with the man.

With a sigh Kei ran out of the room and headed towards the command center.
If there was one attacker, there might be others. And then there was
whatever had harmed the guy in the first place. Yes, knowing Yuri, without a
partner to keep her in check, she would almost certainly be up to her neck
in trouble and it would be up to Kei to bail her out. Yuri was so
irresponsible.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Typical of Kei to lose her earring. Now how am I going to know when to show
up to save her butt when she gets it put into a sling because I'm not there
to keep her out of trouble? She's so irresponsible," Yuri mumbled under her
breath as she continued on her way to the main bridge of the station.

It was at about the halfway point between the shelters and the command
bridge that Yuri had stumbled across the first body in the corridor. Head
smashed in and body nearly severed in half. More cautiously now, Yuri made
her way through the station, keeping her gun held high. It was only a little
farther down the corridor that she came upon two more bodies, one looking
like someone had stuck a grenade in his stomach, and another that was
missing several noticeable items, like his arms, legs, and head.

That put Yuri really on edge. Multiple people had to have been involved in
the sneak attack. There were way too many bodies that had died in a variety
of horrific manners. At least a squad, maybe even a platoon of commandos or
something similar. Apart from the wholesale slaughter that had transpired on
board the station, Yuri just knew that she and Kei were going to be blamed
for this one, even though it really, really hadn't been their fault this
time.

Yuri was nearly to the bridge when she stumbled across another scene of
carnage. Yet more bodies lining the corridor, though this time there were a
multitude of them. There was another significant difference besides the
number of corpses: these had been armed and still were. Judging by the
damaged state the section of corridor was in, the group had the opportunity
to fire a lot before being destroyed by their opposition.

Though torn to shreds, Yuri was eventually able to identify the tattered
remains of the uniforms as belonging to the same group. It seemed to be a
variation of a standard security force's outfit that would be found aboard
the space station. Examining the area that had been fired upon more
carefully, Yuri saw that there were indeed a multitude of impact craters and
scorch marks, enough to indicate concentrated fire in that direction. There
were no bodies nor any indication that the men had hit what they had been
aiming at. Like at the battle scene Kei had described earlier, there was no
blood, nor even a stray piece of metal knocked off a battlesuit.

"What the hell were they shooting at, and why didn't they hit it?" Yuri said
aloud, wanting to hear someone's voice, even if it was only her own.

She turned around and returned to examining the remains of the security
personnel. There was something odd about some of them. Choosing one of the
bodies, She looked more closely at the face, or what remained of it. Her
trainers at the academy woiuld have affectionately referred to it as a
'righteous mess.' The right half was missing, allowing the contents inside
the skull to spill out onto the floor. A lesser experienced agent might have
expelled the contents of their stomach at the sight, but for Yuri, dead
bodies in just about any state was business as usual. Especially since she
had personally ended up making a lot of those bodies dead.

Bending even lower, Yuri squinted her eyes and peered at the edge of the
remaining flesh around the face. The damage to it was uneven, and it looked
like the wounds around it were in semi-circles, almost as if...

"Oh, gross! I hate cannibals." It took Yuri a second to reevaluate that. The
bite marks were way too small to have been done by a human. Perhaps some
sort of animal.

It was only the faintest of sounds, nothing more than a whisper on air that
most people would have thought as nothing more than something loose into air
reprocessing system rattling around, but years of battle-honed instincts
caused Yuri to spin in a circle and bring her laser pistol lined up to fire.
She could feel the presence of someone behind her, and since Kei could move
about as silently as a tank with a broken tread, that meant it was someone
else sneaking up on her. At this point, almost certainly a bad guy.

As Yuri spun, she aimed at the center mass for where a person of average
height would have been standing. Instead, her pistol pointed at nothing but
the wall far away. There was a moment of confusion until her peripheral
vision caught the pink-colored thing, that had been low to the ground,
propel itself at her.

As it went airborne, Yuri caught a good look at it. It was small, no larger
than a meter across and a meter and a half long. It possessed four stubby,
yet powerful legs, and a pair of long, almost tentacle like arms that ended
in a pair of all too human hands. The body of the creature was bright pink,
the sort most people associated with gifts purchased for a new born girl,
and was covered with small, spherical bumps over every inch of it. However,
the most disturbing thing about the monstrosity was its head, which seemed
to have been simply mashed onto the body with no consideration of where a
proper anatomical feature should have been placed. The face held two sets of
eyes, one human looking, the other compound like the sort that was found on
insects. Three mouths of various sizes were scattered everywhere. One was on
its forehead, another where an ear should have been, and the third on the
side of what should have been its jaw. The only thing that was consistent
about them were the sets of sharp teeth that adorned both tops, bottoms, and
in one case, sides.

Yuri lashed out at it with her gun, not having time to aim and desperate to
get something between her and pink monstrosity. Her timing was perfect as
she got the side of  barrel in front of her. The creature's proper set of
jaws, which were coming for her throat, locked onto the metal instead. Yuri
released the hold on her weapon and tucked into a ball, rolling away from
the creature and returning to her feet a couple of meters away from her
opponent.

The monstrosity spat out the gun, turning its body so that it faced Yuri
once again. A high pitched scream emanated from two of its mouths while the
third gnashed its teeth in Yuri's direction.

"The same thing was going through my mind, pal." Yuri pulled out a poker
card from her boot.

As the creature squatted slightly, preparing to jump again, Yuri released
the 'Bloody Card.' It closed the distance between her and the creature like
a bolt of energy, going clean through the lump-like skin of the beast and
back out the other side. As the creature bellowed out in pain, the card
completed an arc and returned like a boomerang, going through the creature
again, the return path taking it through the head, severing off a section of
it that included a mouth. The creature stopped bellowing, opting to fall
onto its side and shudder with death throes as the now literally bloody card
returned to Yuri's gloved hand.

She recovered her gun, saw that the teeth failed to do more than mar the
metal, then proceeded to shoot the creature several times. After convincing
herself that it wasn't going to try to gnaw on her, like one of Kei's dates,
she looked more closely at its multitude of mouths, including the one on the
floor. They were all too big to have belonged to whatever it was that had
bitten off the dead man's face. It had died easily enough and was definitely
not what had attacked and killed all of those men. It was also impossible
for it to have ripped through the metal of the shelter. A horde of such
creatures might have been able to do it, which meant there was a good
possibility of more of the monstrosities being around. Yuri became
especially cautious as she continued on her way to the bridge, eager to get
a sensor sweep started.

It was becoming more imperative than ever that she and Kei get together and
discuss what they had discovered. It seemed impossible to Yuri that the
creature could have occurred naturally. Animal biology was not her field,
but it seemed unlikely that such a mismatched organism could have been the
result of natural evolution. More likely someone was playing with genetic
engineering, and in Yuri's line of work that generally meant really big
trouble. Financing the genetic reengineering required to make that kind of
creature was expensive, and that frequently meant a planetary government or
big corporation was involved at some level.

The whole situation seemed to be getting bigger by the moment. Shut down
stations, large numbers of dead people, genetically modified monsters, and
that was only in the first hour. It looked like it was going to be one of
'those' cases again.

There were no further incidents as Yuri's arduous journey ended at the main
bridge. She noted that there was an increased number of dead bodies as she
drew closer to her goal, and not all of them had been eaten. In fact, the
majority of them were either ripped to shreds or blasted by some type of
energy weapon. At one point some sort of explosive had been used. That made
it almost certain that a number of attackers were involved, in addition to
an unknown amount of creatures. Yuri was growing tired of operating in the
dark, and wanted to know what was going on immediately. She hoped the bridge
held some answers for her.

Upon arriving at the command center, Yuri saw that the thick doors leading
to the room had been forced open, the metal being folded back like it was
aluminum instead of tririteam alloy. Looking at the doors more closely, Yuri
thought they had been ripped open from the inside rather than out. The path
of destruction might have started at the bridge? It would have made sense,
she supposed. Taking out the command center first would have been the best
tactical maneuver. After securing the bridge, the attackers would have had
the time to kill everyone else at a much more leisurely pace.

Yuri entered the bridge, gun at the ready. The instant she was through the
doors she saw several bodies slumped over their controls with a handful more
lying on the floor near other stations. Only a couple appeared to have been
in the process of running when they were killed. Curiously, there was little
in the way of visible injuries on any of the bodies. Nothing like the ones
that had been out in the passageways leading to the bridge. It was yet
another mystery.

Walking over to one of the consoles, Yuri noted a small burn mark in the
back of the crewman's head. Examining a second body sprawled out on the
floor revealed an identical mark near the heart.

There was no sense wasting time examining the rest of them. Yuri was
confident there were identical wounds to them as well. Whoever had killed
these people had used a low powered precision laser to do it, meaning they
didn't want any collateral damage to the controls. That left out the genetic
monstrosities as the culprits. A far more intelligent creature was
responsible for this carnage.

Yuri went to the commander's console and checked the status on the station.
Immediately she noticed that someone had issued a level five contamination
warning and broadcast it over the public announcement system. Now the lock
down in the docking bays and the people hiding in the shelters made sense. A
level five warning meant the possibility of a viral outbreak: instant
quarantine. No one would be allowed to leave the space station under those
conditions. Even the escape pods would have been locked down to prevent any
possibility of the disease spreading off station. Only a handful of
necessary personnel would have remained outside the shelters so that the
station would continue to run until outside help arrived.

A quick check of the communication logs revealed that no emergency signal
had been sent to outside authorities to alert them of the outbreak. Just as
Yuri had thought, an artificially manufactured emergency would make killing
everyone on board easier and prevent escapes. But that still left the
question of why. The station was too big to hijack and there was nothing on
it worth stealing to go to all of this effort and commit mass murder. There
were easier ways to make a larger amount of money illegally, and why the
need to kill everyone on the station? A fake massive radiation leak would
have evacuated the people on board just as easily. In killing so many
people, the 3WA would almost have surely been called in by Yurenex-Solvar
for insurance purposes to find out who did this.

Yuri was still pondering the question when a hand fell heavily on her
shoulder. She had been in such deep thought that she was taken by surprise
and screamed, reflexively backing away. She tripped over the seat next to
the console and fell hard on her backside.

"Hey there. It's just me. Relax." Kei laughed out loud at the sight of her
partner.

Yuri returned to her feet and glared. "Don't sneak up on me like that!
You're lucky I didn't shoot you. And why haven't you communicated with me in
the last half hour?"

Kei fingered her broken earring. "Got jumped by someone that didn't like me
breathing the same air he did. We resolved the issue, though."

Once Yuri had a moment to calm down, she visually examined Kei while being
certain to show no open concern. Besides a bandage on her hand, Kei appeared
to be all right, and Yuri wasn't going to ask about the wound if Kei didn't
feel the need to mention it. "I had a run in with a genetic mismatch of
parts. Had big teeth. They weren't as sharp as a Bloody Card though."

"Oh?" Kei asked. "Is this a big one, then?"

"Probably," Yuri said. "I think I figured out the how, but not the why of
it. It almost looks like this whole thing was nothing more than an excuse to
kill everyone on board the station. Now, if they had all died from some
nasty bio-weapon, I might see it as some kind of twisted test on its
effectiveness, but it looks like everyone was killed in individual ways
rather than en masse by some sort of new weapon."

Kei nodded. "The guy I had to kill was definitely a professional. I could
see him and a couple squads of guys like him being good enough to pull this
off. But if he was one of the guys that hit the station-"

"-then why was he acting like the hunted instead of the hunter?" Yuri
finished. "There's a whole lot going on here we don't..."

The sound of something heavy impacting with the metal plating of the floor
outside in the corridor caught their attention. The noise wasn't loud enough
for the plates to have crumpled under the impact, but it definitely implied
that something very heavy had hit the floor. Both of the Lovely Angels
looked toward the door.

"Did anyone follow you, Kei?"

"Not that I noticed." Kei fingered her laser rifle, bringing it in line with
the doorway.

A second, louder impact followed the first.

"Sounds big," Yuri said, aiming her pistol at the doorway.

There was a third one, slightly louder and evenly spaced from the others.

"Footsteps," Kei said

A fourth.

"Something heavy."

A fifth.

"Not in a hurry to get here either."

A sixth.

"He probably thinks we're trapped. Joke's on him, though."

A seventh, and the sight of something large blotted out the lights from the
corridor.

"We'll wait until he gets into the room, then blow him into pieces." Yuri
saw Kei nod her head in agreement.

Yuri watched as the thing in the corridor bent low to enter the doorway to
the bridge. It towered close to three meters in height. As it passed the
remains of what used to be the door, it straightened up, allowing the duo to
witness its full height. Sure enough, not only was it the height that Yuri
had guessed, it was well over a meter and half across at its shoulders and
torso. Draped across its shoulders, a tattered purple cloak reached halfway
down its back. The thing had to weigh close to a ton, given its huge size
and girth. It was a humanoid, but definitely not human. It had only two arms
and legs, both huge and powerful-looking enough to rip apart six inches of
tririteam alloy as though it were tissue paper. It was colored
blackish-green, with an almost metal-looking skin that appeared hard and
thick, even at the distance the thing stood from the duo. Rather than a
normal head and neck, the creature had something more along the lines of a
squat column that raised up from the top of its torso. Strangely, the giant
didn't exactly have a face, but rather a continuation of the same coarse,
mottled-looking skin that adorned its entire body. The only noticeable
feature of the area was that about where a face should have been, there was
a horizontal red slit approximately where eyes would be. There appeared to
be no mouth, nose, or any other orifice where air would have been taken in.

However, by far its most notable feature was its hat, for lack of a better
term, though it was clearly attached to the head rather than being headgear.
It was a wide thing, perhaps two meters across and several centimeters
thick, a blunt, rounded edge all around and apparently made of the same
material as the rest of the skin. It made the giant creature look like some
sort of demented, walking mushroom. The weirdest thing of all about the
headpiece was a tiny, repulsive emblem that looked like a white face
embedded in the brim. The emblem stood out, the snowy color a stark contrast
to the mottled green of the rest of the figure. Of all the things that
should not have been a part of the creature, that belonged least of all.

Yuri turned from the bizarre robot? Cyborg? Genetically recombined monster?
Whatever the thing was, and said to Kei, "I'd say we have our first suspect
here, wouldn't you?"

The moment Yuri saw Kei's reaction to the creature, she realized there was
something horribly wrong with her partner. Over the past decade, Yuri had
watched Kei stare down the barrel of a gun as big as her head, with a
psychotic killer holding the trigger, and laugh as she enjoyed herself in
the situation. She had been dumped out of airlocks without a spacesuit and
still managed to keep her cool. Ship about to crash at a thousand kilometers
an hour? No problem as Kei would fight desperately with the controls to
prevent herself from decorating the landscape. They had even crash-landed in
the middle of an active warzone, armed with only a laser sword and handgun,
and still Kei's only reaction to the situation was to get angry at their
prey getting away.

Kei's response to the giant was something Yuri would never have believed.
All the color had drained from her partner's face, making her look like a
ghost. Her eyes were wide, and held the look of sheer, primal terror as she
gazed at the creature that stood there, motionless. It hadn't even made a
threatening gesture towards either of them.

It was the first time Yuri had ever seen Kei absolutely terrified of
something.

Words escaped Kei's lips; something too soft for Yuri to hear. "What was
that?"

"You're dead," Kei repeated louder, directed at the creature and sounding
more like it was for its benefit rather than Yuri's

 Yuri was left to stare at her friend in confusion. "Kei, what are y-"

This time Kei spoke louder, shouting at the creature. "It can't be! You're
dead! We killed you! Goddamnit, WE KILLED YOU!"

That made no sense. Yuri had never seen this monster before. Despite the
numerous people and creatures she had killed over the years, she would have
remembered something that big and ugly. Yuri grasped her partner by the
shoulder and shook her, hoping to snap her out of the incomprehensible
tirade. "Kei, get a hold of yourself. You sound like a SHIT!"

Despite Kei's weird behavior, Yuri had kept one eye on the strange giant the
entire time. Now the thing was apparently done with its silent observation
of the duo and proceeded to raise its left arm, pointing the appendage
directly at the pair. Yuri saw that it had what appeared to be a large gun
held not in its hand, but rather embedded in its forearm. At first glance it
seemed as though some of its skin had grown over the weapon, fusing it to
the flesh itself. The number of tiny barrels poking out of the one big one
made Yuri worry even more.

She brought her gun up and pointed it at the giant. "Hold it right there,
whatever you are! I'm a member of the 3WA, and you're under arrest!"

Seeing the declaration not make the giant hesitate in the least, Yuri
prepared to squeeze off a shot, when Kei grabbed her by the arm and shouted,
"It's too powerful! We have to run!"

There was no chance to protest as Yuri found herself hauled off her feet and
pulled in the direction of a row of consoles that provided Kei and her with
cover between them and the giant. Just as Yuri was about to be thrown behind
the largest console, she felt something sharp pierce her thigh, making her
cry out in pain. The shout was silenced a moment later as her head collided
roughly with the floor, making the world a spinning carousel that only
lacked wooden horses.

It took her a moment to recover enough to move. Yuri saw that there was a
long, light blue metal spike embedded in her thigh. One end jutted out of
the entry point while the other end had gone clean through to the other side
of her leg. Jagged barbs, covered crimson with blood, were visible at the
head of the spike, making its immediate removal impossible.

Yuri tried to shut out the pain and speak to her partner. From somewhere in
the direction of the doorway, slow, inexorable footfalls resounded
throughout the room, each impact causing the metal beneath Yuri to vibrate
slightly. She watched Kei dart her head above the edge of the console and
snap off a few rounds of her laser rifle. A second later Kei ducked back
down, followed by the sounds of projectiles zipping through the air and
striking metal.

Kei gave Yuri a panic-filled glance and babbled out. "It's not hurt! I was
right! We don't have enough firepower to kill him! We have to get off this
ship and get reinforcements! We're not going to die here! I won't let it
kill me!"

"Kei!" Yuri snapped.

The shout seemed to shake Kei back to her senses, at least for a moment.

Yuri continued. "I'm hit, and it's not pretty. That thing must be using a
needler of some kind. I can't get this spike out of my leg right now and as
long as its in my leg I don't think I can run."

Her partner's injured condition seemed to help Kei focus on the present.
Then the sound of a bolt being drawn back from somewhere behind them caught
the redhead's attention. She darted her head over the top, then back down.
"You'd better not have eaten that whole cheesecake before we left Lebonya."

Much to Yuri's amazement, Kei picked her up, effortlessly hefting her
partner over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Keeping one hand on
Yuri's backside and the other on her own rifle, Kei ran out from their cover
and towards the far side of the room, in the opposite direction of the
giant.

"What are you doing K-!" the rest of Yuri's statement was cut off as the
console they had been using for cover disappeared in a scarlet explosion of
fire and metal. Reflexively Yuri shut her eyes as the wave of heat washed
over her and several tiny pieces of shrapnel pierced her skin. At times like
these, she regretted not wearing one of the more formal, and body covering,
uniforms like most of the other 3WA troubleshooters used.

With the initial wave of heat past, Yuri looked up through the smoke to see
that embedded in the creature's other arm was a rocket launcher. One it was
preparing to fire again as it started to track Kei's running form across the
room.

Despite being shot, bleeding, and thrown around the room like a cheap date,
Yuri had kept her hand on her laser pistol the entire time. She brought it
up and began firing at the giant. Some of the shots missed completely,
others hit the creature --though it seemed to take no notice of being
struck-- and one went where it was supposed to go: the top of the rocket
launcher that was protruding from the arm.

The ruby colored bolt went through the top of the weapon, ruining the rocket
launcher's ammunition feeding mechanism. After trying to fire the weapon a
couple of times and receiving nothing but useless clacks, the giant flung
its arm in a wide arc. The rocket launcher was released from the flesh and
sailed across the room, bouncing off one of the consoles and coming to a
rest on the floor.

Yuri saw the beast begin to step forward, taking huge strides that slowed
the increasing distance between them. As it moved forward, it brought the
needler in its other arm to bear, and suddenly Yuri felt very uncomfortable
again. She looked over her shoulder to see how close they were to the exit
Kei was taking them to.

Curiously, the exit seemed to have the texture of a solid wall.

"Kei what are you doing that's not a way out?!" Words poured from Yuri at a
ridiculous rate, mostly due to the panic she felt as the needler was now
lined up with them.

In answer to her partner's question, Kei lined her laser rifle up with the
wall and opened fire. Yuri continued looking over her shoulder, which
ironically was now forward, and watched as a thick, solid red beam of light
poured from the rifle and began cutting a hole through the wall. The beam
turned the metal yellow, then red an instant later before moving on as it
traced a line from the base of the wall, up to a height of two meters,
before arcing down again a couple of meters across from where it had
started.

"You can' use your rifle like that! You're going to overload the powerpack
and blow both of us up!" Yuri shouted as she began firing blindly at the
giant, hoping to hit something vital.

"We have to chance it!" Kei announced as the metal of the wall melted
through and the hole she was cutting was almost finished. As the whooshing
sounds of tiny metal objects began whizzing through the air, the red beam
touched the bottom of the wall, completing the semi-circle that Kei had
made.

Yuri assessed the situation:

The semi-circle of metal remained exactly where it was.

The powerpack on the laser rifle began uttering a high-pitched whine,
indicating it had overloaded and was going to explode within seconds.

Metal needles began decorating the wall that she and Kei were running
towards.

There was only one thing left to do.

Yuri gave a prayer to the lord above and hoped Kei had led a good enough
life to go to Heaven with her. The afterlife just wouldn't be all that
enjoyable without her partner at her side. Also, she wanted someone to
blame, and having them right before her would make things much easier.

Everything seemed to happen at once as a needle nicked Yuri's arm, causing a
small trickle of blood to flow. Kei lowered her shoulder and ran right into
the wall, knocking the piece she had cut out over and allowing both her and
Yuri to fall through the opening to the corridor outside. As Kei stumbled
from the impact, she lost her footing and tumbled to the floor. She used her
free hand to toss her rifle back into the room she had just evacuated, then
rolled away from the makeshift portal, flattening the attached Yuri in the
process.

A moment later, an explosion rocked the corridor as a gout of energy and
smoke bellowed forth through the hole, scorching some of the metal of the
wall across from it. Once the explosion died down, the metal above the
opening groaned loudly in protest to what had just happened. That lasted
only a moment longer as the majority of the metal collapsed, effectively
sealing the chamber once again.

Kei wasted no time as she hefted Yuri up over her shoulder, then began
running in the direction of the dock.

The jostling motion of Kei's run shifted the metal spike in Yuri's leg,
making it difficult for her to concentrate, though not so terribly that she
didn't try asking Kei to slow down. Attempting to distract herself from the
signals of agony her leg was giving off, Yuri said, "Good plan, using the
rifle like that to cut a hole in the wall and causing it to overload at just
the right moment to collapse the opening behind us. I didn't think you were
that smart."

Kei shrugged as well as she could with Yuri draped over her shoulder.
"Actually, it was all luck. If that wall had been even a half centimeter
thicker, we'd have been stuck in the room and atomized right along with the
powerpack."

"You couldn't just pretend you knew what you were doing and put my mind at
ease, could you?!" Yuri snapped as the adrenaline high from the fight
started to wear off and the pain increased.

"Oh? Do you really think you should be complaining considering how much
blood you're getting all over me?"

"Sorry," Yuri said weakly. The conversation died, as they continued fleeing
through the station. The echoing footfalls of Kei's race cut through the now
appropriate tomblike silence of the station. Eventually, the sound of Kei's
increasingly labored breathing joined, making a bizarre sort of echo that
disturbed Yuri almost as much as the creature that they had just fought.

After what felt like a sufficient amount of time had passed, Yuri finally
asked, "What is going on here, Kei? What the hell was that thing back
there?"

Kei huffed, turning a corner at the fastest speed she could manage while
lugging the dead weight of her partner. After a minute had passed, and Yuri
became certain that Kei was going to refuse to answer, her partner finally
spoke. Her voice sounded hollow, while at the same time filled with dread.
It was the first time Yuri had heard such a mix of emotions from her
partner.

"That thing is an abomination that shouldn't exist. It's a walking, killing
machine. That's all it does. That's all it wants to do. That's the entire
purpose of its existence. It consumes the lives of all around it, even if
its nothing more than a penniless orphan whose only wish was to get away
from a guaranteed lifetime of stealing and poverty. It's a nightmare that I
thought ended in gunpowder, energy, and flame nearly two decades ago. But it
looks like I was wrong."

Now Kei's voice took on a note Yuri was familiar with, something she had
never hoped to hear again. "That thing is going back to the hell it came
from again, and I'm the one that's going to send it there."

It was the voice that promised death for someone, as well as whatever dared
to get in her way to try to prevent the execution.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yuri went for the first aid kit onboard the Lovely Angel, pulling out the
very long hypodermic that was going to pump her full of first rate pain
killers and blood coagulants. As she mentally prepared herself to have the
barbed 'needle' (which she now thought of in terms of a spear, given how
much of it was currently buried in her appendage) pulled from her leg. She
made certain that the hypospray that would seal the wound after the object
was extracted from its bloody sheath was working correctly. It wouldn't do
to remove it only to bleed to death on the deck of her ship, not when there
were so many more spectacular ways for someone as daring and beautiful as
her to punch her final ticket.

Yuri was thankful that they had such a chance to get rid of the spike. Their
run back to the ship had been anti-climatic, for which she would be
eternally grateful. Kei had remained silent after her declaration, and Yuri
didn't press the issue. The giant hadn't accosted them again, and no other
monsters or half-crazed mercenaries popped out to attack or impede their
progress in any way. The only strange moment was Kei claiming she heard
something moving through the ducts of the station, almost as though it were
traveling through them in an effort to find the duo. Yuri hadn't heard
anything at the time, but she had been feeling light-headed due to the pain
and blood loss, and wasn't sure of anything, other than it sucked to be her.

Upon arriving at the space dock their ship was stored in, they were pleased
to discover no one waiting to ambush them. The forcefield to the dock was
still up, and the ship was in the same condition it had been before they
arrived. Perhaps their attacker had thought their ship was already useless,
given the dilapidated shape it was already in.

There was a brief bout of panic from their pet as Moogi saw Yuri's wound and
became excited. He stayed next to Yuri's side as Kei placed her partner in
the co-pilot's seat and started up the Lovely Angel. They exited the docking
bay the same way they had entered, Kei remaining tense in case some of the
station's defenses opened up on them. Nothing happened. Yuri wondered if
their blowing up a good portion of the station's command center might have
had something to do with it, though.

They had executed two micro-jumps once they were out of the gravity
interference of the station. The first was to get them away from the
station, the second was for them to change direction in case someone tried
following the heading they had taken as they departed the area.

Shortly after the second micro-jump, Kei sent out a message using the deep
space communication gear. That was during one of Yuri's worse bouts with the
pain, and she hadn't been able to make out what Kei said. That wasn't much
of a concern; she had more important matters to worry about than how her
partner had worded the request for assistance she had sent to headquarters,
like extracting the foreign object in her leg.

After an injection of painkillers, the pain subsided enough to allow Kei to
help her partner float to their makeshift medical bay, the place they had
designated they should go when wounded so they didn't bleed all over one
another's belongings, and laid Yuri on her back. Moogie remained ever
vigilant at Yuri's side, while Kei looked over her partner. Both watchers
whimpered in sympathy, though Moogi did the better job.

Kei, now somewhat back to normal, fretted over her partner. "Have the drugs
kicked in yet?"

"Make me a chocolate milkshake, Mommy."

Kei carefully examined the empty hypodermic Yuri had used. "I'll have to try
some of that later."

She examined the inside of Yuri's leg with a hand held X-ray device. It
revealed the shaft of the needle was clear of any other barbs. That would
make removal easier. Some of nastier versions were covered with multiple
barbs, as well as poisons. Yuri had been lucky in only getting a standard
needle put through her.

Kei put down the device. "Hey Yuri, remember when Shasti tried to kill us by
shooting us at point blank range with her gun, and all she ended up doing
was breaking most of our ribs because of our armor?"

"Sort of," Yuri slurred. She had been on a date with the White Rabbit at the
time, if she recalled correctly.

Kei put on a surgical glove. "Well it's not going to hurt as bad as that."

"Good," Yuri moaned. Moogi was turning fuchsia. What a nice color. She was
going to dye Kei's hair the exact same way the next time her partner went to
sleep.

"It's going to be a wee bit worse." Kei grabbed the barbed end of the
needle, and pulled forward, bringing the rest of the shaft through the leg.
Yuri's eyes crossed as the pain shot through her limb, then through the rest
of her body, causing her to pass out.

With the hardest work completed, Kei hyposprayed the wound and watched the
chemical work its magic by covering the injury and preventing it from
further bleeding. Once a check of Yuri's vital signs determined she was in
no immediate danger, Kei cleaned off the blood colored shaft and placed it
in a metal tray next to the microwave. She then pulled up a chair and tried
to make herself and Moogi as comfortable as possible.

Now all that was left was the waiting.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The limp was barely noticeable as Yuri headed towards the airlock where Kei
was already waiting. A quick look in the mirror had told her that her
appearance was serviceable, if not exactly elegant. Given the hardships she
had to endure in the last couple of days, she was simply grateful she didn't
look like a drowned rat.

After passing out from her 'surgical procedure,' (as Yuri acerbically now
referred to Kei's handiwork), she had been unconscious for nearly two whole
days. She had only just come around a handful of hours ago, feeling like a
gorilla had used her for a punching bag, before allowing Kei to have a few
rounds with her for good measure.

Upon Yuri's shouting out what was going on, Kei had come running and
embraced her friend warmly before informing Yuri that if she didn't lose a
few pounds, she would find herself left behind next time. An aching back was
testament to the 'nearly maximum density' that Yuri must have been pushing,
or so Kei claimed. Luckily for the redhead, she had the presence of mind to
remove all of the sharp instruments from Yuri's reach beforehand, and only
had to suffer a bedpan between the eyes for her comment.

Convinced Yuri was feeling better, Kei informed her that they were going to
have company in the next few hours and that her partner needed to clean
herself up so that she would look good for their guest. Given her disheveled
condition, Yuri thought she could use at least six hours and a full cosmetic
kit to make herself presentable, but instead had to settle for two hours and
some beer to wash the blood from her body. On the bright side, not only did
Kei's crappy beer clean out the insides, but it did a damn good job on the
outside too as the blood washed off easily with just a single wipe. The only
thing Yuri lamented was that she smelled like a brewery, or like Kei on one
of her dates.

Yuri was still in the process of making herself presentable when Kei shouted
that their guest had dropped out of hyperspace and was approaching their
ship. Yuri threw on some make-up to hide the dark patches under her eyes and
headed for the airlock where Kei waited for their visitor.

Upon arriving, Yuri saw that Kei had cleaned herself up very well, almost as
much as she would for a date with a hot-looking vacuum brain, Kei's favorite
sort of man. The impatient glances Kei kept giving the airlock cried out
that there was something suspicious about this meeting. Something very
suspicious.

"You seem pretty anxious for a simple rendezvous with the other 3WA agents
you summoned. Exactly how many did headquarters' send?" Yuri carefully
gauged her partner's response.

Kei seemed to take an interest in the airlock control panels.

So that was the way it was going to be. "Kei, you did inform the 3WA of what
happened, correct?"

"Not exactly," Kei murmured under her breath as she pushed several of the
buttons, causing the lights to blink on and off.

Yuri's eyebrow began twitching violently. "Then exactly who did you call and
who are we expecting?"

Much to Yuri's surprise, Kei went from the 'I got my hand caught in the
cookie jar' look to one of serious intensity. Her eyes seemed to bore
through Yuri. "Look, the 3WA doesn't know how to deal with this thing.
Believe me, I've seen planetary forces bungle trying to take him out before.
All it ended up doing was killing a lot of people." Kei paused a moment
before continuing. "I called in someone that's had experience in dealing
with this monster before. In fact, she's the one that killed him the last
time around."

"Pretty frisky corpse," Yuri commented dryly.

"This time he's staying dead," Kei assured her.

Yuri was about to say more when she noticed something strange. Kei was
wearing a short string of beads from her hair. It was tied to the back, out
of sight until Kei turned her head and Yuri caught a glimpse of the dangling
object. There was something familiar about the design. Not so much of it
being familiar on Kei, but that Yuri had seen it from somewhere before.
"What's up with the beads? You hate wearing those things."

Yuri was surprised to see Kei's mask of intensity slip as she fondled the
beads affectionately. "This was a gift from the woman that's coming to meet
us now. It was something she gave me when I first got to know her when I was
growing up."

Kei was proving herself full of surprises today. Even after all of the years
they had been partnered together, she almost never talked of her life before
joining the 3WA. Yuri had always respected Kei's privacy and not gone
digging for information. But now she was about to learn something without
having to prod Kei. Remarkable.

Kei's eyes took on the distant gleam of one remembering the past. "She was
basically the woman who raised me. She was sort of a big sister, mother,
mentor, and friend all rolled into one. I owe not only my life, but
everything that I am today is because of her."

Yuri resisted saying, 'So now we know who to blame for your crappy manners
and violent tendencies,' the moment was too sentimental. Instead, she said,
"You sound very proud of her. How come you've never told me about her
before?"

Kei shifted uncomfortably. "When I was growing up, I always said I wanted to
be just like her and follow her line of work. I even used to fantasize that
we could be partners, like she had been with her own older brother. But once
I got older, I felt, I don't know, trapped. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do
the same thing she did, so I left home and struck out on my own, hoping to
figure out what it was I wanted to do. It didn't take long for me to decide
to join the 3WA, and aside from when we were first assigned to one another,
I've never regretted it for a minute."

"Gee, thanks," Yuri commented dryly once again, not that she had felt any
different the first time she had learned it was Kei she would be partnered
with.

Kei seemed hesitant as she continued. "But I was always afraid she'd be
disappointed that I didn't follow in her footsteps. I didn't think she'd be
proud of what I've become, so I kind of...avoided her."

"For how long?" Yuri asked.

"Almost fifteen years."

"What?!" Yuri shouted. "You mean to tell me that you haven't talked to
someone that all but raised you for a decade and a half?"

"You don't understand," Kei said, her voice filled with emotion. "She's one
of the best people I've ever known. Even now, after all of the things I've
accomplished on my own,  I don't feel I measure up to her.

"But now everything's changed. Now this monster's back, and I have to
overcome my fears and call on her again after all of these years so we can
put this thing to rest for good. That has to take precedence over everything
else. Everything."

The sound of another ship pulling next to the Lovely Angel and attaching
itself to the side ended Kei's dramatic speech. Again the redhead shifted to
nervousness as the instrument panel next to the airlock flashed red, then,
after several minutes, changed to green, indicating a successful connection
and transfer. All that was left was for the pressure to equalize between the
two ships and the guest would come aboard.

After several seconds had passed, the airlock slid open and Kei let out a
long breath, one she had been holding it since the instrument panel first
lit up.

Yuri watched as a woman stepped out of the airlock and onto their ship. She
was small, standing some three centimeters shorter than either of the 3WA
agents, and somewhat slender, though with a very healthy physique that
showed regular exercise to stay in shape. She was very attractive, though
not beautiful, and bore a distinctive beauty mark located right below her
left eye. Her face was that of an older woman, most likely in her early
forties. Her eyes were those of someone that was full of life and ready to
live it to the fullest. Her hair was short and brown, with a slightly
unkempt look about it.

She wore a partial suit of white armor with a black form-fitting fabric
underneath. The armor only heavily covered her upper arms, lower torso and
legs, while the rest was mostly composed of open areas of the black material
that would afford the woman the ability to move quick and freely. It was a
mix of light protection and high mobility. A simple pair of light-filtered
goggles rested on top of her head, ready to drop down over her eyes if
necessary. There were a couple of belts with large pouches, extra
ammunition, and holsters strapped around her torso and waist. Her primary
weapon seemed to be a Boreset Long Rifle that was slung across her back. It
was a dated and uncommon weapon, though very reliable under the most
grueling of conditions. The only drawbacks were its bulk and necessary
maintenance to keep it working correctly. Still, that such an obviously
experienced woman had that type of weapon, and given signs of its frequent
use and maintanance, Yuri instinctively knew the newcomer could handle the
weapon.

As the woman fully boarded the ship, Yuri was able to see several strings of
beads that were worn in her hair along the back, ones that were identical to
the single strip that Kei now wore. Seeing an entire set of them together
triggered Yuri's memory as to where she had seen them before and what
significance they had; they were the symbols of an outer rim bounty hunter.

While Yuri was assessing the newcomer, Kei did the same, though her
attention was focused on the changes that might have happened across the
years. The woman looked much the same, save older and perhaps a few pounds
heavier, not that she had been overweight to begin with. It was indeed her,
of that there could be no mistake. Kei's attempt at a detached assessment in
order to keep control of herself was futile. Within seconds after seeing the
woman for the first time in over a decade, Kei's eyes began to tear, and she
felt herself overcome with a wave of emotion that was more powerful than
anything she had ever felt, surpassing even graduation day at the training
academy.

The woman gave the redhead a warm smile, and the last reserves tumbled away.
Unable to restrain herself any longer, Kei leaped forward and embraced the
smaller woman in a bear-like hug, as though afraid she would try to run off
at any moment. Instantly Kei felt the embrace returned with just as much
firmness and passion. That acceptance was all it took. The emotional dam
gave way, and Kei wept openly, regretting her foolishness in ignoring for
years the woman who had raised her with never a word of complaint.

Words poured from Kei's mouth as fiercely as the tears, "Oh, Iria. I've
missed you so much!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Yep,  It's a Dirty Pair/Iria: Zeiram, the Animation crossover. Hey, once I
remembered the redhaired, spunky, good with weapons, orphan sidekick of
Iria's that just happened to be named Kei, the crossover potential seemed
painfully obvious. Just needed a halfway decent story, desire, and time to
write it. The technology differential, especially in the transport systems
between the two series, will have to be addressed, but I think I got that
figured out. Zeiram's a bit dated, and I'm not sure how many people are
still familiar with it, but I found it to be an excellent action-oriented
series that will hopefully mix quite easily with the more popular Dirty
Pair, though I haven't seen very many fics devoted to them of late. Hard to
believe, given the good story potential there.

Last revisions: 9/29/03








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